Ask people who live in London and I’m sure a few of them would have eaten at the Japanese Canteen. It’s one of those chain stores that specialises in, well I suppose obvious from the name, Japanese Cuisine. I’ve eaten there twice and been disappointed both times trying some of the different dishes. The katsu dish I ate was well over-fried, resulting in a very dry meat that should really be nice and moist, and wasn’t really helped by the excessive drenching of katsu sauce. I love katsu sauce on its own though its far too easy to get since it comes bottled in lots of Asian grocery stores. The katsu dish wasn’t even served with anything extra (no pickled ginger or side) other than lots and lots (and lots!) of rice – which helps to explain the cheap price tag. The other dish I’ve had there was sushi and it was definitely rather ordinary as well – they didn’t really have much variety and I definitely had concerns around what looked like, not-so-fresh seafood.

Details: Japanese Canteen
Found on: Lots of places in London
Highlights: Cheap, westernised version of Japanese
Room for improvement:Don’t expect this to come close to authentic Japanese cuisine.
The Kua Rating: 3.5 out of 10