Archive for 'Sushi'

Sushi A La Kawa’s Maki Lunch Special Is Dirt Cheap, But Is It Good?

As frequent readers may have noticed I don’t often get sushi for lunch, not because I don’t like it, but because getting a bento box or something else at downtown Japanese places nearly always seems like a better value to me. Now that the weather has gotten more hot and humid sushi has started sounding better than a hot bowl of rice and meat. That’s how I ended up at Sushi A La Kawa on Maiden Lane (btw. Nassau & Broadway) because I work nearby and saw they have a pretty great maki lunch special, and better yet, the rolls haven’t been festering in a refrigerated case waiting for someone to buy them.

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Shinjuku Fulfills Need For Cheap Ass Sushi

I’ve been on the lookout for cheap sushi downtown that doesn’t come from a grocery store…or Duane Reade. So when I grabbed a menu from the gritty-looking Shinjuku  on Church St. (at Park Place), I got all kinds of excited to discover they had a lunch special that was pretty damn inexpensive at two rolls plus salad or soup for $7.25. Clearly this was worth investigating. Read more »

Nu Sushi’s Bento Box Is Like My Dream TV Dinner

Some days when I’m deciding what to have for lunch, I want something specific like a plain slice of pizza. The day I went to Nu Sushi on Pearl St. (btw. Hanover & Broad) was not one of those days. I wanted a little bit of a few things, so in my mind the obvious choice was a bento box. Downtown lunch’er boomshanka had recommended the reastaurant’s bento in the forums as one of his go-to lunches. Nu Sushi is located in a strip of pricey restaurants near Hanover Square that barely offer anything under $10, but all of their bentos fall into that category. The only catch is that you have to get it to go, because if you eat in, the price goes up to $14.50 for some reason. So, let’s see what was inside this box, shall we? Read more »

Niko Niko Bento Bento

I’m a guy who likes to try a little bit of everything when I’m eating out. I love menu items with the word “sampler” in them, and my friends graciously tolerate my wandering fork at meals. Given my predilection for variety, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that I love bento boxes. They’re the perfect way to get a little bit of a lot of things, and I wish every world cuisine had their own take on the bento.

For Japanese bento, though, Niko Niko on Pearl between Wall and Pine will treat you right. They serve up good bentos at reasonable prices in a large, glossy space. It’s probably not the best food or the cheapest, but the good balance between quantity, quality, variety, and price will have me coming back.

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Sushi! by Bento Nouveau Is Surprisingly Solid

Zach decided to give the Midtown branch of Sushi! by Bento Nouveau a pass after this post on Food in Mouth, and I can’t blame him. Had I seen that picture before I went, I think I’d have given it a wide berth as well. But SbBN (as I’ll call it from here on in to save time and to avoid typing that stupid exclamation point) actually came recommended to me after my post about Tokyo Kitchen by Lunch’er John D., who said it was his go-to place for udon.

I always prefer following up on recommendations to just trying places blindly, particularly because I have a sense of what to try when I go. I think that served me especially well at SbBN, where I really enjoyed my udon and my sushi, while avoiding the curry and rice dishes that have received pretty negative reviews elsewhere. SbBN didn’t blow me away, but its food is better than solid, and the prices much more reasonable than I would have guessed.

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