steamed rice - Travels for Taste

Uni brings Nikkei Cuisine to Victoria

July 20, 2014 by manjirichitnis 11 Comments

The largest Japanese settlement outside of Japan is in Peru and the unique fusion cuisine that is Japanese Peruvian is called Nikkei. Fiona invited me to accompany this time to discover Nikkei, she is an award-winning freelance writer and marketing consultant who currently writes about travel and London lifestyle for a number of publications and runs her own London lifestyle blog called London Unattached.

So it was a bright summer Monday afternoon that I trooped to Uni (the Japanese word for the sea urchin, a Japanese delicacy) restaurant and sushi bar designed by Andrew Martin, in Belgravia minutes away from the travel hub that is Victoria station.

I was shown to a cosy table downstairs.

For starters, I got some steamed edamame with a spicy chilli and garlic sauce (£4.50) and some refreshing green tea served in a typical cast iron heavy pot which I would love to have as part of my growing food prop collection which now occupies every corner or of our tiny rental flat much to the chagrin of my hubby – I guess the last straw was trying to pass off a very heavy cast iron pot as a ‘place to keep his USB drives and hide away the many wires…. hehehee

I had happily managed to forget my phone at home and therefore Fiona tried in vain to inform me of her delayed train. Blissfully unaware of this I sipped my tea and munched my edamame all the time trying to ignore some stuffy banker-type folks on the table next to me talking shop – how boring…

So when Fiona arrived she managed to move us to a bigger table away from the ‘big boy talk’ as she aptly called it and onto a table where I could dump my bags and lay my camera lens and other paraphernalia – I do not travel light …

To make life easier we chose to have bento boxes for our mains and mine came with the udon noodle and fish cake soup while Fiona had a light Miso soup. I was feeling ravenous by the time the soup arrived and devoured it in a flash! (£24.5 per bento box – comes with soups, salad, sushi, & maki, main dish, side, rice and dessert)

Nabe Udon – Noodle and Fishcake Soup with Prawn Tempura.

Beautifully light Miso Soup

My Bento box had Kaiso Wakame – seaweed salad, prawn and carrot tempura, main of duck tataki – seared duck breast finely sliced and dressed with mirin and soy, fried rice and sashimi selection. The duck tataki was deliciously morish, I also loved the seaweed salad and the sticky fried rice with the sashimi was very filling.

Fiona’s bento box came with steamed rice and artichoke sauce, and black cod and was very appetising.

We washed down our Bento lunch boxes with some chilled sake.

The very polite manager came and urged us to experiment with some of the Nikkei range from the menu and we were served two stunning dishes.

Tiraditos of Yellowtail with kizami wasabi,Yuzu and fresh mint presented in a creative and stunning display, it was delightfully fresh, sharp in taste with a delicate balance of colour and flavour. (£15.5)

Wildly beautiful looking salmon tartare tacos with cucumber,tomato,masago and creamy miso were crunchy and melt in your mouth creamy all at one once exploding with a light flavour in every bite – delicious! (£6)

Stuffed to the gills now I had to walk around click a few pictures and allow for some space to be created in my tummy to fit in some dessert 😉

To my amusement the very attentive young lady on the staff showed us how the colourful lamp shade were made from bottle of campari that could be detached and well glugged , given it was a hot summer afternoon I think it was a great idea that Fiona ordered us some Pisco Sour shots instead ;).Never having tasted these before I downed them in one go much to my own peril, the sake already in my system the shot gave me quite the buzz!

Thankfully, my cooling Matcha Gelato worked wonders and cooled me down several degrees -phew!

Fiona managed to stay light with desserts too with a selection of fresh fruit.

The creation of former Nobu chef Rolando Ongcoy, the menu at UNI offers a good selection of grilled meats ,fish, sushi,sashimi, selection of tempura and maki. The Peruvian influence is prevalent throughout UNI’s menu, ceviche and tiraditos peruano included.

The bar area upstairs also has plenty of seating on high stools and around the bar, perfect for knocking down Peruvian fav’s like the pisco sours or coconut-based Chilli Mojito.

Victoria being a very office space kind of area is lucky to have Uni in its midst now, with bite-sized healthier meal options, seven-dish bento boxes for short lunch hours are on offer at a price of course. So the big banker boys and girls can have their financial pow-wow meets in the fancy cubicles or basement vaults if you please which can seat about 10 – 12 people, and if the huge ice buckets with bottles of chilled Moet and the power talk we overheard from the table next to us are anything to go by then Uni is already a haunt for these suited and well-heeled office folks!

Website: Uni
Opening Times: is open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Saturday inclusive

*With thanks to Uni for the invitation. No monetary compensation was offered for a positive review. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Pomfret Fish Curry – Flavours of Konkan and a Bengali Bhaja with spring onions and potatoes

August 18, 2013 by manjirichitnis 12 Comments

When anyone asks me what I would like as my LAST meal,I always say I’d like some fried pomfret so naturally when I go Indian grocery shopping I always check for this fish. Though I must admit, nothing beats the flavours one gets from fresh fish.But well just have to make do with frozen fish as the one I love is a Pomfret local to waters of the Indian Ocean.

