Fitzrovia- Yaki Japanese Bakery

Or 'Yaki' for short.

'Yaki' means 'fried' in Japanese (some say 'grilled', but you don't grill yakisoba or teppanyaki, do you? It depends on if your heat source is coming from above or below I suppose).

Where?

Fitzrovia, London, 53 Goodge Street. Nearest tube station Goodge Street.

What?

A brilliant lunch-y place to go for Japanese food that's not sushi- apart from sushi burgers (the 'bun' is rice). Yo! Sushi would have you believe that they're the first to sell the sushi burger. They are, in fact, not: Yaki is. I can actually confirm this as I noticed Yaki and it's menu months before Yo! Sushi started boasting about it.

Anyway!

I passed by this morning and got talking to a very nice gentleman who was opening up shop- I think he may have even been the owner as he was very knowledgable and keen to tell me a bit about the business. He acknowledged the fact that there are a lot of places to eat sushi in London, and he wanted to offer something different in terms of Japanese food. At Yaki you can buy thing like okonomiyaki (Japanese savoury pancakes), tako-yaki (balls of a flour-based pancake-like stuff with octopus in the centre) and donburi (one-bowl rice meals). They also have sweets like taiyaki (filled pancake-like things traditionally shaped to look like fishies) and mochi (glutinous rice dumplings). Although it wasn't quite lunchtime and I left the area, I actually came back (from Camden Town no less) at lunch time to give it a go.

I love, love love it. The prices are great too, especially when compared with London's more well-known okonomiyaki place, Abeno and Abeno-too. Sure Abeno-too cook the okonomiyaki teppanyaki-style (in front of you on a hot plate), but £10 for a small pancake made largely out of cabbage, egg and flour is bloody ridiculous. At Yaki, my chicken teriyaki okonomiyaki was just under £3.50. And it was delicious, too: just as good as Abeno-too but without the fancy price.

Fluffy but satisfying, savoury with a decent amount of chicken, finished off with slightly-sweet mayo that offsets the savouryness of it perfectly.

I can't wait for the next opportunity to go there. I'd love to slowly make my way through the menu- and I especially need to try the desserts (you guys know how crazy I am about desserts- and how uncharacteristic of me it was to not have one during this visit!)

The guy-that-may-have-been-the-owner mentioned that they'd like to open up more shops in London, and I really hope they do well. This place most definitely has my stamp of approval.

Trafalgar Square: Eat Tokyo

This place is pretty much as authentic as you can get here in London when it comes to Japanese food.

Where?

On Whitcomb Street, a stone's throw away from Charing Cross underground station.

What?

This place not only boasts authentic Japanese food, but it has an almost mind-bogglingly huge choice of it, too.

Good thing I came with friends to we could order a whole bunch of stuff and share.

I don't eat prawn so I got to watch and laugh as my two friends struggled with this one!

The thing in the photo above looked frigging amazing in person, and was called something like 'dragon roll sushi'. At least, it definitely had the word 'dragon' in it, and it definitely looked like a little dragon on a plate.

We got a mixed sushi platter, salmon sushi, yakitori and agedashi tofu, too. It was all delicious.

Sushi rainbow!

The Japanese tea was lovely, too. I made quite an embarrassing gaffe: when we were ordering drinks, I blurted out 'a Chinese tea, please.' My friends and the waitress went silent, and the waitress narrowed her eyes.

"Japanese tea," She corrected me. You could actually hear the bold, italic and underline in her voice when she said 'Japanese'. My face went very red, I think.

Embarrassment aside, if you love things like sushi, bento and katsu curry, come here! You'll be blown away by the choice, so if you can, come with friends so you can have a bit of everything.