Mugen - Traditional Japanese Cuisine

Summary

Snapshot
Cuisine:	Japanese – sushi, sashimi, bento boxes, noodles, hot dishes.
Price:	£15-20 (Average price for eat-in) £ 6 (Average price for take-away)
Healthy:	Yes. (Without all the science.)
Tasty:	4.5/5
Address:	26 King William Street, London, EC4R 9AW
Opening times	Mon-Fri: Lunch, 12pm-3pm (last orders are at 2:30pm);   Dinner, 6pm -11pm (last orders are at 10pm).
Eat in/Takeaway:	Restaurant eat-in and some dishes can be take-away
Recommended dishes	Sushi nigiri, tempura and sushi rolls.

Lunch analysis

Mugen, is a traditional Japanese restaurant in the City of London. Here you will find a lot of Japanese business men and women tucking in to sushi, noodles and bento boxes. For me this is a good sign to see many Japanese choosing to lunch here.

When you enter the restaurant, there is nothing commercial about this place. It is often very hard to get a seat here and often a booking is required.

I have been here a few times for lunch and dinner and have noticed the consistency in food quality.

A lunch menu is on offer as well as the al la carte menu. The lunch menu offers a combination of salad, miso soup, your chosen main course and fruit as dessert.  The main courses are hot dishes ranging from grilled teriyaki salmon rice to sashimi on a bed of rice, or even noodles in a soup broth etc.

This time I chose the chicken teriyaki lunch set and another friend chose the grilled black cod with miso paste.

 I also ordered the prawn tempura which was delicious as the batter was light and not too thick. Perhaps, the only criticism is that the prawns weren’t very large and the dipping sauce could have been more flavoursome.  

The Salmon and avocado roll was very good as the salmon was fresh and the rice was the right amount of stickiness.

Sushi here is probably better than the cooked dishes and I would recommend sampling some of this. The sushi is fresh and the menu is large enough to accommodate the fussiest. Mugen is not cheap but reasonable compared to other city restaurants.

As with most Japanese restaurants and culture, service is often very polite and welcoming which was evidenced here.

However, I asked  if we could have  a teapot as the cups were very small and I felt bad having to keep asking for refills after a few sips but they were unable to accommodate which I was surprised. 

This is a place to come if you have can spare a leisurely lunch or dinner although you can still have lunch here within your  1 hour lunch break providing you have a booking.  It is more of a Friday lunch place where you can go have a nice lunch break with colleagues and old friends rather than having to clock watch and rush back to the office as it is very busy at lunchtimes.

I believe you can order take away but you will need to call up in advance to pick up your orders.

Although, it tends to be busy at lunchtimes, especially Fridays, it is still a great place to go and have lunch without feeling rushed. The large number of people eating here shows how good the food is.