Japanese chain restaurant's generous set meals    Featuring specially selected Kinme rice from Japan!

Text & Photos /Paperclip. Food Photography Joy

Is this the lonely man Goro? (laughs)

That day, while having lunch at Wanfang Café, I passed by the area near Nanjing Sanmin Station and noticed that a Yayoi Kitchen was about to open nearby. So I suggested to a friend who works in the area that once it opens, we could meet up to enjoy some tasty Japanese set meals. A few days later, my friend sent me a photo—the Yayoi Kitchen had opened on October 22nd—so we set a date for a lunch meetup.

Yayoi Kitchen has expanded to Taiwan, with its first branch already operating for quite some time at Nanjing Songjiang Station. Presumably due to good business, they’ve since opened several more outlets, and this Nanjing Sanmin branch is already their fourth store. The restaurant doesn’t take reservations—you must wait in line. My friend volunteered to go register first, and another friend and I arrived a bit later. Luckily, they had reserved a nice four-person seating area for us.

This was my first time dining at Yayoi Kitchen, and everything felt very new. The hostess who seated us smiled and explained that another server would be attending to us shortly. We curiously looked around while also starting to explore the ordering pad in front of us. Soon after, another female server brought water glasses and menus, and instructed us to place our orders directly on the pad.

Each table has one of these ordering pads, with interfaces available in Chinese, Japanese, and English. The operation is very simple, the display is clear, and the touch controls are responsive. We referred to the paper menu and pointed on the pad—we placed our order in under three minutes. The benefits of this ordering system are twofold: it saves manpower, as servers don’t have to wait around while guests decide, order, and confirm; and it reduces the chance of ordering errors since guests do it themselves.

The food also came out incredibly fast. It’s hard to believe such a large restaurant operates with such efficiency. I ordered the Yayoi Teishoku (NT$420), which is essentially their signature set meal. It included four main dishes: tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet), karaage chicken salad, teriyaki salmon, and sukiyaki, along with a bowl of delicious white rice, a bowl of vegetable miso soup, a serving of clear tofu, and a small side dish.

Each main dish portion was not very large. The teriyaki salmon came with just two small slices and some seasonal vegetables, with a rich teriyaki sauce flavor that was slightly salty.

The sukiyaki was also on the saltier side, but it suited our taste quite well—it was very appetizing and paired nicely with rice. There were about four slices of beef, along with vegetables and noodles, giving off the flavor of a richer version of a Mos Burger-style beef rice burger.

In contrast, the karaage chicken salad felt much lighter. Although the chicken was cold, it remained springy and quite tender, and the salad was dressed with thousand-island dressing.

Due to my age, I haven’t eaten tonkatsu in a long time. This one had a strong flavor too—likely having sat for a while after frying, the slightly warm batter was somewhat tough and hardened. When cut in half, one piece was a bit dry, and the other had a fatty part with some gristle.

Clear tofu soup.

This was my friend’s order: the Meat and Vegetable Stir-Fry Set Meal (NT$280), which consisted of stir-fried pork slices with vegetables. The portion was suitable for guys or girls with big appetites—smaller eaters might not finish it. But the main highlight was still the delicious white rice, plus the savory flavors of the dishes, which made it especially good with rice.

Another friend ordered the Japanese-Style Hamburger Steak (NT$360). It was a hand-formed patty served directly on an iron plate, with juicy and sweet-tasting meat, accompanied by grated radish to cut through the richness, as well as a side salad and sautéed seasonal vegetables.

One thing worth mentioning is that delicious rice I mentioned earlier. According to the menu, it’s Kinme rice imported from Japan. This Kinme rice is milled to specially preserve the germ and subaleurone layer, and it also contains 10% fewer calories than regular white rice. When you’re at a Japanese cafeteria, if the main dishes are great but the rice is subpar, that just won’t do.

Yayoi Kitchen also sells Japanese desserts, but my friend said the portions are small, and the flavors aren’t as satisfying as the set meals—so after eating, we moved on.

YAYOI (やよい) Yayoi Kitchen
Website:http://www.yayoi.com.tw/
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/yayoitw
Nanjing Sanmin Branch: 1F, No. 92, 94 & 96, Section 5, Nanjing East Road, Songshan District, Taipei City (Exit 2 of Nanjing Sanmin Station, opposite to China Development Financial Holding Corporation)
Phone: 02-27478558 (reservations not accepted at this time)
10% service charge applies

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