Summary

The people behind My Name is Han opened a cool Yakitori place.

On a Saturday, it was easy to get a table for 2.

The zuke maguro is marinated tuna sashimi with fresh jalapeno sauce. The tuna was actually pretty good, and the jalapeno sauce has a nice kick to it.

For the yakitoris:

The skirt with shishito was pretty good. There wasn’t anything super special about it, but I really liked the flavor of the coal they use here.

The beef tongue was chewy as expected but again the flame of it was pretty good.

The chicken gizzards had that nice crunchy taste.

The chicken hearts were plump and spongy and tasted pretty good. Normally it tastes on the side of metallic, but this one was less so.

The nori tacos were a monthly special. They consist of chopped salmon, yellowtail, tuna, avocado & fried egg with spicy mayo on deep-fried nori seaweed. The first thought that came to mind was maybe this would taste like a fried tempura roll, but it actually was much better.

The tamago bacon wasn’t quite as memorable as i had hoped. I was hoping the truffle salt was more prominent, but I did not taste anything. It literally is just bacon wrapped egg.

The nanchatte steak is beef rib eye with signature onion sauce. This was actually pretty good, and they gave a decent amount. The onion sauce is on the side of a little soury/pickly, so think of it as mixing sourness with ponzu.

The ebi wasa was not memorable at all except for the fried heads of course. It kind of tastes like how it looks like.

The salmon bruschetta is a play with rice. It has basil sauce, avocado, cream cheese, and shiso leaves. I love shiso leaves in general, but the taste of it was nearly non existent. The basil oil was prominent though. Even though I am not a fan of cream cheese in fake rolls, I thought this was actually quite good.

The last thing we got was the chicken karaage. I was thinking this would be boneless chunks of chicken, but nope. It was served with 3 drumsticks cut in a unique way such that the meat flared up away from the bone. There were 3 little balls of cherry tomatoes that were good too. However, I really wished they served it traditional style with their batter and gave a little more chicken.

Price wise, I thought it was very reasonable. I had that feeling that I was going to spend upwards of $60-80 per person, but it ended up just being $50. We were actually full. Service was attentive and quick too. The ambiance was young and hip, but not too loud.

Final Verdict

If you’re craving for yakitori, this is a good spot.

Yelp Jabs

We ordered a bunch of chicken yakitori skewers - all were average, both in terms of cook and flavor. The lime cilantro chicken was the slightly better one of the lot. The vegetable skewers were quite lackluster. The fried eggplant was the best dish of the night - didn’t feel deep fired, and had a nice crunch from the nuts and scallions

It’s really difficult to take this review seriously. First mistake was ordering regular chicken yakitori skewers. I’m not sure what one can expect from this. It’s chicken. The second mistake was having high expectations for grilled vegetables. The third mistake was the fact that this person was going to a yakitori restaurant expecting excellent chicken and vegetable skewers that you could probably get anywhere else.

We were not done with the food and waitresses were eager to clear the table. Excuse me- how would you feel if you’re obviously still working on your food and the waitress had decided to take away all your friends plates and chopsticks.

Welcome to Asian restaurants. I’m all for turning tables to keep the price low, especially in Manhattan.