Itsu (nearest Tube Oxford St), 313 Regent Street, London W1B 2HP

I met a new friend recently (with new friends come new food), and we got to talking about what we have for lunch, dinner, etc. You know, fun stuff like that. I seem to talk (to myself) alot about food, so it's no wonder that I talk to my friends about it too.


The Oxford St. / Regent St. outlet (not my usual)

It might be worth noting at this point that I have been having the same thing for lunch for the last 3 months.


Monday: Itsu Detox 7 Vegetables Noodle Potsu
Tuesday: Itsu Detox 7 Vegetables Noodle Potsu
Wednesday: Itsu Detox 7 Vegetables Noodle Potsu
Thursday: Itsu Detox 7 Vegetables Noodle Potsu
Friday: Itsu Detox 7 Vegetables Noodle Potsu

And surprise, surprise. On Saturday, I took the husband to Itsu by Oxford St. to have ... Itsu Detox 7 Vegetables Noodle Potsu. He was allowed to go off the beaten path to have the Itsu Grilled Chicken Udon Potsu instead, just because he's allowed variety.


The Grilled Chicken Udon Potsu

If you want the menu to find out what else they have to offer (weirdo), here it is (click here).

Some people have asked me why I have the same thing everyday. Don't I get bored? Is there something wrong with me? While I answer 'no' to the first question, and then 'I don't know' to the second, I just find it immensely comforting to be able to have the same thing everyday. It's kinda like having to wear a uniform on a daily basis.

Doesn't require much creativity, or even contemplation. Sure I enjoy the privileges of dressing up and that, but sometimes, usually when it's cold or when I'm really tired, I'll throw on the first thing I find. It's almost like lunch - where I'll just eat the easiest thing I can find.



Where I work, there's not a whole lot for me to be creative with. There's the usual Pret A Manger, M&S, Pod, Strada, and Gaucho (you gotta be kidding me if I'm gonna spend £35 on a piece of steak for lunch).

Why not try something else from Itsu, you might say. Why should I, I might say. Because I like the soup, I like the veg, and I like the glass noodles. Only 180 calories, too. And at £3.29, it's cheap enough to be eaten on a daily basis.

Those adventurous ones amongst you might be excited to know that they also do a very nice version of the frozen yoghurt (between £2-£4 depending on what toppings you ask for).



This one here is the frozen yoghurt with mixed fruit topping, and hot caramel sauce instead of pomegranate (because that had gone off).

Tsuru (previously Ginza), 139 Woolwich Road, Greenwich, SE10 0RJ, London

Update: We've been there a few times since this post, and it's now either called Tsuru or Sensuru of Sentsuru. I'm not sure, because all three versions of the names are printed on the menu and outside the restaurant.

You would've thought that in a village (right word?) like Greenwich, there would be quite a few good restaurants around. I mean, you get tourists by the bus-loads here, each one eager to be at The Start Of Time(zone), and surely these guys have to eat something in between all that time(zone) travelling? Apparently not.

From the restaurants we've tried in Greenwich central (ie the small bit that exists between the 2 sets of traffic lights), the only ones worth dining at are the chain restaurants like GBK and Pizza Express. If you're really desperate (like, really really) for some Chinese takeaway style food, then there's always Tai Won Mein which serves up cheap nosh in quantities worth taking pictures of. However, if you're up for some decent, non-chain restaurant style food, I'm afraid I've not found one that's worth blogging about yet. Maybe it exists, I surely haven't found it.

But read on. There is a glimmer of restaurant hope yet further down the road.



So, moving down Trafalgar Road, further away from Greenwich town itself, there once was a lovely little Japanese restaurant called Ginza. This lovely gem of a find served some of the freshest, thickest slices of sashimi I've had in London, with a cosy, comfortable interior most suited for first dates (if you're splashing out). With almost no obvious clientele base in the are, how the business survived, I never knew, but I guess that question is out the window now that the restaurant seems to have changed its name.

It's now called Tsuru.

