Fitzrovia- Yaki Japanese Bakery

Or 'Yaki' for short.

'Yaki' means 'fried' in Japanese (some say 'grilled', but you don't grill yakisoba or teppanyaki, do you? It depends on if your heat source is coming from above or below I suppose).

Where?

Fitzrovia, London, 53 Goodge Street. Nearest tube station Goodge Street.

What?

A brilliant lunch-y place to go for Japanese food that's not sushi- apart from sushi burgers (the 'bun' is rice). Yo! Sushi would have you believe that they're the first to sell the sushi burger. They are, in fact, not: Yaki is. I can actually confirm this as I noticed Yaki and it's menu months before Yo! Sushi started boasting about it.

Anyway!

I passed by this morning and got talking to a very nice gentleman who was opening up shop- I think he may have even been the owner as he was very knowledgable and keen to tell me a bit about the business. He acknowledged the fact that there are a lot of places to eat sushi in London, and he wanted to offer something different in terms of Japanese food. At Yaki you can buy thing like okonomiyaki (Japanese savoury pancakes), tako-yaki (balls of a flour-based pancake-like stuff with octopus in the centre) and donburi (one-bowl rice meals). They also have sweets like taiyaki (filled pancake-like things traditionally shaped to look like fishies) and mochi (glutinous rice dumplings). Although it wasn't quite lunchtime and I left the area, I actually came back (from Camden Town no less) at lunch time to give it a go.

I love, love love it. The prices are great too, especially when compared with London's more well-known okonomiyaki place, Abeno and Abeno-too. Sure Abeno-too cook the okonomiyaki teppanyaki-style (in front of you on a hot plate), but £10 for a small pancake made largely out of cabbage, egg and flour is bloody ridiculous. At Yaki, my chicken teriyaki okonomiyaki was just under £3.50. And it was delicious, too: just as good as Abeno-too but without the fancy price.

Fluffy but satisfying, savoury with a decent amount of chicken, finished off with slightly-sweet mayo that offsets the savouryness of it perfectly.

I can't wait for the next opportunity to go there. I'd love to slowly make my way through the menu- and I especially need to try the desserts (you guys know how crazy I am about desserts- and how uncharacteristic of me it was to not have one during this visit!)

The guy-that-may-have-been-the-owner mentioned that they'd like to open up more shops in London, and I really hope they do well. This place most definitely has my stamp of approval.