sticks n sushi, covent garden, london.

drawing inspiration from japanese and danish cuisine, sticks n sushi is the perfect restaurant for sushi lovers and sushi doubters alike. following the simple concept of, quite literally, sticks and sushi, the menu is a mix of traditional sushi and grilled yakitori sticks with a few salads and sides thrown in. 

this could be anything from carefully crafted rainbow rolls and fresh tuna tartare to glistening miso marinated black cod and grilled king oyster mushrooms in herb butter.

flesh & buns, covent garden.

this is somewhere that almost became my favourite restaurant before i'd even been. you know that feeling? where you just know as soon as you get there that you're going to want the whole menu? i'm absolutely enamored by japanese and chinese inspired cuisine, so as soon as i saw these steamed buns all over instagram i instantly knew i needed to try them. i realise these have probably been all over the place in the big smoke but coming from a little leicestershire town it's a real treat for me. 

i was down in london this week, luckily a couple of days before my birthday, and so it was the perfect excuse for grace and i to go wild on salmon, soya beans and steamed buns at flesh & buns ! 

dishoom bombay breakfast, covent garden, london.

a full breakfast menu with an indian twist; an unlikely combination. could it work? i ordered a chocolate chai whilst i perused the likes of bacon naan rolls, breakfast lassi, fire toast and akuri which is spicy scrambled eggs. decisions decisions! there are even bloody marys for those who are feeling a little delicate. i'd been to dishoom and experienced their dinner menu before so they had a lot to live up to...

the chocolate chai was, as you'd expect, a mixture of house chai tea and dark chocolate - luxurious and infused with spice. the only thing is i did need caffeine quite badly that morning. request for chai mocha please? :)

so since i couldn't decide i went for bombay omelette and sausage naan roll - hoping the naan would be sort of like a side. it wasn't - so i was pleasantly stuffed by the end! the bombay omelette consisted of "a crazy-paving omelette of chopped tomato, onion, coriander and green chilli served with tomatoes grilled on the vine and fire toast". 

the omelette was delicately seasoned, the tomatoes perfectly grilled and the sauce was like a spicy tomato dip. the fire toast was tasty but a bit too much for me as i'd also ordered the naan! silly emily! though not bad for £5.90 hey?

dishoom, covent garden, london.

since my friend grace fled the midlands for the big smoke, i enjoy visiting london for work even more than i did before. she never fails to find us somewhere incredible to go for dinner and dishoom bombay cafe was no exception. 

like me, grace loves lots of seafood and interesting veggie dishes (i have a bit of a paneer addiction at the moment) and so i let her take the lead as a dishoom regular/expert/obsessive. everything comes out as and when it is ready so we just chose a few dishes between us. first up was the pau bhaji (£3.90). the toasted pau bun was gorgeous and we kept dipping into the chunky mashed veg sauce for the whole meal.

next came the orka fries (£3.50) and the dishoom calamari (£5.20). i hadn't tried orka fries aka lady fingers before and don't have anything to compare them to. however they were really crispy and delicately spiced which seemed right to me. the indian style calamari was out of this world...

a little picture of the flavours dancing on my plate whilst i waited for the more main dishes.

next to arrive was the mattar paneer (£7.50) and chef's covent garden special (£14.90) which was soft shell crab in an ensemble of tomato, ginger and coconut milk. to accompany (as if we needed it...) we went for steamed basmati rice (£2.20) and a garlic naan (£1.90). not bad prices for london, hey?