This is a relatively simple recipe and does not require much effort but the marination is key as it can really give depth of flavour which is what we need.

I had 3 of these beauties to cook and couldn’t resist getting them to pose for my camera all dressed with the dangerously delicious spices that I rubbed into the fillets.

Serves: 4 (with rice and a vegetable dish included)

Ingredients:

3 medium sized white pomfret
2 large tbsp coriander and green chilli paste
1 tsp of ginger garlic paste
1 1/2 tsp Red Chilli powder
1 tsp Turmeric
3 -4 cloves of garlic cloves with skin on
2 tbsp grated coconut
a pinch of Asafoetida/Hing to dust into the oil
2 tbsp refined oil
Juice of 1/4th of a lime
Salt to taste

Method:

Ok it’s relatively easy making fillets after this fish has thawed thoroughly as it has very few bones, I like to remove the bit in the front with the eyes and the tail and also remove the fins then make fillets the size fit for a curry or fry.

Wash thoroughly and marinate with red chilli powder, turmeric,salt ,ginger- garlic paste,coriander- green chilli paste and set aside for at least 40 minutes.
After the marination is done,heat oil in a saucepan,add asafoetida just a tiny spritz and throw in the crushed garlic cloves with their skins on and as they start to brown add the marinated fish n toss it around for about half a minute.
Add enough water to cover the fish and cook on a low flame.
As the water begins to boil add in the finely grated fresh coconut and stir in well till the curry is nice and thick.
Simmer till the fish is cooked and squeeze the lime into it.
Serve with steaming hot rice and allow yourself to enjoy this simple yet classic fish curry, an everyday fare in the houses along the coast of Konkan and a great treat in ours.

These beautiful flowers are on stalks of fresh spring onion!! Unexpected, I know right?!! My ma (in-law) very patiently chopped these stalks, created this cute little spring onion floral display and the whole idea of this photograph with books we are currently reading is hers.

I was so excited to see them and had to buy myself two bunches and look for a Bengali Bhaja or bhaji (Marathi) sabji/sabzee (Hindi).Found a lovely food blog called Hamaree Rasoi and you can read the recipe here.

Needless to say the meal was supremely satisfying and we all slept with gentle snoring now and then …tmi- oh yes totally 😉

The Day the internet failed……

June 13, 2012 by manjirichitnis Leave a Comment

I wrote this piece on Monday evening ,the internet went up after a few hours ,after I wrote this , spent all of yesterday doing god knows what , so here I am updating my blog with stuff I should have uploaded long back …guilt guilt … sighh:)

It’ s been a very wet day , I woke up at half past 11 , quite late for a Monday morning for most of the world , including my hubby , but well ,probably acceptable for a retailer like me for whom a weekday becomes her Sunday . I would have typed 11:30 but the habit of saying half past so and so has finally seeped into my head thank to all the people around here at work in London , just another small, subtle but noticeable change at how one’s surroundings make us change our long learnt habits .

I do feel like stepping out and just talking a walk but my back has been sore for a few days and yes the weather isn’t helping at all in pushing me to step out , maybe if I treat myself to a new pair of wellis in a bright and cheerful pop colour it may help.

I just saw a movie ‘’Sabrina’’ on T.V as I tried many times unsuccessfully to get my internet up and running , I started cooking too , now am brewing some hot ginger tea and am frying some spicy , hot dal vadas (fried crunchy finger food made from ground dals) , waiting for hubby to get home .

I know that by the type I upload this to my blog, the whole moment will have passed away but just wanted to write about it.

I am at home alone , it’s still a bit bright outside , there is a slight drizzle, a lonely person is trying hard to stay warm in a thin flimsy wind cheater on the bus stop opposite our building gate .I feel grateful for being indoors, having a warm place to stay , food to eat , a husband that loves me to bits and pampers me rotten , a laptop on which I can type this piece onto and a fairly decent life with very few things to crib about ,of course it isn’t perfect , but then isn’t perfection another illusion, shall I just say that I am happy with my life for now , it does suffice for now, certainly does .

I have a book next to me that I want to read , I will after I write this and sip my tea as I wait for my husband to get back from work.

I know what’s for dinner, a spicy traditional fish curry with steamed rice, comfort food for the soul.(The fish of choice is Bombay Duck – or as we call it in Marathi my mother tongue – ”gatgate” or ”Bombil”)

I don’t want to call anyone though am missing home back in India real bad since morning. I am sedate in a way but totally restless in some far corner of my mind.

I am not sure what the reason for that restlessness is, but then if we always knew all the answers for what we feel and why, life wouldn’t be what it is, would it?

I have no idea if anyone will read this and if they do what would they think about it? Spot a few grammatical errors perhaps or maybe incorrect sentence construction. Some might even think, ‘’what garbage, just because blogging is free, everyone who can type thinks they can write’’ Partly true perhaps as well I guess…

Anyway , I am not writing for anybody , it’s more of a release, a diary of sorts , a catharsis even , who knows …just that I want to write this for now …

Aaah the husband’s back, now to get cracking on preparing dinner, catching up on how we spent our day and other daily stuff that life is made up of…..

Bye bye or as the babes in the new Fosters telly ad say ‘’Toodles’’ ….