Yo Sushi! 4/04/2012
My two very good friends, Jayne & Sam bought me a trip to London for my birthday to go to the new Westfield shopping centre and stay in a hotel over night. Perfect opportunity for loads of meals!
We arrived in London around lunch time and were starving so we head for Oxford Street and went to Selfridges and decided to eat at Yo Sushi! Im the only one out of us three that actually like sushi but they do a lot of other options on the menu.
I like the set up of Yo Sushi! As a restaurant, you sit down and there is a revolving table going round and round the middle of the bar area and you can pick up whatever bowl takes your fancy and how much you pay for each bowl depends on the colour of the bowl!
I firstly picked up an orange bowl with sushi in it, it was the Assorted Fish Maki which was two each of salmon, tuna and prawn and chive maki.
I really enjoyed this as sushi is one of my favourite foods! The prawn ones were probably my favourite but I enjoyed them all and they taste so fresh which is good!
I then chose a pink and orange bowl the pink bowl was Prawn Tempura which was black tiger prawns friend in a crispy light batter with tempura sauce & the orange bowl was Prawn Korroke which was Crispy Japanese breaded prawn and potato croquettes with kimchee mayonnaise sauce.
Both of these dishes were really nice but I preferred the Prawn Tempura because I found the Prawn Korroke a little spicy and dry. But overall both of these dishes were really yummy and I ate it all up!
I found Yo Sushi! a really good restaurant and it is really reasonably priced as you pay per dish. My dishes all together came to £11 which for three different meals is very reasonable! I really enjoyed it and would definitely come to Yo Sushi! more often!
Planet Hollywood 4/04/2012
We then went to Planet Hollywood in Leicester Square for dinner, we didn't go till about 9 because we had ate a lot at Yo Sushi! Planet Hollywood is a really funky restaurant with a good vibe inside, it has loud music and pictures of famous people all over the walls. The menu is massive and has so much choice! We decided to order a cocktail first and I went for the Titanic:
This was Skyy Vodka, peach schanapps, coconut rum, orange, pineapple juice and lemonade. This was a gorgeous cocktail regardless of the name ha!
We then looked at the menu and decided just to go straight to mains as the portions are massive at Planet Hollywood! The service is really good there and the waitresses are really friendly and helpful! The food took about 20 minutes to arrive after we ordered which is good as we were all very hungry!
I decided to go for the BBQ Pork Ribs for £15.95
Jayne went for the Prime Scottish Sirloin Steak for £18.50
& Sam went for La Lasagna for £12.50
As you can see the BBQ Pork Ribs were massive and were served with a lot of fries and coleslaw. This was gorgeous and the ribs were cooked perfectly, they fell of the bone and the sauce on them was so tangy! The fries were cooked perfectly as well, they were crispy on the outside yet soft on the inside, just how chips should be! I couldn't manage to eat it all but it was so good! £15.95 isn't cheap for a main course especially just ribs but you do get a lot for the money and it is very tasty!
Jayne really enjoyed her steak as well, it was a 10oz premium centre cut sirloin steak chargrilled to order served with peppercorn sauce, mash potato or chips and a grilled tomato and green beans. She ordered it medium rare and it was cooked perfectly! This was a very good dish but was expensive for £18.50 however you do get a 10oz steak for that price and you can tell the quality is a very high standard!
Sam went for her original favourite! She has this meal every time she comes to Planet Hollywood, the La Lasagna which is a californian twist to a class lasagne! Fresh pasta tubes filled with ricotta cheese and bolognese meat sauce, fried to a golden brown and covered with a garlic creams and tomato basil sauce. This is a good twist on a normal lasagna due to the fact its in pasta tubes not strips! It definitely looks good and Sam said its amazing! Over all I think this is a good price for £12.50 which is pretty good for a massive portion!
We decided not to have deserts as we were really full but we all really enjoyed this meal, it was expensive but worth it!
Pinkberry 5/04/2012
The next day we went to Westfield shopping centre in Stratford City where we did a lot of shopping! As a snack before we had dinner later on we decided to go to Pinkberry which is a frozen yogurt cafe. They have 5 different choices of flavours, classic, mango, chocolate, pomegranate or lychee. I decided to go for the mango flavour as its my favourite fruit! You can then choose what toppings you want they have a choice of hundreds .. fresh fruit such as, raspberries, strawberries, kiwi, blueberries, pineapple, mango. They also do dry toppings, cereal, brownie bits, gummy bears, shaved chocolate, crushed oreos, almonds and so many more! You then choose a sauce to put on top of it all from either, honey, caramel, chocolate or pomegranate juice.
I went for the mango flavour yogurt with strawberries and raspberries with smarties, shaved chocolate, brownie bits and caramel sauce! Its so yummy and really refreshing!
Las Iguanas 5/04/2012
We decided to go to Las Iguanas for our dinner as none of us had ever been before! Its a mexican/Caribbean restaurant with a lot of choice! The restaurant was in a food court upstairs in the shopping centre so was open plan, the restaurant looked out onto the shopping centre below, it was really modern and open! We looked at the menu and me & Jayne decided to go for the 5 tapas dishes for £23.00 to share between us whilst Sam had the Cuban Sandwich.
The 5 tapas dishes we went for were:
Nachos: home cooked corn tortilla chips with melted cheese, topped with aiji, jalapeños, salsa, soured creams & guacamole.
Chicken Wings: Spicy hot chicken wings sauced up with either: honey peri peri, spicy bbq jerk, vivo hot hot or voom warning seriously hot. We decided to go for the honey peri peri as we don't really like spicy food!
Gambas: greedy whole prawns, split and cooked in a garlic, lemon & chilli sauce served with bread.
Cha-Cha Chorizo: smokey pork and garlic chorizo, braised slow and lazy with onions in red wine, tomato and smoked jalapeño sauce.
& Pata Taquito: Rich shreds of roast duck and caramelised onion rolled in a flour tortilla and char grilled with sticky chill jam.
All of the dishes were really yummy and were pretty big! The nachos were as expecting to be honest, the tortilla chips were crunchy & there was a perfect amount of cheese and sauce on them, we should have asked for it without jalapeños though as we both don't like them due to them being too spicy! The chicken wings were probably my least favourite out of the five, which is unusual as I usually love chicken wings but I found these a bit dry and the sauce was sooo spicy and we didn't even pick the spiciest sauce! The prawns were gorgeous! Tiger prawns are one of my favourites even though they can be messy trying to take the shell of isn't the easiest of tasks! However these were worth the messiness, they were lovely and the garlic, lemon & chilli sauce gave them a kick! The Cha-Cha chorizo was really unusual but I really liked it, the sauce was very rich though and you couldn't eat a lot of it! The chorizo and pork were cooked perfectly and were so tender and the sauce they were in was very tasty! The bread helped to soak up the sauce as well and make it seem less rich. The Pata Taquito was probably my favourite out of the five dishes. the duck was so succulent and went perfectly well with the caramelised onions, it made it the perfect combination of sweet and savoury. The sticky chilli jam worked really well with the wrap as well and over all was a gorgeous dish!
This was a lovely meal which we all enjoyed thoroughly and was different to most restaurants and I really liked it, I would definitely go back to this place again and try more of the tapas dishes!
