Ramen has a sort of level of awareness in London at the moment stemming from a number of places that became popular enough to start mini-chains. One of those, and the branches I have seen often have queues outside, is Kanada-ya[1]. Unlike Yamagoya, they do not seem to have branched significantly from their ramen but Machiya is supposed to be run in the same vein as Kanada-ya but with different dishes. It could be said that Machiya is a return for Paul and myself as this is actually where we decided[2] on this project and it was as a result of gyudon here. My abiding memory of that meal[3], however, was not the meat but the baked sweet potato which was genuinely amazing. I think we may have shared a few things including a gyudon then but all memories are clouded by that sweet potato.
Machiya takes us back to the West End and, more specifically, Panton Street near Leicester Square. It has a fairly pared down menu with a few specials but luckily, gyudon is a standard item - and is in fact boxed out as if it is a highlight of the menu. The general style of the place is casual and the menu is supplanted by a specials menu which is written by hand on a big piece of paper which is in keeping with the casual style. As it happens, there was little on the specials menu with it mainly being different cold drinks due to the slightly warm weather. Paul and I noticed that items we had ordered from specials menu before were now on the menu proper (including the aforementioned yaki imo sweet potato dish). Looking at the menu again, the items that jumped out were the ones we had eaten previously but I did want to try new things[4] so we ordered a side salad and grilled miso aubergine to go with the gyudon.
The food came out as it was ready but we waited for the gyudon before starting. The bowl was topped with a beautiful looking onsen egg and pre garnished with pickled ginger - there was nothing to add. So, we dug in. The flavour was, however, missing a bit and was not quite what was expected from the look. The mixture of onion and beef tasted a bit anaemic - lacking the bold flavour I expected and had probably not been marinated enough. This was actually a disappointing first mouthful. Diving in again gave the same impact of "is this it?" (and I don't mean the vibrancy of the Strokes' debut album) to the beef. In all honesty, the egg was excellent and a mouthful with a bit of egg and pickle was pretty nice but there was no getting away from the lack of saltiness of the meat. The sauce was fairly weak and the onions were more oniony than sweet as they were not cooked through. As it happened, the bowl wasn't that big either so it wasn't particularly filling and had a lot more rice as a ratio than I'd want too. The other dishes were far better, and the meal as a whole wasn't bad. The yaki imo still an astounding combination of yuzu, butter and wonderfully smooth sweet potato. The aubergine had a nice texture with walnut and a little kick from the garnish but as good as those dishes were, the main was disappointing and so I was a bit disappointed. The meal as a whole wasn't so voluminous either so I was left a bit unsatisfied[5] afterwards.
The thing about this project is that it is about gyudon so I feel bad that I can't particularly recommend a place that also happened to serve some exceptional food that wasn't gyudon. Service was quick, simple and easy and I will definitely return but I doubt I'll order the gyudon as a main (though it could work if shared) when I do. The location is really convenient, the food is generally good but it is too casual to linger there for a long time. With all that in mind, I do hope people go and have the yaki imo which is genuinely exceptional. The gyudon, less so.
Machiya
5 Panton St, London SW1Y 4DL
1. "ya" in this case just means shop and is a common suffix as in Matsuya.↩
2. In a sort of circuitous route. Paul mentioned to me the gyudon here when I asked about Japanese food around London which kicked off a nostalgic chat about Japan in general and also our first meeting there which revolved around gyudon.↩
3. And maybe food in that whole year, such was the quality.↩
4. I remember the chicken wings were really good, as was the yaki imo and I think we had some form of katsu so we didn't re-order (except the yaki imo, I'm not an idiot).↩
5. Satisfaction was gained by going on to have dessert at nearby Chin Chin Dessert Bar which was chocolate tacos with pineapple and habanero ice cream. It was pretty special.↩
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