Tsuru

Early finish at work so I thought I would mosey into town and have a goo around the shops for some new winter woolies. No such luck with the woolies but seeing as I was in town, I decided to head to Tsuru for a spot of dinner. This Japanese casual dining place had received a raving review from Marina O'Loughlin about its katsu curry with its curry sauce having been cooked for some 8 hours so obviously, I had to try it out!!

It was a pretty decent katsu curry - my only gripe was there were no pickles!!

Bank Holiday Monday lunch - Feng Sushi

OK - take 2 for this entry.......having logged into Blogger, there was a pop-up suggesting that I should try their spanking new interface so I thought, why not? After laboriously typing in this entry plus doing the usual photo editing, I was then met with a great big error message and on return to my blog entries, found that my latest musings HAD NOT BEEN SAVED!!! (cue mini rant on Twitter - I mean, seriously, whats the point in asking ppl to use smthg that crashes??)

Needless to say I am back using the old and hopefully, more reliable interface so let's see if I can remember what I wrote in the first place......

After a bit of a hectic week at work (including pitching in at the weekend as a favour to my boss), I had Bank Holiday Monday off before heading back to the grindstone the following day. Needless to say, the day began with a much needed ly-in, followed by a meander up to High St Ken to pick up a few bits and bobs. Since we were already in the area, JD and I decided to head to Feng Sushi for a spot of lunch. I had forgotten how titchy the resto was but we managed to squeeze ourselves into one of the tables in the corner.

The food was OK but we were a little disappointed to find some of the stuff on the menu had already sold out  (namely, yuzu infused lemonade and a special scallop maki) even though it was only around 2 in the afternoon? The highlight of the meal was the sushi, less so for the hot dishes - oh wellos.

 

Some pretty good spicy tuna roll plus soft shell crab roll

 JD's fish tempura plus sweet potato chips - the chips were NOT sweet potato!! I had a bowl of spicy baby cuttlefish udon soup - the cuttlefish was NOT baby!! (notice a pattern here??)

Nizuni

A friend from Uni was back in town for the Easter break and was craving some Japanese food. This seemed like the perfect excuse to try out a newish place called Nizuni, which I had read about on a food blog I regularly check into.  

It was perfect for a lazy Saturday lunch catching up on news and tucking into some yummy food :)

 Dragon roll with eel, crabmeat and avocado which we shared - very nice.

 Grilled mackerel bento for me - lots of variety with salad, gyoza and pickles but the main star of the dish (ie. the fish) was not great. 

 JD's cravings for katsu curry were finally sated!! (he had ordered a katsu curry don the other night at Toku but the waitress misheard him and he had to settle for katsu don instead) Check out the cool-looking bowl!! :)

Dessert of chestnut cake with green tea ice cream

A dinner of 2 halves - Bocca di Lupo & Toku

I've been meaning to make a trip back to Bocca di Lupo ever since our impromptu lunch there last year - I finally got around to organising booking a spot midweek for dinner and was looking forward to chowing down some nice food :)

Unfortunately, there were no tables available at the back for the time which I had requested so we had to make do with sitting at the bar instead which wasn't so bad. We settled for a small portion of orecchiette with spicy sausage and octopus with peas and basil as our "starters" before splashing out on a tagliata of rib of beef as our main. The orecchiette arrived pretty swiftly and was very tasty. Shortly after finishing this, there was a lot of movement around the open kitchen and a fair bit of jumping up and down to cover smoke alarms. Eventually, we were told that there was a problem in the kitchen which meant that we would not be able to order any more hot food for the night. Our octopus was probably the last dish to be cooked which was OK......we did try to pick other dishes from the menu but nothing took our fancy so we decided to call it a night after our starters. Not exactly the meal that I had hoped for but the manager was very nice and comped our entire meal.

