The other day at Don Wagyu, a dramatically luxe-looking new sandwich shop in the financial district, I thought of the scene in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” in which the young and very poor protagonist, Francie, takes pleasure in pouring coffee down the sink: “She was richer because she had something to waste.” Sitting on a red leather-covered stool at the six-seat counter, I had just been presented with a small wooden box, tied up with a ribbon and stamped with the establishment’s logo, the head of a louche-looking steer with a cigarette dangling from its mouth. Inside were four precision-cut quadrants of a perfectly square steak sandwich, for which I would pay a hundred and eighty dollars, before tip and tax.

The only American beef on the menu, from a part-Japanese breed of cattle, is aged in house. Photograph by Dolly Faibyshev for The New Yorker

The seventeen-dollar lobster roll at Luke’s Lobster, next door, suddenly seemed like the food of the people. The reason, ostensibly, for the extraordinary price tag at Don Wagyu is the provenance of the steak. It’s from a breed of cattle, painstakingly raised by a legendary farmer in Japan, whose flesh is thought to be optimally marbled with fat. But Don Wagyu serves only katsu sandos—or fried-cutlet sandwiches, popular in Japan—which means that the precious beef is treated like chicken, each five-ounce portion coated in panko, dunked in hot oil, and placed between slices of crustless white toast that have been painted with tare sauce, a cousin of teriyaki made with soy and mirin. It is served with a pickle and nori-dusted fries, and takes about as much time to eat as a hot dog. Beside me, a man in a Supreme hat ate with one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other.

Each katsu sando comes with half a pickle, nori-dusted fries, and aioli seasoned with tare sauce, a cousin of teriyaki. Photograph by Dolly Faibyshev for The New Yorker

Beneath the breading, the medium-rare meat had the texture of a ripe fig, hand-fed to a reclining Roman emperor being fanned with palm fronds. The luscious, almost iridescent fat went down like melted pearls. Was it more than twice as good as the eighty-dollar katsu sando, made with beef from a lesser Japanese farm? I didn’t bother with that one; an employee admitted that it was only marginally different. Was it six and a half times as good as the twenty-eight-dollar katsu sando, made with beef from an American farm, or eight times as good as the off-menu twenty-two-dollar burger, made with scraps of all three and laced with shiso? Certainly not; the burger was quite delicious, if outrageously rich, and apparently a top seller: “Yesterday, some stockbrokers ordered them for the floor,” the employee told me. When Don Wagyu’s liquor license comes through, any day now, you can cut the grease with a Suntory-whiskey highball. Or not. A woman in shorts and a T-shirt wandered in and took a look at the menu. “Oh, my gosh,” she whispered, backing out slowly. A little while later, another passerby, a finer point: “I don’t want to pay for that.” (28 S. William St. Sandwiches $22-$180.) ♦