To be honest, you'd never even know the place had changed name if you just went by it. The decor's the same, the signboard's the same (with the obvious exception that the letters now spell T-s-u-r-u- instead of G-i-n-z-a), the colours are the same. Heck, the whole restaurant including the little walk-through-cloth-door-things are the same.

Anyhow, we decided to give this new place a try - going with the assumption that since everything but the name remained unchanged, maybe, just maybe, the quality of the food would be the same also. With my folks and the husband in tow, we headed there one Thursday evening around dinner time. As usual, there was only one other table occupied by 2 diners who seemed more absorbed in their Blackberries/IPhones than each other, so all the attention of the waiting staff were focused on us. The service was fast and efficient, with our tea cups being filled up constantly.

We decided to go all out and order whatever we wanted. Usually, there is always some sort of limiting factor; be it the waist-line, the budget, or just self-control (which is usually absent at the best of times). Today, we chucked all of that out the window, and just flipped the pages of the menu, letting our fingers fall where it felt like. While I rubbed my hands in glee at the thought of all this food, my camera gave a squeak of approval, indicating that it was indeed time to place our orders.


I love it when there are free side dishes. These were good ones, too.



Pickled cucumbers which had a funny (in a good way) texture, being slightly chewy yet crunchy. How do they do that. Pickled ginger - OK though nothing special, but free so always good.

Crab salad

One of my absolute favourites when I can find it. I knew that Ginza did a very good version of this, so to test the standards of Tsuru, I decided to give this one a try and I'm glad I did. I think the portion got a little bigger from before, not that I'm complaining. Thinly-sliced cucumber and crabsticks mixed in with Japanese mayo and fish eggs make for an absolutely unbelievable combination - I think I could eat truckloads of this stuff. Crunchy, soft and creamy at the same time - perfect filling for a sandwich.

California hand-roll

I'm beginning to think I have the taste buds of a 5-year old. Why do I like Kewpie mayo so much? This hand-roll was very generous - lots of soft sushi rice filled with crabsticks, cucumber, lettuce, mayo, topped with fish eggs. In fact, this could have been the crab salad, wrapped in seaweed. Realisation.



Sashimi boat (£36 for 30 pieces)

When I said push the boat out, I meant push the sashimi boat out. Since there were 4 of us there, we had to try this one out. As there was about 4 slices of everything, a quick calculation shows that there must have been 6 or 7 types of sushi, with some types having more or less than 4 slices (most useless sentence of the day). I'm trying to recall what types of fish there were, bear with me ...


Salmon - fresh, cold and thickly sliced.
Squid - I had this all to myself. Each piece was crunchy, cold and creamy at the same time.
Tuna - Husband's favourite, and apparently it was nice. Tuna tastes of nothing to me, and has a texture which I don't like.
Octopus - Fresh, cold, though I don't like it as much as I like squid. Squid is the bees knees.
Surf clam - New found favourite. Doesn't taste of much, which is good, because if it tasted of fish, maybe it's gone off. Anyhow, chewy and springy which I like.
Scallop - Mmm fresh and very soft. Sweet tasting, well-textured, fab.
Prawn - Served cold, each (tiny) piece of prawn was delightfully crunchy and sweet-tasting.
Red snapper - Didn't have much of this but from the bite I had, it was lovely also. Just like everything else served.



OK, so I can recall 8 items, which means there wasn't 4 slices of the stuff. Maybe I'm making the whole 4-slices thing up. Whatever. It was nice.



Dragon roll

Mmm mmm mm this was so good. I've had something similar to this before, but what makes this so much better than the others is the fantastic quality of sushi rice used. Soft, slightly vinegary, chewy - it wrapped and complemented the warm prawns perfectly. Maybe there was more Kewpie in it, that's why I liked it so much? Each piece was like a little drop of morning dew (or similar) - even imagining it now is making me want a piece.



Ebi (prawn) tempura

Like how huge is this prawn! You probably can't tell, actually, from the photo, but it was the length of a Subway sandwich. Batter was nice, went all gooey and soft when dipped in the radish sauce, and prawn was fresh and crunchy. The item on the menu was actually the mixed tempura with vegetables but we decided to ask the chef if he could make it just prawns and he did.