Still feeling peckish, we rounded off our dinner at Toku down the road, me with a bowl of ramen and JD with a katsu don - an interesting dinner to say the least :)

Kiraku revisited

Since our first visit to Kiraku last May, we have been back for another meal and I also took Ma Chan there the last time she was in town so its turned into a bit of a local favourite! :)

I had also mentioned the resto to my bro before but its a bit of a trek from his neck of the woods so its taken a while for him and Jools to pop over to try it out......lovely food (as usual) and great company :)

 My gigantic pint of Asahi :)

 Kushiage set (grilled skewers of different meat)

 Grilled octopus balls - takoyaki (my favourite dish of the night, yum!)

 Spicy chicken wings

 Spicy tuna roll

 Grilled aubergine

 Salmon teriyaki

 Assorted tempura

 Eel, egg and fish roe roll

 Soft shell crab roll

Fried monkfish

Weekend eating - Toku

Having finished early-ish at work on Friday evening, I decided to head into town and kick start my Chrimbo shopping. JD and I were then stranded in town around dinnertime - not the best time to be hanging around town on a Friday night without a dinner reservation if you're looking for a semi-decent meal. We took a chance and rocked up to Toku, the adjoining resto to the Japan Centre and managed to grab a table despite the place being pretty rammed.

This was the first time we had come here since they relocated to the present location on Regent Street and to be honest, I think the food might even be a smidgeon better now - a most satisfying dindins :)

 Classic eel roll - yummy and very generous

 Gyoza - nice flavour, esp. dipping sauce despite a little charred on the edges

 Tori kara age - fried chicken.....a bit unsure on the dipping sauce which was a little heavy on wasabi

 JD's spicy Korean don - it now has pork instead of fried chicken, still not bad

Green tea and red bean cake roll - very tasty!

Cheeky treat - Sushi of Shiori

One of the contenders for 97 month dinner venue was Sushi Hiro - a little restaurant near us in Ealing which has been getting rave reviews over the years and boasts Heston Blumenthal and Mark Hix amongst its diners! Having browsed through a few food blogs, I found out via London Eater that Sushi Hiro had recently changed management and standards have slipped as a result. There was also another entry on his blog about Sushi of Shiori and how he had had a couple of really great meals there. I eventually discarded it thinking that I wouldn't be able to convince JD to a meal of just raw fish.

In the end (and buoyed by the fact that Fay Maschler had just reviewed it in the Evening Standard which only means that it will get busier), we decided to try our luck and go for Saturday lunch - there are only 8 seats in the restaurant and we were lucky to enough to get seated despite no reservations.

The sushi really is that good and I am looking forward to heading back another time, already have it in mind to invite a friend for a omakase dinner there :)

  Iberico pork shabu shabu salad - beautifully presented and pretty tasty but I wouldn't order it again

 Shiori sushi set - fatty tuna (yummy, says JD), salmon, yellowtail, some form of white fish (pardon my ignorance!), sweet shrimp with basil pesto (wow!), scallop with truffle oil (a OMG moment!), crab (not crabstick), salmon eggs and spicy tuna

Chirashi sushi don

Salmon don

Saving the best for last, wagyu beef sushi with ponzu sauce :)

If you are a sushi fan, I suggest you come here asap before the foodie stampede.......after our visit, Jay Rayner also reviewed the resto in the Observer.....

Kiraku

After a gruelling 4-consecutive double shift stint (64 hours+), it was time for a couple of days rest and also some nice food. After a bit of research on the interweb, I found out that there was a nice Japanese restaurant a couple of tube stops away from us (Ealing Common) so we decided to try it out a couple of Friday nights back. The restaurant is called Kiraku and serves izakaya-style (Japanese pub) food as well as some nice sushi and sashimi. Nice meal and very polite service.......would definitely recommend it over our other local, Tosa and price wise, very reasonable :)

Grilled mackerel with salt - a simple dish but always very tasty. The one we had at Asakusa was probably a little better but this version wasn't too bad. The long white and pink specimen was some kind of pickled ginger, methinks?

