New Kyoto: Sushi for lunch.

I in no way intend for this week’s Grub Hub review to claim New Kyoto as the best sushi restaurant in Paris. I know, for example, that there is a stretch near Opera that is like a Little Japan, with both sides of the dark, narrow street packed with sushi places. So I write this review just as a friendly tip for those of you who may one day find yourselves somewhere between Madeleine and Parc Monceau with a hankering for sushi.

I love Asian cuisine, but let’s be honest—Asian cuisine is pretty bad here. I have no idea why, but I have tried and tried and have finally stopped trying to find decent Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai food. I save my hunger for Asian food for trips to Amsterdam, where I can find very good Thai and Indonesian food, or London, where I can get good curry. But here? Even before the French government cracked down on all those traiteurs, I knew something was just wrong.

But sushi is different. Thankfully. I don’t have to save up my hankering for sushi just for return trips to New York. I can eat sushi here any day of the week.

New Kyoto is on a side street in the 8^th, near the boulevard Malesherbes, and is a great place to grab a wooden block full of sushi. The family that runs the place seems to be working 24/7. And I should add that they’re a bit neurotic—sometimes the woman wants you to come up to her cash register to pay your bill and sometimes she just might bless you out if you do that instead of waiting patiently at the table.

So, if you can figure out how and where to pay your bill, New Kyoto is a great place for a sushi lunch in a casual setting. It fills up pretty quickly at 12:30 on weekdays.

The sushi at New Kyoto is made after you order it, from fresh ingredients, back in their very noisy kitchen. Their 15-euro lunch menu will get you a bowl of miso and mushroom soup, a cabbage salad, and a block of sushi with gari and wasabi. Jasmine tea is a little extra, but worth it.