Sanuki Udon

Sanuki Udon Has Opened Near NYU | Eater NY

"I dropped by a new, franchise-like udon cafe a few days after it opened on the NYU campus; Sanuki Udon at 31 W. Fourth Street (the landlord is NYU) feels like the first of its kind in New York. The restaurant uses a 50-foot-long assembly line staffed by employees in white where you pick a tray and slide past stations to build a bowl — a merchandising style common in Japan and already seen in California, Texas, and Hawaii — and a full meal with tempura ends up costing around $25. You can choose from a dozen-plus udon bowls priced from $9 for simple bonito-broth noodles to $17 for a breaded pork cutlet in curry; I had the beef udon ($16), a sweet brown broth with sheets of beef finished with dollops of pickled ginger and scallions. The noodles are supremely fresh — you can watch dough being formed, extruded, cut, and dunked in boiling water for about 30 seconds — and then the broth and toppings are added. Tempura is the fun add-on: the shrimp ($3.25) proved a bit skinny and soggy, the Japanese orange squash ($2.25) was rather wonderful, and the fried chicken nuggets ($4.25) tasted of soy, scallions, and sugar; other options include fish cake, eggplant, and chrysanthemum fronds. I also tried the chicken karaage salad udon ($17), which came cold but was amplified by thick mayo and very little actual salad, making it more like paying high price for a macaroni-salad–style bowl. My practical advice: lock down a seat before visiting the condiments bar (scallions, grated daikon, tempura crumbs, and several bottled sauces) because the dining room can be crowded. Overall it’s a fun, student-filled experience — the noodles themselves stand out, while other ingredients won’t exactly blow you away — but the focused concept and fresh udon feel like a worthy addition to the city’s noodle options; they even gave us a free Sanuki Udon towel, and for now the place is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m." - Robert Sietsema