The Japanese Canteen

How do you make the star rating go below zero?
If I had a craving for warm dish water with uncooked noodles, and one leaf of Bok choy I would go here.
Nothing against Eastern Europeans, but I’m sure they are not know for their izakaya delicacies.
One thing they are know for is a cold personality and here you will get an abundant serve of that.
The two best things are the edamame beans, hard to ruin as they are pre packaged and micro-​steamed.
Oh and the second was the cold cans of Coke at the counter.
Don’t eat here if you like authentic Japanese.

Not quite the bucket-​sized ramen on offer at Wagamama etc. but tasty and filling for a decent price. Eating in obviously lacks a little ambience — it really is a canteen, and there’s a lot of number shouting for order pickups — but it’s actually easy to get a seat without paying restaurant-​end prices which round here is a good deal.
No sushi which I was surprised by but otherwise a very extensive menu. All tastes healthy and fresh.

£5/​6 for Koren Fried Chicken! Though riddle me this, how are all these manly city-​adjacents full off of the normal size? Maybe I’m a bottomless pit, but I’ve had to upsize to large (which is only about £3 more). It’s a pretty good value for money and pretty fast service. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with this one.
Get the KFC. Get the large size. Get it now. Fellow Unilocaler says the katsu is pretty good as well.

Had my first chicken Katsu experience here and loved it.

All the stuff is only marginally more expensive than at Wasabi and tastes 100 times better. The portions are a decent size.
Nothing to complain about. Perfect for lunch.

Great food at a great Price. The one down side is that it get mega crowded at lunch. I would advise going slightly before or slightly after lunch hour.

I ordered a chicken rice noodle soup. Some of the chicken I got was brown and tasted awfulI’m actually pretty sure the brown pieces were actually left-​over pieces of duck. Regardless, the food overall was just terrible horrible cuts of meat, bland and served at a luke warm temperature.
The restaurant itself looked like it needed a good clean, the surfaces were incredibly sticky. I put a napkin down on the table and when I tried to lift it off, the thing wouldn’t budge, it actually ripped when trying to peel it away.
Overall I’m not in anyway a satisfied customer. Although the service itself wasn’t terrible, it was hardly service with a smile. The place was also empty, and after dining here I can see why. The only positive thing I can say, is that they got the food out very quickly.
To top it all off, I actually got food poisoning not too long after eating at this place, and after considering everything I had consumed, I highly suspect it was down to the poor excuse of a meal I had here.

If I could give this place no stars I would. As someone who doesn’t eat meat, I was disappointed to find stray pieces of beef in my Prawn Yaki Udon noodles at The Japanese Canteen today. When I mentioned this to the staff they were uninterested as though it’s a common occurence. The place isn’t cheap enough to be so disinterested. If i was Hindu or a lifelong vegetarian I would have gone crazy at them. They don’t deserve any custom, but cater to people who are too penny pinching to go to the Itsu across the road. Once Eat Tokyo opens on Red Lion street, it won’t be long until they lose much of their custom, deservedly.

I was quite excited to try out the Japanese Canteen as I’ve read about it, and the shop seems nice.
To be honest I must say that I am a bit disappointed. Yes the concept is nice, be able to have a quick japanese type like lunch to take out or eat in on the small tables. The choices are respectable, you can either chose from the display some sashimis or sushis, or you can order a hot meal (rice or noodels) directly at the counter.
What’s not to be missed: their take away sushi/​sashimi, not that expensive and very pratical.
Money, money, money: count around £3.50 for a box of 6 sushis, and $ 5-£7 for a little bento of noodles or rice.
That little thing something: The meals are served in a cute little bento box.
What needs to be work on: the taste of the noodles. The dressing of the noodles are great, tasty, but the noodles itself are quite bland in fact.

The Japanese Canteen — oder The «Chapanese» Canteen (wie es eine Kollegin von mir immer ausspricht) — ist einer der vielen Lokale auf High Holborn, die ein günstiges Mittagessen für die hier ansässigen Büromenschen anbieten. Hier hat man sich auf japanische Küche spezialisiert. Das Preisniveau bewegt sich im Bereich von £5 aufwärts.
Die Lachs-​Ramen-​Suppe hatte viele verschiedene Zutaten. Wie es meine Vorkommentatoren aber festgestellt haben, ist es geschmacklich nur mäßig, irgendwie langweilig. Da es hier viel Wettbewerb gibt, sind Alternativen nicht weit. Also nur 2 Sterne.

Before I begin my first Unilocal review (!!!) Let me first state: I am something of a noodle soup obsessive. Yep, obsessive. Not that I’ll take just any old thing. I have standards. I want a flavorsome but light stock, just the right amount of noodles and lots of veg on top. I also want the meat to be tender and delicious, and for there to be enough of it.
Japanese Canteen fulfilled all my soupy desires. I wandered in on a rainy afternoon looking for a bite to eat and found the place reasonably busy. I ordered a medium chicken ramen and a can of iced coffee. The ramen was the perfect size, steaming hot and covered in all manner of delicious greens. It was cheap too.
Perfect for a bite to eat on the go. I’d go back.

Easy quick lunch option. Not the greatest Japanese food you’ll ever have but hearty hot food that is reasonable value.

eh. not terrible, but far from great. veggies and tofu in my noodle dish were sparse. after finishing my meal, i thought i would’ve been better off eating something in my fridge. next time, would venture elsewhere.

I was a little bit suspicious of a Japanese takeaway that seems to be run by non Japanese staff. However I wanted to try pork katsu as bread crumbed pork combined with curry sauce on rice sounded nice. I ordered a crystal roll as well. The roll was bland and indifferent. The katsu was great served hot and crispy in a sweet curry sauce.
I know that this place does not serve food to die for but I did notice the large number of Japanese tourists going in so I can take that as a barometer of sucess.

As its name implies, the Japanese Canteen serves sushi (in prepared boxes) and hot dishes, such as noodles and chili fried rice. The last time I went there, I tried the beef chili rice, which tasted pretty okay, though a bit wet.
Price-​wise, most of the hot meals go for around 5 to 7 pounds, which is around the average of the Japanese shops around this area. But sushi is rather expensive, with most going for at least 80p each.
If you want a quick meal for lunch, then this may be a place to go, but it’s not a restaurant (with tables for at most 3 people), so don’t expect to go for dinner with friends or anything.

I had missed Japanese food rather more than I remembered, upon my first foray into the Japanese Canteen. The smell of their rather curious version of curry sauce, got me quite excited, and next thing I knew I was ordering deep fried pork, over rice with curry sauce and some questionable red ginger. Just like home, well my temporary home for 3 years anyway.
I am consistently disappointed when Japanese food places are not actually run by Japanese people, but soon remember that it is par for the course in London. Some of the food is therefore not all that authentic, and can seem a little pan-​Asian, which is great, but not what I want from a Japanese place. The Japanese Canteen in general does not disappoint, give it a try.

The Japanese Canteen on High Holborn is another location of this chain fast food joint that seems popular with the lunchtime business crowd. I’ve given a go a few times, but they seem to keep disappointing me regardless of the dish that I end up choosing. Fair enough that the a pork katsu rice dish is only about £5, but there was too much of an in balance in the dish with too much rice for the pork, not to mention how dry the pork was from being way overcooked.
I found their takeaway sushi just as boring, with a shoddy rolling and cutting job making most of the sushi rolls simply unappetising (and it’s really not that hard). I heard that the soups are reasonable but I’ve been enough times to make me not want to return.