Sushi Hiroba, Kingsway, London

The conveyer belt sushi restaurant is a marvellous invention. So far I have only experienced Yo Sushi, so I was delighted to discover another one, Sushi Hiroba, on Kingsway in London. The conveyer belt style is known as “Kaiten-zushi” (thanks, Wikipedia). It particularly suits my enjoyment not only of eating food, but looking at it as well!

We were in London for the Taste Festival, but fancied some sushi for Friday night dinner. We were quickly seated at the bar and given menus. The food is priced in the same way as Yo, with coloured plates indicating the cost of the food. The conveyer belt was pleasingly full, and I enjoyed my usual choice of Salmon Maki along with a range of sushi rolls. Sushi Hiroba is probably a bit more adventurous with their roll designs, as I kept seeing a roll filled with a slice of banana passing by on the belt. (I didn’t try this one as it breaks the Leeds Food Leads rule of food – no sweet with savoury. This applies to Hawaiian pizzas, gammon with pineapple, and now I find, sushi).

Service was a little slow – it took a while for our drinks to arrive. The hot food we ordered arrived promptly, however. We managed about eight small plates each.

I would recommend Sushi Hiroba. The choice in Leeds is fairly limited so if you are a sushi fan, it is always worth checking out what’s available in other cities.

Wagamama, Leeds

A big steaming plate of noodles is just what you need after a hard week’s work so last Friday night we paid a visit to Wagamama.

Who am I kidding? ..... A few glasses of Pinot Grigio are just what you need after a hard week’s work but supplementing that with some noodles is not a bad idea! We started the evening in the Radisson hotel bar, where I drank the place dry of Pinot. I only had one, it just happened to be the last glass in the last bottle. Ah well, we wouldn’t be staying long as we were meeting one of A’s work colleagues visiting from America to go somewhere else for a drink and possibly some food. And hotel bars are notoriously expensive.

As a Leeds food blogger of some months now, I rather embarrassed myself by drawing a blank when asked by our visitor where was good to eat. I seem to be doing this a lot recently which is strange as I have had some really good meals in Leeds city centre. My excuse is that I hadn’t really thought it through, having raced off to the supermarket after work and then raced into Leeds to get there for seven. Luckily, A suggested Wagamama, a great choice!

The restaurant is a series of long bench tables, so there is an air of community to the eating experience (or communism*, if you prefer). No meat and potatoes here, though. Instead, the menu is a selection of noodles, rice dishes, and those watery-soup noodle bowls (called Ramen, I believe). These never look that appealing to me so I ordered some chicken gyoza followed by Yaki Soba – chicken, prawns, some vegetables and thin noodles.



The chicken gyoza were lovely – steamed dumplings with a dipping sauce. Sadly I had already laid into them before remembering the photo....

Yaki Soba is a generous portion but is quite light and so easy to clear your plate. I added a little chilli oil, which is available on the table, just to spice things up a bit.



Another bonus is that Wagamama** has added Pinot to the wine list – I always had to have a Rose on previous visits which doesn’t quite float my boat.

I like the way the waiters take your order and write your dish numbers on your place mat. I like the way they bring the food out in any order without rigid rules about courses (a touch of anarchy*). I like the way you can hang your coats up in a line on the wall - a bit like being in primary school. I like the way you can eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. I also liked the food and the company.

*Please note references to political ideologies within this post are purely accidental – next time I may be reviewing a Liberal lunch, a Marxist breakfast or even a Tea Party.

**Wagamama has a motto: “positive eating + positive living”. I can just imagine a load of marketing apprentice-types sitting around a boardroom table brainstorming this wonder of a catchphrase. What I want to know is, what is negative eating? On second thoughts, probably best not to think about that!

Little Tokyo, Leeds

Many of my blog entries seem to begin....”We were meant to be going to_______, but it was closed/full, so we ended up going to ________” I am aware it makes us sound a bit hopeless at organising/planning our dining experiences, and maybe we are! But I was not hopeless this morning when I printed out a voucher for 29% off at Yo Sushi (fantastic deal!) and headed off into Leeds to enjoy an hour of maki, hairy prawns and sushi rolls at the top of Harvey Nichols.