Steak teppanyaki

Sizzling plate brought to the table, and we went 'Wow that's a lot of onions on top'. Turns out (as you probably already know), those weren't onions, but Bonito shavings instead. As we melted each shaving on our tongues, the taste of the fish and meaty steak blended in wonderful mix of sweet, salty and umami tango. I thought the meat would be slightly chewy, but they were as soft as cotton candy, and it hardly took any chewing at all - which was good so we could eat more in less time.



Plain rice

Fools, what fools we were. Like we thought there wouldn't have been enough carbs to fill us up, what with all the fish and meat on order, so we decided to bulk it up with one portion of plain rice (and how pretty it is too). Turns out, we were stuffed by the time we finished the sashimi boat, so it was with plenty of bravado and effort that I finished the rice (helped down with lots of steak gravy).



Unagi rice box

Ordered this as it's one of our favourites, although by the time it arrived at the table, we were kinda looking at it with a mixture of wry and full stomachs. Despite that, each piece of eel was tasty and tender enough to entice us to have more of it. Soft, slightly slippery on the chopsticks, and ever so sweet and jelly-like, this was a delight. The gravy was perfect with the rice, and we ended up finishing that too.



Grilled salmon head

One of the cheaper items on the menu, though the taste and quality was on par with the other items. It's probably because salmon heads are sold almost as discards in supermarkets, I reckon you can get one whole one for under £2. Grilled to dry perfection (the way it should be), the skin was crispy (so thin and crispy it was almost like crackling paper) while retaining the lovely salmon juice inside. The lemony sauce provided for dipping the fish into was again another success when eaten with rice.



Green tea soba

One of the simpler dishes with deceptively complicated methods of preparation - and my mom's favourite dish. I can't say for sure if the soba is made fresh on the premises but it sure tasted good. There's something about soba that makes me prefer it over pasta and most other noodles. For one, it can be eaten cold without it being starchy and sticky. It's also chewy and al dante despite being left out for some time, and in fact, it's probably one of the few items which taste better when eaten cold. The sauce provided for dipping wasn't too sweet, wasn't too salty, and in fact was just right (Goldilocks style). Slurped my way to the finishing line.

Glad to say that although the restaurant has changed its name (and seemingly most of its staff), the menu is pretty much the same as it was before. The quality of the food has definitely remained consistent, if not better than before, and we look forward to having this little gem in Greenwich as one of our 'special occasions' dining venues.

Samurai, Holborn

I’ve always wanted to do a little post about the stuff I eat everyday; you know, the things which you eat just because of convenience, or because it’s affordable to be had on a daily basis. I’ve not really mentioned this before, but usually for lunch, I either have what I bought for breakfast (porridge or something), or some fruit from the fruit basket.

It’s partly because I’m reluctant to pay £5 or so for lunch – something which I eat at my desk, while not really putting much thought into anyway. I also don’t fancy much of the stuff on offer around, mainly Pret, Eat, McDonald’s and stuff from the canteen. Sometimes, when I fancy a treat, I get a few bits of sushi from Wasabi, but I usually end up spending quite a good few quid without getting full.

So, since I can’t eat something nice, and can’t get full anyway, I usually decide to just either not eat, or nibble on other stuff throughout the day.

Also, since I can’t bring my dSLR around on a daily basis (already have enough stuff to carry around while trying to avoid taking up any space on the Tube), it would make a food post rather … boring.

So, last weekend, the fiance and I were in town, and deciding that we’d like to have something easy to eat, but yet satisfying, we decided to go to Samurai. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have my list of which are the best Japanese ‘takeaway’ style places to go to in London.

1. Yoshino (which used to be part of the Japan Centre, wonder if it still is?) on Shaftesbury Avenue. Sometimes, they do 50% off offers if you go at the right time.

2. Samurai (which does the freshest sashimi and sushi considering this is after all, a takeaway). Pity they don’t have squid there much, if at all.

