I love Japanese izakaya, and I have been wanting to visit this spot for a while now. Since they don’t take reservation, and with its popularity, we haven’t had the chance to visit…until now! We decided to get there little before they open for the evening, and they already had some people lined up in front of it! But it was not so bad, maybe about 10 people or so.

Once the door opened at 5pm, we went down the stairs to the main lobby. A staff greeted us and took us to a table immediately. The girl who was in line before us was alone, and she was waiting for her friend to arrive. She was then asked to wait at the lobby waiting area. They will not seat you until your entire party is present, nice! The lobby area seemed like a good space, but this area got super packed really quick. It was not easy to get out of the restaurant once we were done and leaving.

Since it is below street level, there is no window. But, they had plenty of lights in here, so it was not issue. The lighting fixture allowed more of a soft light throughout the space. The inside was pretty nice size, not huge, but bigger than I thought it would be.

I liked the mural on the back wall, made me think about some kind of ancient watercolor painting. Pretty cool!

The color palette in here was very warm, mainly yellow-amber, from the wood, brick wall, and paining. The bench across the brick wall was interesting, several different colored wood pieces put together. The entire space felt very welcoming.

Now, before I going to the food and drink, let me confess by saying we didn’t come here to eat healthy. Izakaya food is all about comfort food (in my opinion), and therefore, it could come with high calorie count…but we do need these comfort food every once in a while, right? So don’t be shocked by the food choices we made here…LOL.

Let’s start with the drink. We spotted a very interesting item called the Kirin Frozen Beer ($7). Frozen beer? Intrigued… We had a beer “slushies” at Uncle Boons before (you can read about it here: http://www.foodlovergirl.com/uncle-boons/) and we thought it was fun. So, we decided to try this one. When it arrived, it was like having a soft-served sorbet on top of beer!

On the glass, it said “Beer innovation from Japan. Beer with a refreshing frozen foam topping”. So, instead of having a regular beer foam on top, it comes with a frozen beer foam on top! How fun! The challenge was to drink it without getting the frozen foam on your nose or below the nose. LOL. Otherwise, it certainly was refreshing and a fun drink for sure! Beer itself is light, great accompaniment to heavy dishes we were gong to order…

We put in a few orders, and the first item that arrived was Omu Soba ($11.95). It is made with sautéed Yakisoba Noodle with pork & vegetable wrapped in omulette. Topped with bonito flakes, aonori seaweed flakes, mayo and sweet sauce. I had a feeling this might be a big dish, but it was REALLY big! You can see the size of the plate next to the beer glass. Yes HUGE!

The omelette was packed with lots of pork and yakisoba noodle. It was delicious and comforting. Eggs were light, and had a little sweetness to it. The bonito flakes were dancing atop with the heat, what a delight. The sweet and tangy sauce just put everything together into a one big happy family.

The second item was Yaki Cheese Potato ($8.95). This one was made with French Fries with grilled cheese & Yuzu mayo sauce. This one was again pretty big in size, much larger portion than I expected it to be.

It was so nice and cheesy… And I could actually taste Yuzu, which was awesome! The potatoes were lightly fried and soft, just perfect for me. It was again very comforting, but good quality and cheesy goodness!

Next up was Karaage ($8.95), a Japanese style deep-fried chicken. At this point, we understood that they give you generous portion on most of their dishes. There were six chicken pieces, each one pretty big.

The chicken was lightly battered and super juicy! Each bite was heavenly… It had nice, strong seasoning without being too much. With that, you don’t need to add any soy sauce or anything else on it. It was awesome!

At this point, we were getting full, but wanted a few more dishes. We grabbed one of the staffs and added an order. Here, they seems like there is no specific server who takes care of your table. instead, everyone takes care of you. Which is nice, you can order with any of the staffs.

Up to this point, we were very happy with everything we ordered, which were more traditional or ordinary izakaya dishes. So, we thought why not be a bit adventurous and order something that is unusual. We ordered Mr. Frank with Eggplant ($11.95). It is made with seared beef, marinated eggplant, and salmon roe with wasabi dressing. Sounds interesting, right? Well, it turned out to be a BIG mistake…

The presentation of it was nice, almost sushi. The marinated eggplant was extremely soft, more like soggy. It was very hard to pick it up without it falling apart. Then, the slices of beef was way too thick. They were tough and super chewy. It was impossible to eat…I kept chewing and chewing, and it just turned into tough rubber in my mouth… Ugh! I wish if we had a knife to cut them up. And the ingredients really didn’t work together either. The thick raw beef, soggy eggplant and salmon roe were not good together. They are not good friends with each other… At the end, we left all the beef part (since it was not edible), and just had the eggplants and salmon roe on their own.

I am glad we didn’t end the evening with that dish… We went back to more traditional dish to finish off our dinner. We ordered Kani Cream Croquettes ($8.95), which is crab stick cream croquettes. It had two round croquettes, much smaller portion compared to the other items we ordered.

The croquettes were creamy with lots of shredded crabs that you can really see! It was very tasty and fluffy, comforting and awesome! Again, we were very happy we ended with this dish, instead of the horrible beef dish. We wanted to order so many other tasty looking dishes, but we were completely stuffed, we could not have another bite. We didn’t even have any extra room left for a dessert… And who needs dessert after consuming this much calories, right? LOL. And yes, we did walk A LOT afterward to walk off the calories…

Their bathroom is located near the entrance, across from their bar. The waiting area in front of the bar was so packed with the people waiting for their tables, I couldn’t even see my way to a bathroom… It was a challenge just to be able to see their bathroom door through the waiting area. Maybe they shouldn’t allow so many people to hang out in that space…

Anyways, the bathroom was just a simple bathroom nothing fancy but clean and bright. I liked how they used the old pipe as their toilet paper holder. Cool little accent.

Overall, we had a great dinner here, minus one mistake. Best to stick with more traditional or ordinary dishes… and I recommend ordering few plates at a time, since you never know how large the portion is going to be. The staffs were polite and very efficient. When they walk on the floor to carry a dish or something, they are always checking on all tables. If there is an empty dish, they will pick it up. If water needs to be refilled, they will come right back with more water. Nice job! I would love to go back again for more tasty izakaya food!

 

Izakaya Mew – 53 W 35th St, New York, NY 10001