japanese: FURUKAWA

FURUKAWA
No. 1, Lane 132, Zhongsan N Road, Sec 2
(02) 2562-1115

website: furukawa.com.tw

hours: Lunch: 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM ; Dinner 5:30PM - 10PM

$$

Kid friendliness: high chairs available. friendly service.

Visit reviewed: 2/23/2008



The best thing about this dinner were the fried oysters or kaki fry. They were hot, crispy, juicy inside and what I expected. Everything else, was to be honest, sort of a let down.

I had mentioned to my friends that I was craving a good bowl of udon with tempura, but this was before we discovered Tenpura Sanuki Udon. So he did some research on blogs written in Chinese and said that he had found a restaurant that had been recommended.

The restaurant was pretty full with families and groups, with a cool modern-ish atmosphere.



The menu doesn't have any English, but is full of pictures. There is a wide variety of combos to choose from (around NT$300), as well as appetizers, sushi and sashimi.



The udon tempura sushi set was calling my name. But when I got it, the udon was soggier than I would have liked and there were only 2 pieces of tempura to eat. I was used to the fried shrimp hanging out on a mountain of fried vegetables, but this was more like 1 lonely shrimp on top of an anthill.



My friends who had gotten the cold soba set with sashimi were better off. The soba was chewy and you can't go wrong with the dipping sauce. They liked it so much (and since I ended up eating some of their soba instead of my udon), they ordered another plate of soba, though we agreed the second round was not as good as the first.




We also had a weird experience with the sha-ba or the fish chin/jaw. The first time, it was a huge piece, but wayyy too salty. Inedibly salty. When we complained to the waitress, they took it away and replaced it with no problem. But the second piece was soo bland. The chef just couldn't find the middle ground for us that night, so we just let it go.

While the service was quite friendly, the food that we had ordered didn't give us a reason to return, especially since it's farther away from my part of town. But it's too bad since everyone else seemed to be enjoying their food so maybe there are other things on the menu more worth trying out.