3. Wasabi (from where I buy lots and lots of squid sushi, and sometimes the crab roll).

Back to Samurai. The one we went to was the one at Holborn, just kinda by where the Tube station is.

It was really crowded in there, and we (almost) had to share tables. Lots of trendy, chic-looking singletons eating sushi on a Saturday lunchtime while reading a book.

I’ve not tried the hot food from here before, but I reckon it’d be OK.

We bought 2 sushi sets; one was for the man (sashimi) and one was for the lady (maki and crab salad mmm mmm mmm).

The sashimi was really thick, and fresh to the bite. Really fab for a sushi takeaway place. Best of all, it came with this lovely tangy, sesame oil, nutty, sweet and sour sauce in which we dipped the sashimi.

I’m not sure why they serve sashimi with a dip here, and I know you’re probably not meant to dip fresh fish into anything which then hides the freshness of it, but this sauce works!

Their makis also manage to retain a lovely, soft bite to them, without a single hard rice in it. Lovely stuff. The crab salad was also remarkably fresh, with the slightest hint of mayo to it.

I really like Samurai, and wish they’d have more outlets around town. Oh, and do try out the miso soup too, one of the best in town (yes, it seems most other places can’t master the art of putting hot water to miso paste so these guys somehow manage to grab first place).

Asakusa, 265 Eversholt Street, Camden, London, NW1 1BA

If you’ve never heard of this place before, you’re subscribing to the wrong newsletter, my friend.



We’d been wanting to come to this place for about 2 years now. Ever since I heard about this place from a friend who was in a Japanese club (whatever that is, because she sure wasn’t Japanese) and she said that they all really liked this place, I decided that I had to try it out.



Then, I read more about it on the internet, and people only ever had nice comments about it. Then, as we tried to book a table there, time and time again, it became apparent that this was no ordinary Japanese restaurant.



This one required booking in advance. Like, lots in advance.

If you want to have dinner here at the peak times (ie Friday or Saturday dinner), best make your booking a week in advance because there are about 7 tables in total, so unless you’re a regular, I don’t reckon you’re gonna get a table that easily.



Anyhow, I made the booking a week in advance for a table for 2, at 7pm, on a Saturday. That was OK, but when our 2 friends said they’d join us for dinner, I changed the booking to a table for 4, and could only fit us in at 6pm.

They open at 6pm. So, at 5.45pm, like overly excited hungry people, we arrived at the place, found a parking spot very close to the restaurant, and waited for the restaurant to open.

It seems a few people were doing the same thing. Now, I’m not sure how many people make a habit of eating dinner at 5.45pm on Saturdays, but there sure were a few people waiting outside the restaurant. I think people were just plan afraid of having their precious tables given away, so decided to just camp outside until they were let in.

On the way in (all of us were looking at each other in a somewhat victorious manner), in the space of 5 minutes, they’d actually turned away 3 groups of dinners (who didn’t book!) so booking is highly advised.

The people who were turned away were so desperate to have something, anything, to eat in there that they actually pleaded and bargained with the waiting staff to let them have a table.

‘We’ll be out of here by 7pm, we won’t be more than half an hour …’

Blink blink.

‘We only want something quick to eat and we’ll be out of here by 7pm.’

Blink blink.

Nope, sorry, no booking, no eating! (my words, not theirs, they were much more polite than me)

15 minutes after opening, the restaurant was nearly full. All 7 tables of it.


(The world’s smallest fan. On the ceiling.)

And because I’ve waited so long to eat here, I was gonna take as many pictures as I could. Usually, when I take pictures in a restaurant, especially a small one, the waiting staff are usually quite suspicious of me, and tend to give me suspicious little glances. Here at Asakusa, they were nothing but nice, and the smiles continued throughout the entire meal. Everyone who served us were nothing if not polite, taking the time to explain things to us slightly ignorant, non-Japanese diners, and even went to and from and kitchen trying to get explanations from the chef if certain changes could be made to the items on the menu.

