My friends and I were greeted with ominous skies and chilly temps our first evening in Paris, so…read morewhen we happened upon this place, the photos of steaming bowls of ramen and udon won us over! We didn't know it at the time, but there is a plethora of Japanese-style restaurants all over Paris, in case you're feeling so inclined. I say "style" because a lot of these place don't seem very authentic and are owned by other Asian ethnicities. Sure enough, the young woman who greeted us as we entered the restaurant was Chinese, and the picture of the udon that enticed me had bean sprouts and slices of salmon sashimi in it, but I still went for it! I immediately ordered some hot green tea and it came to us SCALDING hot, fyi. I love my hot beverages really really hot but this was a wee bit too hot, even for me. I ordered the tempura udon (with its salmon sashimi slices) and you know what? It wasn't bad at all. It had that good familiar udon soup flavor and the noodles were cooked fine. The tempura was lightly fried, not too greasy, and the sprouts and salmon sashimi slices, while unusual, were fine. My friends' food took a really long time to come out though, so I don't know what that was all about (they'd ordered yakitori combos and the skewers took forever!). I had a satisfying, reasonably-priced meal here and really, sometimes that's all you can ask for in such a touristy area.
STEPH JUDGEMENT: An OK option for Japanese-style food near the Notre Dame area.