Bento Nouveau Review: Bento Nouveau
Sometimes you eat food so good, it makes you wanna have its babies. Other times, you eat food and it makes you want to have daddy issues like Katie Lee Joel and Padma Lakshmi. Or it just makes you want to be the hostess for Top Chef. One of those, I just get it confused sometimes. I went to Sushi! by Bento Nouveau last week and it fell into the category of… shit, I don’t know. It certainly didn’t make me want to have its babies though. I’m still going to tell you about the beef sukiyaki over rice for $7 bucks, and other stuff, just because I can.
Sushi! by Bento Nouveau is located on the southwest corner of 39th and Broadway. It’s kind of hard to see if you’re facing north and walking towards Times Square. They look clean and there’s always people in there noshing on food during lunch time. The sushi there is premade and sits in one of thoe refrigerated cases you see a many take-out sushi places. Next to that is their kitchen that does udon and some rice dishes. Since they’re a take-out joint, it’s mostly frozen stuff or pre-made. I watched the guy dip frozen udon into a hot water bath to bring it back to life. And the beef sukiyaki I ordered was ladeled out of some big container. This is kind of like the way Woorijip does their noodle bar. The only difference is that at Woorijip, there’s a motherly looking woman cooking for you, and Woorijip gives you more food. By the way, if your mom is not Asian, then the woman who cooks at Woorijip is just going to look like an elderly Asian woman (obviously).
Anyway, for about $7 dollars (after taxes), you get a little side salad, some white rice, and some beef on top. Anytime you have thin slices of beef that’s cooked for a long period of time, it has the chance to get a little mealy. Even Woorijip’s is the same way sometimes. Not every piece is like that, but just don’t expect it to be like half raw meat that’s barely cooked in the broth. This is meat that’s almost been braised.
You could say it’s just an OK meal, and since they give you much less food than Woorijip, I have to say it’s not as good of a deal. No, the sukiyaki at Bento Nouveau is not exactly the same as the beef from Woorijip… but look, it’s thin slices of beef in a sweet-ish, soy based sauce/broth, and it’s served with white rice. The nuance is lost on me when I’m starving and looking for lunch.
Oh and if anyone missed this, White Castle is giving away a free slider. See coupon here. See, don’t say I don’t lead you to the free shit. I guess this is at participating White Castles only, but there’s WC’s all over the country. So… eat up.
Bento Nouveau1401 Broadway.New York, NY 10079212-398-1405
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