Now the Japanese are sending us their fast food crap. Yes, this is the McDonald’s of the land of the rising sun. Using all the techniques that made over 56 billion in this country want to come and get served–substandard food, cheap prices and illegal workers–Yoshinoya is trying to take advantage of mid-America’s love of trying to feel cool by eating foreign food (and getting a bargain in the process). Soon there will be Yoshinoyas popping up in Peoria and Poughkeepsie, but for now only us New York folk are lucky enough to enjoy the worst Japan has to offer. Bowls of steaming rice topped with teriyaki chicken and/or some sort of shredded beef make up the majority of the menu, although I’m sure there was some other stuff for our veggie friends. As far as meat quality goes, it was probably somewhere on the scale between Teriyaki Boy and the odds and ends in the dumpster behind your average horse meat plant. In other words, if you’re looking for quality, you may want to go somewhere without a conveyor belt in back, but if you want something on the cheap that’ll fill you up for a couple hours, you could do worse–but not much. [MF]
255 W 42nd St.
212/703-9940