Izakaya MEW

Izakaya MEW is a basement izakaya under West 35th Street. Time Out's warning is that you have to spot the hidden entrance first.4

Why go

Bryan Kim, the Infatuation's NYC editorial lead, puts it in his Garment District fourteen. He sends groups there to drink.3 The walls are brick and the bulbs hang from the ceiling. The card runs to yakitori skewers, sushi rolls, ramen and everything fried.3 4

The kitchen calls its own food home-style Japanese.5 Sunday is not a service: the room turns over to a jazz night with a late jam session.5

Order this / avoid

Order: the gyoza. Hillary Reinsberg's rundown for The Infatuation calls them exactly the kind of thing to order here.2
Order: the frozen beer, a cold beer under a cap of frozen foam.2
Avoid: the miso ramen if you have a choice. Reinsberg says it is there if you want something hot with noodles in it, and nothing beyond that.2

What locals & experts say

Hillary Reinsberg, in The Infatuation, on who this basement is for: it is the room for a night when you just drank 15 Bud Lights at a Rangers game and need to continue down that road with some food in your stomach. She says in the same review that you do not need to travel across town for it, and that the food itself is fine and no better.2
Bryan Kim, in the same publication's Garment District guide: the frozen beer has the texture of a slurpy.3

Good to know

Where: 53 West 35th Street, down the stairs. It trades as MEW.
Upstairs: Hanbat shares the address, and Matt Rodbard, writing for The World's 50 Best, picked it as New York's best for Korean soups and stews in 2016.1
Where the door is: the basement of 53 West 35th Street, between Fifth and Sixth.4
Why people are here: Madison Square Garden, before or after.4

Verdict

could-visit — Book it, because the room fills. It is a stop on the way to something else, and it should stay one.

Izakaya MEW.