Waitrose Lunchtime Sushi (@NLi10)

My favourite quick lunch is sushi.  I discovered this at Uni and haven’t stopped the trend. Bromsgrove has a new Waitrose so I managed to pick up a selection to share for lunch. And here is one with quinoa instead of rice - super cool!

Well - until you open it and find out that they put mushrooms inside without putting that on the main label on the box. Disappointment city. Luckily I was able to trade these with my partner for some of her lunch otherwise they’d have gone in the bin!

The black rice rolls were nice, but didn’t overcome the disappointment of not getting to try the quinoa.

My partners basic veggie selection.

I also had a tiny box of Katsu bites which was a very welcome addition. The sauce is fantastic and basically a mayonnaise mix. Not healthy but very good. This felt worth the money for the box and went further than I expected.

All in all it was a nice mini meal, but I’ll have to flip the boxes in future to check for things I can’t eat - get.

Sushido, Sutton Coldfield UK @sushidouk @NLi10

When thinking of great Japanese food Sutton Coldfield is not the first place that springs to mind.  At one of our many (many) games nights it was suggested that we'd all like Japanese food and there wasn't a reasonable option on the chosen food app.  What to do! One of the group remembered that a restaurant that he'd always fancied when driving past had a big sign up saying 'we are now online for deliveries' or similar and a quick Google later we found them and ordered away!

The SUSHIDO website is here if you live locally!

They warned us that they could take an hour, but delivered in around 40 -  a rarity that other local places could take note of! And not only that, the food was really well packaged and came with chopsticks and sauces ready to be mixed to eat.

Naturally I had the Katsu Chicken Curry to put them head to head with Birmingham favourites Yakinori (who win all kinds of awards with this, their signature dish).  The quality was certainly close and I'd have to try the restaurant to get a perfect comparison but I think the Yakinori version edges it.  The fact that I'm not able to dismiss the SUSHIDO version instantly speaks volumes to the quality though, and everything here was similarly good.  And at £60 for 4 people including sides it was very reasonably priced.

It's a veritable banquet and the four of us had more than enough to go around.

The sushi had survived the trip well and I am told that the wasabi was particularly potent!  As the location of the restaurant makes it hard for us to just pop in (which is a shame as I think they'd wow us in person). I know we will be certainly ordering from here again and probably even having extra games nights locally as an excuse to try more of the menu.

A victory for small businesses with easy to Google names and 'We Deliver' signs!

Bonus mini review: the host had some Kikkoman brand Plum Wine, which oddly I'd not had before.  It was very warming and had a nice deep flavour - but I'll stick to soft drinks (and large quantities of their soy sauce!).

Sushi - @Tesco Summer Selection (Ltd Ed) [Review by @NLi10]

Occasionally I pick up sushi for a work lunch, and when I do I often get some for a friend of mine.  He returned the favour recently, but grabbed this new exciting looking variety pack.

And this is what it contains!

The coronation chicken sushi sandwich was quite nice.  This had no raisins in to spoil it and was just a lightly spiced chicken layer in normal sushi rice with no wrap.  Unusual flavour for sushi which was a good start to things.

The coleslaw in the little hosomaki was overpowered but the carrot wrap flavour/texture that was also going on.  I think that these were pretty interesting to look at and enough of a different flavour that you could give this to people who find the fish and seaweed style of sushi off-putting and they'd be converted.

The next one contained prawns which I do tend to avoid, but turned out fairly nice.  The lemon wrap was a little zingier than the carrot, but the centre of the chumaki was the star and contained most of the flavour.  

The BBQ wrap was totally the star of the package. Unexpected flavour burst with every mouthful and it was something I'd have never considered trying to do to sushi at home.  It's worth picking one of these up as a sushi fan just to try this, and I'm sure i'll be looking out for these on menus in restaurants now.

Finally we had the normal looking hosomaki but with a minty kick. I'd expected these to be the bulk out of the package but they went the whole way and only included interesting options.  Not something you'd rush to buy, but included in the package an interesting twist on a classic.

I'm sure the reason behind this pack is that they are thinking of choosing one or two options to add to their existing range, and I'd vote for the BBQ every time.  I do think that a 'sushi Jr' pack with carrot and lemon wrapped sweet flavoured sushi would sell well and could even be targeted at the teen and child market.  I'd be interested to see where this goes, and hope to nab a few more of these before the limited period ends.  Yum!