Midtown Lunch

Sometimes when a place gets a facelift the quality of food goes down. I was thinking about that when I was standing in line at Yagura. Back in February we mentioned Yagura had put on a new coat of paint, the menu board actually lights up and freshly baked creme puffs can now be found off to one side. The much needed facelift came with a price hike as well, bring them a bit closer to Cafe Zaiya and Sunrise Mart. While I was tempted to get the oyakodon again, I decided to go for the $6.99 chicken karaage instead because I was in the mood for some Japanese fried chicken chunks.

So how was it?

Probably not the best way to eat freshly fried foods but I took it back to my office, which was a 10min walk. So the fried chicken was steaming in the styrofoam box for about 10mins before I could get to it. Thank goodness the chunks of chicken were still quite crispy and delicious. If I didn’t know that these came from the kitchen of a semi fast food take out place that is part grocery store, I probably would’ve thought these came from a regular sit down restaurant. But for $6.99, I wanted just a little bit more. Maybe an extra piece of chicken or an extra scoop of rice.

I’m glad that Yagura finally got a slight makeover (and more importantly the addition of creme puffs) and the price hike wasn’t a surprise. But it made me sad that the feeling of getting a super duper amazingly cheap deal for lunch on that block is now gone. Nonetheless, the food is still pretty solid at Yagura and next time I’m there I going to have to try the creme puffs.

Yagura Japanese Grocery, 24 E 41st St. (btw. Mad+5th), 212-679-3777