Totally exceptional service from the waiting staff, and totally deserving of the 12.5% service charge included in the bill.



I’d read from other reviews that the best thing to do at this restaurant was to order as many little portions to share as possible, instead of ordering one big main meal individually. So that we did.



Agedashi tofu £3.50 (deep fried tofu in special sauce)

Because we really like this dish, we usually order it in most Japanese restaurants we go to. Kinda like a benchmark of how good a restaurant is, I guess. The cubes of silken tofu were light and very soft, with a batter equally as light befitting its soy interior. Once I’d taken the first squishy bite, the delicate sauce trickled through, moistening the fluffy yet soft tofu even more. Excellent first dish.



Buta no kakuni £4.50 (simmered belly pork in special sauce)

I’ve always wanted to try this. I’d heard a lot about this pork belly dish, and was curious to see how it’d compare to the Chinese version of ‘tau yew bak’ or stewed pork in dark soy sauce. And I must say, to our delight, this dish was excellent in its own right.

The description on the menu (in brackets above) does not do it justice. Special sauce is not good enough a description for this amazing, out of this world, best sauce there is, sauce.

The pork could have been slightly softer (I think it’s because it was lean pork), but aside from that insignificant point, everything else about it was amazing. The taste can only be described as ‘umami’, being sweet, more-ish, salty, meaty, and everything else in between at the same time.

It would have been perfect eaten with some steaming, fluffy rice, but we had more to try, so upwards and onwards we went.



Nasu dengaku £4 (deep fried aubergine with sweet soy-bean paste)

Another favourite with us – we know the one at TenTenTei is excellent, but how would this compare?

2 of the diners proclaimed this to be the best version of this dish they’d tasted, and 1 said that it was comparable to the one at TenTenTei. I thought that it was slightly better than the one at TenTenTei, which means that it was the best version I’ve had so far.

3 to 1 for this being the best version of the dish. Ever.



The aubergine was deep fried, making the skin crispy and the inside of the aubergine all soft, warm and lovely-mushy. The miso topping was a perfect blend of sweet and salty, and how anyone would not like this dish, I don’t know.



Ebi furai £6.10 (4 prawns deep fried in breadcrumbs, served with special sauce and salad)

You know how when you have a table full of excellent dishes of all kinds, and you’re wowed by each one in succession? Well, when we had that many top-of-the-class dishes in front of us, this one was the only one which perhaps wasn’t that … ‘wow!’

Don’t get me wrong, it was good, and perhaps, most restaurants would have been proud to have been able to serve something like this, but in Asakusa, this was only so-so. The prawns were big and crunchy, the batter was light and flavoured well, but nothing about the dish stood out from the other dishes. Maybe it’s because it’s meant to be a mild-tasting dish, something to be eaten on its own rather than in between many strong-tasting dishes. Whatever the case, while it was good, it wasn’t excellent.



Wafu steak £6.30 (beef steak with grated white radish served with salad)

Someone wrote a review about how they really liked the wafu steak from Asakusa so I decided we should try it out. The beef was tender and cooked rare (although we asked for it medium, but I like it rare anyway, so I wasn’t too bothered), although I perhaps should’ve eaten this before trying any of the other stronger tasting dishes.



On its own, as a perfectly-cooked piece of meat, this was a very good example of how good beef should be cooked. Each piece was seared on the outside, yet pink on the inside. Taste-wise, aside from being beefy, I couldn’t taste much else, so if you order this on its own, it should be top notch.



On the specials menu – deep fried sardines, about £4

After we’d spent about 15 mins deciding what to order, and then finally settling down to the 9 dishes or so, I found the green specials menu hidden underneath the main menu.

Oh no.

I can’t NOT order something from the specials menu, can I, so we did. Again, I’d read somewhere about the sardines being really good here, so I decided to go for the deep fried version of the fishy fish. While I really liked this, another friend who doesn’t like strong fishy-tasting fish didn’t.