Except when we got to the top of the 4th escalator, we were faced with a boarded off area – “sorry for the appearance of this area, it is being refurbished”– What????? So they are doing up Yo Sushi in Leeds – I suppose it is starting to look a bit worn. Meanwhile, Yo Sushi head office are sending out e-mails to regular customers, inviting them to take advantage of their “ScorchYO” discount offer – something to do with taking the summer temperature at a given point in the week (i.e.29 degrees) and then having that number as the % discount for the following weekend– a nice idea, apart from the fact that our local Yo Sushi is closed! But like the troopers we are, instead of banging out a snotty e mail to Yo Sushi discounts department and billing them for the cost of the diesel and the car parking, we hatched a new plan. So I shall begin this post again......

We were meant to be going to Yo Sushi, but it was closed, so we ended up going to Little Tokyo. Can you see the theme developing? The thing is, once A gets his heart set on something he is going to eat, he cannot under any circumstances change direction. Japanese food was on his mind and that was what he was going to get.

Little Tokyo is a favourite of ours anyway – their sushi selection isn’t great but we ordered some nigiri and vegetarian rolls to share for starter.

We followed this up with bento boxes – literally a box with little compartments in it for the different dishes. A bit like the trays you might get in a prison but much nicer*. The bento includes a compartment for rice, tempura vegetables, salad, fruit, soy sauce and then whichever main dish you order – I had battered king prawns and A had fish balls. Both bentos were really good. I particularly like the tempura vegetables – aubergines, sweet potato, carrots and beans.



The place was busy for a Sunday. Maybe they were mopping up diners from the Yo Sushi fallout. There was a bit of held-hostage moment at the end, waiting for the bill, but it arrived – about £38.

And Little Tokyo has a coy carp pond inside, with a bridge over it. When you walk past, all the fish come to the surface with their mouths open. A nice touch.

*I have never been to prison, by the way, but I was an avid fan of Prison Break before it became crap.

Yo Sushi - Harvey Nichols, Leeds

We are regular visitors to Yo Sushi, after A discovered the joys of sushi on his travels in America a few years ago. In Leeds, despite a number of Japanese restaurants, there appears to be slim pickings on the sushi front. So Yo Sushi, upstairs in Harvey Nichols, seems to be the best bet.

Luckily, it’s good. So instead of a heavy Sunday lunch of roast beef and all the trimmings, we went for the lighter option of fish, rice and soy sauce.
Yo sushi is always busy on a Sunday. A short queue had developed but we were quickly seated on the bar stools. Most seating is at the bar, wrapped around the kitchen, where the staff make all the food in front of you. There are a few tables that can seat about four people on one side.

The conveyor belt of small portions moves around the room, and customers take them off when they see something they fancy. Plates are colour coded for price, which makes it easy to keep a track of what you are spending. The empty coloured plates are added up by the waiter at the end and you are presented with a ticket to take to the till on the way out.

Many of the cold dishes are already on the belt – sushi, sashimi, sushi rolls, maki, salads and desserts. You just lift them off when you see something rolling past that you like the look of. Hot food and drinks are ordered from the staff. There is a button in the bar you can press to switch a light on to make an order.
Also built into the bar are storage areas where you can find your chopsticks, ginger, soy sauce and wasabi (hotter than it looks – use sparingly). These mix very well with the sushi rolls.

We both ordered hairy prawns to start – my particular favourite.



We then proceeded to take plates from the belt...

Salmon skin rolls (A’s favourite)



Tempura prawn rolls



California rolls



Avocado maki




All very good as usual. I particularly like the maki, as they are small enough to put in your mouth whole. The bigger rolls I feel the need to bite into, often spraying rice down my shirt. I think the right way is to eat them whole too. Contrary to popular opinion, my dentist reliably informs me that I actually have a small mouth.

The only issue is that sometimes when we go to Yo Sushi, the belt is full of plates and we struggle to decide what to have. Other times we arrive to find the belt mostly empty, or full of desserts. I am not sure why this is – whether they have certain times of the day when they fill it up, or whether it is an issue of staffing. Maybe I should ask. This is not too much of a problem though, as if there is something you want that is not on the belt, you can just order it. Maybe it just appeals to my love of buffets, having lots of food floating past that I can look at.

Yo Sushi sometimes has special discount offers. They also have a “Blue Plate Mondays” promotion, where more plates are blue (i.e. cheaper). It is worth checking their website for the latest promotions before you go.