Boiled spinach with sesame

Shishamo (smelt fish) - was introduced by my Korean friend as a popular izakaya snack. The fish are grilled and then you eat them whole. These were really yummy and way better than the ones I had at Sakura......JD wasn't a great fan though 

Grilled aubergine with sweet miso sauce - nice but the miso is too sweet for me - have never been able to fully appreciate this dish

Fried chicken (tori karagge)

Soft shell crab roll

I can't remember the name of this but it was very good - eel, cucumber, egg and tobiko roll

Zaru udon

Sushi lesson

After St John, I wanted to take my friend to a Japanese restaurant that we had visited last month and really enjoyed called Asakusa. We arranged to meet early evening on a Wednesday night at the nearest tube and walked down to the restaurant together. Being a midweek evening, I did not think we had to book for dinner but upon arrival, we were told that the restaurant was fully booked and that there would not be another free table for 2 hours??!!!  So much for the credit crunch and recession, huh??

We decided to head back into central London and ended up having dinner another Japanese resto, a place that I used to go to a lot but haven't visited in a good 5 years. Sakura used to be well known for its authentic and reasonably-priced food which made it a hit with Asian students studying in London. I think the success went to the resto's heads a bit.....the prices have gone up a little, the service is not the best and at busy times could rival Wong Kee's....it was also sad for me to see that all the special dishes posted on the wall are now all written in English rather than Japanese :(

Dinner was a bit of a non-event (sorry, Won!) but my friend gave me a crash course in sushi and how to eat which I thought was pretty interesting:

• Sushi should be eaten in order, from the most delicate flavour first and ending with  the strongest flavour. For our selection, we started with the sweet shrimp, then sea bream, salmon, mackerel and ended with egg.
• You should only dip soy sauce on the fish and never on the rice.
• One way of putting soy sauce on the fish is by using a slice of pickled ginger, dipping this into soy sauce and then "brushing" this over the fish - quite an effective but my friend then warned me that only the older generation do this in Japan, cheers mate!!
• Some sushi enthusiasts would never order egg sushi as it is not traditional. On the other hand, egg sushi can reveal the level of skill the sushi chef has (e.g. the layers of egg should be thin and there should no holes in between the layers. It should also be a generous slice)
• Some sushi snobs may also remove any excess rice from sushi and leave on the side of the plate if they feel that there is too much.
• Mackeral sushi is usually marinated in vinegar but ours was cooked in vinegar. The vinegar is used in order to preserve the fish as it has a tendency to go bad quickly. By cooking the fish instead of marinating it, the fish can last even longer.....not great for the consumer but more economical for the resto.

As my friend said, not a great dinner but the company was delightful and most educational! :)

Asakusa

Following my culinary adventures out East, I flew back to freezing Blighty and spent the week mainly jobhunting and doing some last minute prep work and practice for wedding cake no. 2. Come the weekend, JD and I decided to indulge in one of our favourite past-times......going for grub! We had thought about going to an Italian in Soho called Bocca di Lupo which is currently one the "hot" places to go at the moment but fussy moi wasn't particularly bowled over by the menu. In the end, I plumped for a small Japanese restaurant near Camden called Asakusa. It had been recommended to me by a friend almost 5 years ago but somehow, I had never got around to trying it until now (すみませんノリコ!). Anyway, we finally made it on a cold, wet Saturday evening and were not disappointed. Food was great, we ordered lots as usual and also had a great view of the sushi chef at work as we were sitting at the bar - will definitely be coming back again! :)

Some hijiki seaweed - apologies for crap photo!

Vegetable tempura - hot, light and fluffy batter coating juicy chunks of veg, yum!

Seared beef served with ginger, radish, garlic and soy sauce - great flavour combo but meat rather bland if eaten on its own.

Grilled mackerel (delish and good for you!)

Chicken tonkatsu - resto had ran out of tori kara age so we went for tonkatsu. Massive portion and most importantly, very yummy!

Eel roll and spicy tuna roll

We ended the meal with a big steaming bowl of udon each - ah!! Noodle heaven!!