I thought it was a fantastic example of what could be done with fish that’s usually deemed to be poor man’s fish, as not only was the fish so delightfully succulent, but the batter and combination of tangy salad actually made this dish a good, solid main meal on its own. I loved the strong fishy flavour that accompanied every crunchy, juicy bite, and could have easily finished it on my own.



Tako sashimi £6 for 6 pieces

This isn’t on the menu, but we asked the (very patient) waitress if we could have an order of just octopus sashimi and after a few trips to the kitchen, she returned with the affirmative answer that yes, we could have six pieces of octopus for 6 squid (ha ha).

The octopus was served very cold, and very thick. Each piece took a good few chews to get down, which, to me, is the sign of a good, fresh piece of fish.



Yakitori £2.50 (2 skewers of grilled chicken and onion with special sauce)

I would have more of an opinion on this if not for the fact that the fiance ate (almost) all of it while I was busy taking pictures of the food. I think, in fact, he spat out the last piece just as he was eating it, when he realised that he hadn’t left any for me. The chicken pieces were very juicy and tender, and that was probably because they used a combination of dark meat, and some skin, which grills really well. Compared to other yakitoris I’ve had, this one was possibly the best version of them all.



Maguro nuta £4.30 (raw tuna with special vinegar and soy-bean paste)

I’d never had something like this before, and I’m so glad I’ve now tried this. I don’t usually like tuna, because to me, the texture is kinda in the middle of nowhere. It’s not squidgy and creamy like salmon, neither is it chewy and firm like squid (my absolute favourite sashimi of all time). I don’t quite like the taste of tuna either, as it tastes of nothing (to me anyway).



I really like this version, though, because not only was the tuna cut up into thick, succulent chunks (making it absolutely meaty), but the lovely sweet and salty miso paste made the tuna actually taste of something. Like my friend said, you couldn’t taste the tuna underneath all that miso paste, but that’s how I like my tuna!

Tuna-lovers might not appreciate this dish too much, I don’t reckon. Salmon-lovers, tuck in.


Tsukune £2.50 (grilled chicken meatballs on skewers with special sauce)

I’m not entirely sure what this ‘special sauce’ is, as it seems to be popping up on most of the dishes. I’m pretty sure it’s not the same special sauce being used throughout, but whatever the case is, either the chef is being mysterious about it, or just can’t be bothered describing it in too much detail on the menu. So, I’ll do it.

It tasted like chicken meatballs with teriyaki sauce. Slightly sweet, a little sticky, and it had a hint of plum-like sauce to it. While entirely pleasant, it wasn’t anything too different, and made for a pleasing starter.



Green tea and black sesame ice-cream £3.40

We don’t usually order dessert at restaurants, but something in the air that day made us feel quite generous (and hungry) so we did just that.

The green tea ice-cream wasn’t green enough, if you get what I mean, but texture-wise, it was creamy and delightfully thick. Everyone at the table preferred the black sesame version, which tasted like black sesame, and if you don’t know what that tastes like, you should go try some out because it’s one of those things I just can’t describe. Eaten together, those 2 flavours are weird. Good weird though, as I finished off whatever the others couldn’t.



Japanese sweet £3.20

When we asked the waitress what this was, she looked slightly perplexed and tried her best to describe it to us. Because I kinda had an inkling as to what she was trying to describe anyway, I yelled ‘pancake?’ and was rewarded by a huge beam from her. Her happy nods and ‘Yes, yes, pancake!’ convinced me to order a portion despite knowing what it’d taste like anyway, and I was glad I did that.



I’ve had this before, but not had it warm, and the gloopy red bean paste sitting snugly inside a fluffy, spongy pancake made for a delightful round-up to the meal.

To sum it up, this restaurant, to me, is the best Japanese restaurant in town. Some restaurants only do sushi well, some only do cooked food well. This one is a front-runner in all categories of the menu, and they do what they do spectacularly well, at a very reasonable price. The service here was attentive, and efficient. The food is fresh, absolutely impressively fresh, and if I manage to book a table here again, I’ll most definitely be making a return visit to try out the other things on the menu.