London: Abeno Too

yes, finally we're back!! our sincere apologies for the delay - the two of us have been caught up by busy schedules alongside our regular procrastination. i know that fat udon is having a hectic time at her college right now, and here i just wanna say good luck to her with working on her papers (not that she needs it anyway, as you will soon discover, she's oozing with talent when it comes to writing in general).

oh well, as for me, i've been working and travelling here and there...to give you a bit of my background, i'm currently on a gap year, and the idea is for me to rethink whether what i've been doing at uni is right for me...so i'm basically trying out different jobs to get a taste of working in a variety of industries. i've also been travelling to various places in the past year to relax and to experience different cultures. actually i've started to like travelling around so much, i'm a bit worried about how i should manage my finances.....

anyway, enough about me. (i'll get fat udon to do one paragraph like this too when she writes her piece, hehe~) so i went on a trip to england about 3 weeks ago, met up with some friends and visited lots of lovely places such as durham, newcastle, york, nottingham, coventry.....and of course, last but not least, london!!! shopping is amazing as usual - there's carnaby street which is this v.hip place with lots and lots of cool shops, i was simply in awe of everything that i came across and kept throwing away cash!! it's impossible to miss major stores on oxford street...and covent garden, which has always been one of my favourite shopping spots, is as sophisticated as ever.


on the day before i left, i decided to go for some last-minute shopping with a friend. after a very brief walk through covent garden, we were originally planning to head to chinatown at leicester square for lunch - but then we walked past Abeno Too and my friend said she's read some good reviews about this restaurant, so we agreed on giving it a try.

this relatively small Japanese restaurant was clean and neat, with seating arrangements similar to sushi bars - a large square of tall seats surrounded a few tables by the side. the white/silver/wood furnishing and french windows added a bright yet peaceful side to it, and along with the light music played in the background, the general atmosphere was similar to a sophisticated cafe where you can relax and have delicate food and drink for the whole afternoon undisturbed.

originally we thought it served teppanyaki (the Japanese BBQ, where the food is grilled in front of the customer), but then we looked at the menu and it declared the restaurant's specialty to be "okonomi-yaki". now try guessing what it looks and tastes like with the following description!

seeing that we had no idea about what we should order, someone came over to help us out. normally you'd expect that there would only be Japanese staff even in these overseas restaurants, but a brit, who we assumed to be one of the maitre d's, very helpfully explained about the okonomi-yaki in detail. later we found out that he speaks fluent Japanese and has a Japanese wife!! well, the infiltration of culture is not just unidirectional from the east to the west after all...

the okonomi-yaki, he said, is basically a mixture of rice, egg, and whatever toppings chosen by the customer, supported by a special dough at the bottom, with additional bits of seasonings such as seaweed and Japanese ginger. we had their daily special which was shrimp and salmon. here's what it looked like before he started cooking:

half-way through the frying:

ok, before we look at the final products, let's check out the side dishes.

the miso soup looks more or less the same, but the taste was great, especially when the texture of the beancurd was optimally soft. and do not underestimate the beans - as commonplace as they might seem, the topping was actually sesame instead of what you'd probably assumed as garlic. it was deliciously fresh and appetite-provoking as a starter.

After an anticipation of roughly 5-10 mins, it was finally done!!! take a look at it with the Japanese topping and sauces:



i wish you were there to smell it - interestingly, it didn't smell like omelette at all though there was such a high egg content - it was almost each ingredient's smell was distinguisable but they all merged into one unique smell!! you can imagine how long the wait was for us. the taste, needless to say, was reflected by the smell - it was so much more than what we'd expected to be "a form of rice omelette". room for improvement, though - the salmon wasn't fresh enough and had a bit of the stinky fish taste when cooked....but the shrimps balanced this flaw. in general, it was a light but pleasant meal!!

seeing how good the main dish was, the two of us decided to order desserts as well - but i would only recommend the white chocolate French ice-cream becoz of the special flavour. it didn't taste too milky or vanilla-like, but instead it reminded me of the Hokkaido white chocolate. the fruits/ice-cream one that my friend had was ok, but my mocha sundae was too sweet and heavy for the stomach....

we haven't developed a proper grading system yet, but below is a summary of the above (score out of 5):

*food - main dish: 4.5; dessert: 3.5
*ambience - 4
*service - 5
*pricing - 4. i forgot to mention: it was around 12 pounds per person, including desserts and drinks. i think this is pretty reasonable for central london.
*location - 4.5. less than 5 mins' walk from leicester square tube station, also easy access from covent garden on foot.

check out their webpage posted as a link here!! for some reason, only the last two options are working, but the contact details of their 2 shops and some photos of food on their menu are available.

that's the end of my little food venture in london. i recommend going there if you wanna check out this Japanese specialty as it is rather rare in london. hope you enjoyed reading this....we'll be updating more often!! =)