We had yet another Japanese menu slipped under our door, and since we were craving sushi we decided to give it a shot. There were lots of items to choose from and prices seemed pretty reasonable. We placed our order over the phone, and it arrived about 35 minutes later, which isn’t too shabby. Unfortunately, most of our hot food arrived pretty cold.
We started out with miso soups that had lots of tofu and seaweed in it, but it was lukewarm at best. The miso was mild in flavor, which I liked, since a lot of versions tend to be too salty. I supposed I could have nuked it in the microwave to warm it up a bit, but I was hungry and too lazy.
Lukewarm miso soups
We also ordered a chicken katsu combination, which came with rice, a small salad, and side dish of our choice. We opted for shrimp shumai, which were clearly the pre-made frozen kind and were totally ice cold in the middle. Too bad, because they were actually really tasty, but I guess I can just go to an Asian supermarket and pick these up for myself and warm them up correctly. The chicken katsu was a bit hotter, but not by much, and it was pretty soggy and greasy. I can forgive the soggy, since it has to be delivered in a covered container, but the greasiness was kind of gross, as the breading just tasted oily. Not pleasant. And also boo for the prepackaged katsu sauce. The salad was just chopped up lettuce and one tomato slice, but I did like the ginger dressing.
Chicken katsu, shrimp shumai, green salad with ginger dressing
We ordered a variety of our favorite standard sushi rolls, which included a tuna roll, a salmon avocado roll, a spicy tuna roll, and a yellowtail and scallion roll. I tend not to go for special rolls since all the fish just kind of gets mixed together and it’s hard to taste each component individually. I enjoyed the spicy tuna roll, which was not too mayo-y tasting, and the yellowtail and scallion roll, since yellowtail is my favorite fish. The tuna in the tuna roll was kind of stringy though, and the salmon was way too fishy, which is kind of scary. I also thought the sushi rice was a tad too sweet for my taste.
Spicy tuna roll, salmon avocado roll, tuna roll, and yellowtail scallion roll
Overall I thought the food from Hayashi Ya was pretty bad. The only thing that I really liked was the miso soup, but I can pretty much get that anywhere or have Josh make it. I didn’t enjoy their greasy chicken katsu at all, and the sushi was obviously not the freshest. Even though prices are pretty cheap, sushi is not something that you would want to trade quality for just to save a few pennies. And there are plenty of other restaurants that offer cheap prices, like Oyishi, and still provide pretty decent fish. I will definitely not be ordering in from here again.
Hiyashi Ya
857 9th Ave. between 55th and 56th St.
New York, NY
Tags: Delivery, Japanese, Midtown West, Sushi