Friday, February 27, 2009

East Japanese Restaurant: In-between cuisine

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I've gone to the various locations of the East Japanese mini-chain several times now over the years, mostly because they offer okay sushi at very low prices—a step up from the boxed, pre-packaged stuff, but at nearly the same price and in a full restaurant setting. And every Tuesday at the 44th Street location, all yakitori is offered at a 50 percent discount, making it an ideal place for MH and I to meet for a late dinner after I parted ways with DL at Wined Up.
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As you might expect, we took advantage of the Tuesday night special by ordering a bunch of items from the yakitori menu. These were the first two to come out: grilled broccoli and a grilled rice ball. The rest were going to take longer, since the skewered items were in hot demand.
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We also got several maki: yellowtail and scallion, spicy tuna, and the "East roll" (egg, shrimp, cucumber, and avocado, rolled in tobiko). I know I said the sushi at East wasn't great (actually, East's 27th Street location provided the food at the booze and karaoke fest at Japas 27 I wrote about earlier, so I figured it was the same caliber), but the rolls I had on this night were even more mediocre than usual. We ate them, but there's nothing much to talk about here.
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Finally, the yakitori came out. We were both too full from the mediocre sushi to eat much of it, and some we abandoned entirely after one bite, such as the filler-packed chicken meatballs. But the beef-wrapped asparagus was excellent, and so were the sweet grilled scallops, which came with the gills still attached: a deterrent for MH, but not for me. The shrimp was just okay.

East is where you go when you want cheap Japanese food in a decent setting, and that's about all you can expect from it. Still, for the place it fills between supermarket sushi and high-end joints that I can pretty much never afford, I'm glad it's around.

2 comments:

  1. You sure know how to make pictures look juicy. I want to eat it.

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  2. hehe...go on Tuesdays, and you can!

    ReplyDelete