Lunch at Teri & Yaki

I've been going to Teri & Yaki in the city of Monrovia off and on for a couple of years now, but after having lunch there this past Saturday, I finally decided to give it a review and share some photos of the food.

Teri & Yaki originally positioned itself as a chicken only teriyaki house. Now they also serve beef teriyaki, but for me, it's all about the chicken whenever I eat there. Normally, I'm not much of a teriyaki person. Whenever I've ordered any kind of teriyaki dish, I've always found the sauce to be overly sweet, so I pretty much gave up on teriyaki sauce as a whole.

However, when I first tried the chicken teriyaki at Teri & Yaki awhile back, I finally found the teriyaki sauce of my dreams. The sauce still had some sweetness to it, but not overly so and there was also that hint of soy sauce saltiness that balanced it all out for me. To this day, the only time I'll eat teriyaki anything is at Teri-Yaki. It also didn't hurt that the chicken even the white meat is moist.

What I also really like are the various side dishes you can order with your chicken teriyaki. I can never decide so I usually end up getting 3 sides of either the spicy slaw, spicy cucumber, cold bean sprouts or the seasoned spinach and end up taking home leftovers. The vegetables always seem really fresh to me regardless of what time of day that I have my meal there.

Although I don't find the spicy slaw or spicy cucumber that spicy, I still like that tang and hint of hotness of whatever chili sauce they use for those two sides and the bean sprouts usually have a nice crunchy nutty taste to them which I always enjoy. With all these particular sides being cold, I can appreciate the flavors differently from the teriyaki chicken.

Overall, Teri-Yaki may not necessarily be a destination place, but I enjoy it time after time, because the food is consistently good, fresh and then of course, there's my favorite teriyaki sauce.

To see pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157594322306140/

Teri & Yaki
106 S. Myrtle Avenue
Monrovia, CA 91016
(626) 256-6705
http://www.teriandyaki.com/