Yura An Café

What are our expectations when dining in a mall? None, whatsoever. And Yura An hasn’t raised the bar. You might want to be seen there: the setting is as sleek as it gets (considering the environment) with the requisite blend of modern and exotic (in this case, Japanese) and the bright, airy and freezingly cold (another sign you’re in a mall) space. But the food is more problematic. The elongated menu offers 40-something dishes, none of which will work on their own to kill even a light lunchtime hunger. Every season, Yura An rolls out a new list of fusion Japanese-inspired dishes that may disorient aficionados of traditional dishes from the Land of the Rising Sun. Gone is the usual Nippon lightness; it is replaced with a kind of creamy oiliness that can work for those in the mood for fast food but can’t stomach McDonald’s. In this vein, order the very creamy Mentori Pasta with Edamame, super crispy but disappointingly bland tuna “cutlet” with wasabi sauce or sesame-heavy sushi bruschetta. If you’ve plowed through all this without getting a heart attack, the raw egg and chicken tofu Caesar salad is a bit lighter on the oil. It’s a creative dish, but the pieces of chicken tofu are sad little things that taste and look like croutons—or was that the point? For a touch of authenticity, pork kimchee over rice, served with a decent miso soup, is your safest bet. Presentation is fancy, as the décor, but dishes are so small you’re going to have to fork out for several of them before you feel satisfied. Even the aforementioned tuna cutlet, one of their “Big Power Dishes” (i.e. a main course), comes with only five chunky pieces of crispy panko–coated tuna. Fast and attentive staff means this might be the place to grab a quick light bite before a movie: as your time is limited, your date won’t be able to eat too many of the tiny, expensive dishes.