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).

M’sia – Takeaways

While back in Malaysia, we ate out alot, but sometimes it’s really nice to buy the food back to be eaten in comfort as opposed to while sweating, on a bench, avoiding other people's elbows while they stand over you trying to make you leave the table so that they can have it all to their selfish selves. I know because I’ve done that lots of times. The making people leave, not the being asked to leave.

I find it especially useful when applied in London restaurants because the diners here are not used to this method of Table Battle. Though, they seem to be catching on in Chinatown. Thing is, you don’t really need to do Table Battle when the waiting staff do it for you (throw-bill-on-table technique).

Sometimes we like to buy siew yuk (roast pork) from the markets. We either eat them on their own, dipped in some soy sauce, or we have them with the fried meehoon (vermicelli) from the market.

Even with siew yuk, there are famous and not so famous stalls from which you can buy these little pieces of roast pork. The locals have their own favourites, but one of the better ones is the stall with the lady seller in SS2 (the side closer to McDonald’s).

Our favourite Indian rojak has to be the one from Hasan (mobile rojak van, that’s what it’s all about). Him and his van are based in SS2, outside King’s bakery and the queue to buy the rojak seems to be getting longer all the time. Lovely pieces of fried flour (there must be some name for it, but I don’t know what that is), with some cucumber, hard boiled eggs, all topped with lovely, slightly sweet peanut sauce.

Whoa and then we come to the Ramli burger; the Malaysian-made burger which is like no other. Only sold in hawker stalls, or, more specifically, Ramli burger wheely carts, these little patties of processed, slightly peppery, slightly soft meat sandwiched between 2 halves of buttered and lightly fried buns are completely different from the burgers you find elsewhere.

When the guy makes it and wraps it up in the waxy paper, it takes quite alot of effort not to eat it immediately. By the time you get to where you wanna eat it, the sauce, the heat, and the soft bread will have all combined into one mushy mush, kinda like what you see in the picture above. It’s still really awesome though. Maybe it has to go through the whole steaming process, to kinda let the sauces blend. Maybe it won’t be as nice if it was eaten on the spot.

The Hokkien Char. Anyone who’s anyone knows that a proper Hokkien Char has to be the one with the fat, yellow noodle. Yes, crude description but it is just that – fat – yellow – noodles. Someone said you can’t find these exact types of noodles outside Malaysia (myth not debunked, so I have no comment) but recently, I’ve seen this dish on menus in London’s Chinatown restaurants, so maybe they’ve started importing the stuff. (But if there is still none here, a business opportunity seems to be on the horizon)

The Hokkien Char above was from the coffee shop by the petrol station in Section 14 (or somewhere there). This is as good as it gets from me, as far as directions go. No need to get absorbed in the details, you know what I mean? There is a coffee shop by the petrol station, it sells Hokkien Char, and that’s all you need to know.

And that the Hokkien Char is oh so niiiiice. Thick, gooey sauce (and the noodles) with lots of lovely little things to pick out (prawns, fish cakes, vegetable, squid).

And to round off a post on takeaway food, what could be better than one plate full of stuff – kinda like the Best of Takeaways Compilation 1.

Now That’s What I Call Takeaway (vol. 1).

Eating in (January 09)

Despite many hints, requests and blatant questions of ‘Could I get free food’ from restaurants (kidding), I have not yet managed to get any free meals. This is despite the fact I bring my camera with me to most places in hopes that the waiters might get interested, and perhaps mistake me for some famous food reviewer. So far, this has not been fruitful.

Thus, I resort to cooking some days.

For those of you familiar with my industrial-cooking methods, what I cook on Monday tends to still be there on Friday. No, it’s not because it’s that disgusting that I can’t eat it, but the quantities are enough to frighten even champion eaters away.

This was one of those meals. The beef stew above looks good (compliments to the chef) for one meal, eaten with potato waffles (always bringing the standard down, bit by bit). After the 5th meal of beef stew with something else (variety is very important), it starts to get slightly bland.

After a week of beef stew, it’s time for another week of fish pie. This was made with store-bought mash (no time to make mash, one of the flaws of modern existence, but perks of supermarkets) and lots of store-bought fish.

With store-bought parsley sauce over the fish. It was surprisingly nice, perhaps even more so than store-bought fish pie, difference being although all the ingredients are store-bought (as they usually are), I assembled it myself.

Usually at the end of the week, we enjoy going out to eat in town. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as we’re not cooking it as this is sort of like a break from the weekday routine.

Thing is, when you eat out, you have to:
Fight for space
Fight for food and sometimes
Just watch other people fight (this is London on a Friday, after all).

Thus, it was really nice to discover that the bf had bought some roast pork rice from Chinatown, along with sushi from Yoshino Sushi (new store opened on Shaftsbury Avenue) for dinner, meaning we didn’t have to go out for dinner.

This was the siu-yuk (roast pork) rice from Yeung Cheng in Chinatown, across from Yoshino. For about £5, the portion was huge, and there were lots of roast pork with the impressive amount of rice. Best thing about it was the gravy that came with the rice. I could eat just plain rice with gravy all day.

This was the sushi selection from Yoshino. Although not technically sushi (fish on top of rice), and more, maki and uramaki, not so bothered as long as it tastes nice.

The sushi from Yoshino is always very fresh, and the rice is soft and chewy without having that horrible refrigerated feel to the rice. They also make what you want if there are none on offer, and most of the time, it’s cheaper than buying it from supermarkets (and much nicer).

Until I get those free meal offers, I’ll be posting about my eating-in meals each month.