Midtown Lunch

If you’ve ever eaten at Yushi in the World Financial Center (or in midtown) you may have noticed that they’re hellbent on making you eat healthy Asian food. I had only eaten their food once at the Taste of the World Financial Center and wasn’t overly impressed with the Peking duck pancakes I had. But then I found out they started serving “king katsu curry” for $9.95 this week and I figured it was an excellent chance to head over to Battery Park City. It also begged the question: what happens when you bake katsu? Forge ahead to see what it looks like!Yushi has gotten rid of the conveyor belt sushi  at the WFC location and replaced it with shiny seating area left open to the rest of the food court. Needless to say this place is a little classier than other fast food Japanese places downtown like Niko Niko or Sushi By Bento Nouveau.

I was there for this katsu, which was not only explicitly labeled as “baked” and “healthy,” but had the calorie count listed on the card in front of it to make me feel better about my lunch decision. All of this was so wrong! I don’t eat katsu every day (or every month) and when I do maybe I like it to be fried in oil…and then doused in curry sauce.

The chicken breast fillet was pale after its ride in the oven and had some tonkatsu sauce drizzled over. There was some more sauce on the side along with a tiny cup of curry. Now, the curry was good and all but I needed a bit more of it because without its customary oil bath the katsu was a little on the dry side.

I’d like to say the rice filled me up but there was so little of it I was kind of amazed. There was maybe a half inch of rice and if any of it was moved you could see through to the bottom of the container. And there wasn’t enough curry to even moisten it.

If I worked in the WFC or Battery Park City and this was the only Japanese lunch option I had I might eat this again after one too many unhealthy lunches in a row. In my opinion the price is a little steep for what you get, and I was hungry about two hours later.

Yushi, 250 Vesey St. (in World Financial Center), (212) 945-3096