Tag: Japanese

PB Eats… Shoryu

One of my most favourite cuisines is Japanese.  I used to think it is limited to sushi and sashimi, and I thought after stopping seafood I might as well have struck Japanese food off my list. But two trips to Japan later, on a vegetarian diet – wow!  The variety! The flavours! Back on my list 🙂 Ramen took off in London a good few years ago, but it was always off limits as they were – and still are – pork based soups on the menu.  Until Shoryu came along – and introduced a soy milk ramen, the ‘White Natural’.

Not meat or fish based, but a stock made with soy milk, miso, konbu and shitake.  Whooo!  This ramen bowl was full of tofu, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and seaweed.  We also got to choose the firmness of the noodles – from standard (my choice) to extra firm (no thank you).

Stunningly good, full of flavour and texture.  The noodles had the perfect bite and this bowl was the perfect dish – I loved it.  I also ordered a side to share – mainly because it sounded very intriguing on the menu – “Black sesame tofu with sweet miso sauce and tenderstem broccoli”.  I love black sesame – both in sweet and savoury dishes and definitely wanted to give this a try.

What arrived was a jet black block of tofu with a single, sorry excuse of broccoli – would make sense to leave it out!  This was so utterly delicious – the texture was more of a set pudding than tofu, with a hint of tofu, a hint of black sesame and that thick, rich miso sauce.

Since we had room for dessert (isn’t there always room for dessert) we decided to browse the dessert menu.  There was only one dairy free dessert – sorbet, but this time I was excited. The flavours – umeshu (plum wine), yuzu (my favourite flavour in the world) and chocolate and wasabi.  I went for the first two, accompanied with a cup of oolong tea.

This was turning to be the perfect meal. I got a cup with two giant balls of sorbet – both white.

Both flavours – the umeshu and yuzu were utterly delicious, but I did hit my limit once I finished.  My friend enjoyed her dessert as much as I enjoyed mine – she ordered the yuzu cheesecake and a matcha tea.

I absolutely loved Shoryu – I have never had a bad experience here – neither with the food or with the service.  And even though my options here are limited – well, there is only 1 main – it is consistently good, and I will keep going back!

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PB Eats…in a week

I’ve been eating a lot over these past few weeks.  I’m planning to take a break from work for a few months – no 9 – 5, no meetings, no tube in the mornings – just want to travel and eat :).  So this means lots of lunches with work mates, I’ve been going out virtually every lunch time.   No fancy restaurants, but a lot of food.  Started off with good old Wagamama and my standard staples – it is either the Itame or the Yasai Yaki Udon.  I also ordered gyoza and added most of the gyoza dipping sauce to the udon – result = full of flavour.
Next meal of the week was in Camino , a popular tapas restaurant, where I’ve always had consistently good food.  I started off with some plump, juicy, grassy olives. They were fat and full of flavour – just how I like them.  I ordered my favourite dish, but forgot to take a picture of it – pan con tomate.  Nice, crispy bread, fresh, juicy sweet tomatoes with a slight kick of acidity.

I ordered a couple more dishes, the Patatas Bravas without the aioli, and this really interesting aubergine dish.

Some of the potatoes were soft, while others harder and crunchy – variety is nice, but here there were just a bit too many extremes of texture to make it enjoyable, and to be honest, I would have liked the bravas sauce to be a bit spicier.

I thoroughly enjoyed this dish – 4 baby aubergines, stuffed with a mixture of tomato, onion, coriander and mint, dressed with a ‘mojo verde’, a garlicy, cuminy coriander sauce.  Soft, flavourful and fresh.  I’d eat it again.  Next lunch time meal – Nando’s! I had a veggie wrap (hold the yoghurt) and decided to go for the macho peas.

Always ordering off menu and more, you can see from my sticker what I ended up with – hot, veggie, extra avocado, extra mushroom and there was even a special label. Why thank you 🙂  Always delicious, dipped in the medium sauce and the wild herb sauce.

I ended the week with dinner at Rocket.  Now here was one place where I was really limited in terms of options.  So when in doubt, I go for the dependable menu item – Pizza!  Thankfully the server was so accommodating and said she’ll put an order through for any pizza toppings I want – yay!  This base was similar to Franco Manca – chewy and totally moreish.

I went for mushrooms, peppers spinach and basil.  It was tasty but it was ginormous, and I couldn’t finish the whole thing. Obviously, because I wanted some sorbet 🙂 There were three options – mango, blackcurrant and lemon.  I chose mango (I will always choose mango 🙂 and blackcurrant.

The mango sorbet was creamy and not too sweet.  The blackcurrant sorbet was horrible.  Sickly sweet, icy, crystallised. Eugh.  I left it all.  I also didn’t get why they sprinkled copious amounts of icing sugar all over! Noooo!!

So that was a lot of eating out, and it is set to continue… Not that I’m complaining 🙂 🙂