Sushi competition at Tsuru

The final five contestants

I've mentioned before my search for a new regular good-value sushi joint in London after my previous favourite, Zipangu on Little Newport Street, closed down a few years ago. Recently my favourite place to go has been Tsuru, originally with one branch near London Bridge but now expanded to open new branches at Mansion House and Bishopsgate. Tsuru is a hugely popular lunch spot for city workers, with its sleek wooden benches and beautiful sustainably sourced sushi on offer. As an out-of-town worker, I always visit in the evenings, where the lunchtime fridges are pushed back and the lights dimmed for a much more relaxed evening menu including hot dishes such as the gorgeous katsu curry. 

Recently, Tsuru held a competition to find a new idea for a sushi roll to add to their menu. Inspired by their katsu curry main dish, I suggested a chicken katsu roll, with a chicken and red pepper filling and a tempura flake coating to give the sushi roll a bit of added crunch. Jon decided to enter too, and went for a more korean-inspired recipe of slow cooked pulled pork with pak choi and ginger filling, and a black sesame seed coating. We thought nothing more of our entries until a few weeks ago when we were delighted to hear that both of our recipes had been chosen for the final! We were invited along to Tsuru Mansion House for the somewhat daunting task of making our recipes for the restaurant owners and other judges to see who would make it onto the menu.

The finalists assemble our creations

The evening was really good fun, with the guys at Tsuru having gone to a lot of effort to make sure all our different ingredients were sourced and ready, including some amazing pulled pork for Jon's recipe from Pittcue. One of the chef's demonstrated how to roll our sushi, before we nervously presented our creations to the judges and waited for the results whilst we tucked into our lovingly-made dishes. In the ended, the judges decided on two joint winning recipes, one of which was Jon's slow cooked pork dish! His recipe will be on the menu to buy at Tsuru for a month starting from now, and whoever sells the most sushi rolls will win a magnum of Bollinger and the honour of a permanent place on the menu

My crispy chicken katsu rolls!

You can find Tsuru at London Bridge, Bishopsgate or Mansion house, and online here. Please give the slow-cooked pork a try! Thanks to Emma and all at Tsuru for a great night.

Steve Hatt's fishmongers - Islington

One of my absolute favourite japanese dishes has to be salmon and tuna sashimi. It's so simple - just thick slices of fresh raw fish served with wasabi and soy dipping sauce. It's all about sourcing the right ingredients - you must use only the very freshest fish. Whilst travelling around Japan last year, I was fortunate enough to sample tuna sashimi at what I believe is its finest, at a restaurant next to the main fish market in Kanazawa. The tuna there had come straight off the boats and into the restaurants in a matter of hours and had such a wonderful melt in the mouth consistency - not to mention huge portion sizes and a cheap pricetag! In London however, we are not so fortunate and sashimi is often one of the most expensive dishes on the menu. I have dabbled with making my own sushi rolls and nigiri before, but always stuck with cooked or smoked fish as I don't really trust eating raw fish from my supermarket or local fishmongers in Walthamstow.

Recently I had the pleasure of eating at Fernandez and Leluu's supper club in Hackney (more on them in a later post!) and one of the dishes they served was their own unique take on Fish and Chips - salmon sashimi served with wasabi mayonaise and double cooked chips. I learnt that they get all of their fish from Steve Hatt's fishmongers in Islington - so I decided I had to pay them a visit. I came across the shop after about a ten minute walk from Angel station down the Essex road. In the window was an impressive display of all types of fish and seafood, including my Holy Grail - Sushi grade Tuna and Salmon! I picked up a large salmon fillet and large tuna steak for £8.50, plenty for two very generous portions of sashimi. We had it for dinner that evening served with rice, miso soup, wasabi and agedashi tofu. A perfect homemade japanese meal! I will definately be back to Steve Hatt's maybe to try some monkfish tails or clams next time

You can find Steve Hatt's shop at 88-90 Essex Road Islington, London N1 8LUTel: 020 7226 3963. Opening hours are Mon - Sat: 7am -5pm

Review - Tenshi Sushi Bar, Islington

Ever since my favourite sushi restaurant - Zipangu in Leicester square - closed down last year I have been on a mission to find a suitable replacement. Zipangu had that perfect combination of great location, good food and cheap prices that kept me going back whenever I was in the area, and I was devastated when I walked past one day to see that it had been taken over. However, this has given me the perfect excuse to try out loads of new Japanese restaurants! I remember discovering Japanese food for the first time when I moved to London, and it has been a bit of an obsession of mine ever since, so much so that we chose to spend two weeks travelling around Japan for our honeymoon last year.

I had heard that a new 'cheap and cheerful' sushi restaurant had just opened in Islington, and decided I had to give it a try. Tenshi is located on Upper street, near to Angel tube station, or a ten-minute walk from Highbury and Islington. It was a Thursday night and the restaurant was pleasantly busy, with room for about ten diners downstairs and another twenty or so in the upstairs seating area. The delightfully friendly japanese waitresses all chorused out 'Helloo!!' when we walked in - definately a warm welcome! We ordered Chicken yakitori, edamame and crunchy tuna rolls for starters, then Jon had the sashimi set main course while I had the tempura Udon. I have never had crunchy tuna rolls before but I have to say they were fantastic - they are basically a tuna sushi roll that is fried until the outside layer of rice pops and takes on a rice krispie texture. My Tempura udon was also excellent with two huge and perfectly tender king prawns on a bowl of noodles and tempura vegetables. Jon was a little dissapointed with his sashimi set, for £9.50 he got three rather small peices of tuna and another three of salmon. All in all with two beers the bill came to £33.

The verdict - A very friendly little restaurant. we will definately be back but for now the search for my favourite japanese restaurant continues!