Cheapest Sushi In Town (with Froyo for dessert!)

This place is one of my favourite places to drop by whenever I'm needing a quick sushi pick me up (let's be honest, when don't I) and also me and my best friend's favourite place to hang out at.

This is me and my sis' FAVOURITE (We call it the jizz salmon roll)!

 When this bad boy starts making its way down the conveyer belt we just stand up and walk over to where it is and snatch it before anyone else gets it. Yup we're crazy!

Why? Its only $8 (hkd) a plate!!!! That's $1USD!! For everything and anything !!!

There's no menu here, just grab whatever you fancy off the conveyer belt! The service is rather mediocre but the sushi isn't bad (considering the price!!) And even sashimi is the same price.

It does get busy here during peak hours, especially on the weekends, but the wait is usually no more than 15 minutes but there is a 50 minute time limit until they evict you. 

Not fat at all (ok we shared that)

They also have dessert like cream puffs, cheese cake or puddings!!  But we usually skip dessert here so that we have just a little bit of space left for some delicious frozen yoghurt across the road at tuttimelon. yum yum!

Green tea, passionfruit, Angel something (Strawberry and coconut) and japanese yoghurt flavoured froyo with blueberries, mangoes (trying to be healthy here!), strawberrry flavoured crunchy dots, GREEN TEA MOCHI and mango flavoured popping bubbles. YUM YUM YUM. yes i realized that I went overboard after I threw everything in...)

Sushi Express

G/F, Taurus Building, 21A-21B Granville Road, Tsim Sha Tsui  

(Opposite The One) 

Tuttimelon

Shop L308, TheONE, 100 Nathan Road

PS: Some exciting news! I have been invited to London Fashion Week which will be coming up in less than two weeks! So watch this space guys! 

xx Vagabond Girl

Russian Food

One question I got a lot after my stay in Russia was, what do they eat there? Not going to lie, I had no idea what Russian cuisine was either. I just assumed it involved potatoes, meat and..well vodka.

My family were so worried that I was going to starve to death as I don't eat meat, while I just saw my trip in Russia as a "pre-bikini-season-diet" since there was probably not much I could eat. Oh how wrong I was....



For starters, everyone remembers the insanely gigantic portions I got for breakfast from my crazy babushka right? Well I was told by a Russian teacher that Russians always say "At breakfast you eat a lot, then for lunch you give half of it to your friend, and for dinner you give half of your lunch to your enemy" and to be quite honest, that is actually good for you...

Anyway, on the top left we have these pancake things made of grated courgettes, egg and smetana (my arch-nemesis) which is sour cream and is put in everything. However it is not the normal sour cream that you find in your nachos, but like his weird Russian cousin. Those were alright, but the smetana in it gave it a very strong sour, off-milk kind of taste which I wasn't a big fan of.  To the right we have that nasty fish which I refused to touch (I think it was herring). Then to the right of that, is a sort of scrambled egg thing with beans and tomatoes, sometimes it would just be tomatoes, and once I got scrambled egg with macaroni, it wasn't bad. Oh and let's not forget the vast quantity of dill that would coat that dish. And most other dishes of course. Honestly, the word DILL sums up my Russian experience - it's everywhere! Pasta! Pizza! Sushi! Soup! Salad! Now even i'm hooked and resort to buying Dill and putting it on everything! (#truerussian)

Next we have some strawberries, they were always smaller and wild looking, not those massive British ones that i'm accustomed to, but they were nice. Sometimes Babushka would use a fork to mash them up, but sugar and then pour tea on it to make some delicious strawberry tea. Yum! On the yellow plate is just a boiled potato. To the right is a type of "kasha" or porridge. Babusha made me many different types of kasha, like normal kasha which was like oats cooked in milk, "Manna" kasha which was like semolina cooked in milk and this one here which has rice and pumpkin. Babushka always used to bury a massive lump of butter somewhere in there too! There was also the obligatory glass of milk, which sometimes looked very watery with lumps of cream floating on the top, but hey if it tasted fine, I drank it. Whatevs. Never got delhi-belly! Usually there was also a boiled egg in the corner, begging to be eaten, and also that bowl of biscuits which just chills there.

Baked milk via

Babushka also sometimes made me some food for tea, as that woman was forever trying to feed me, and trust me, I'm not a skinny girl! She sometimes made plain cake with those strawberries in them, "buterbrot" which is just a slice of bread with cheese on top (like an open sandwich), or I would just eat the damn boiled egg.

via

One thing I really liked was tea with "baked milk" or топлёное молоко which is this kind of milk which has been simmered for 8 hours or longer and has this brownish tinge to it and a caramel-y kinda taste. When added to tea, it reminded me of Hong Kong style milk tea and made me feel right at home.

Obviously there was Mcdonald's in Kazan. Conveniently situated on the main street, Baumana, it was where most of my friends had lunch and hung out after class while taking advantage of the free wifi. Being not a big Mcdonald's fan myself, and also not being able to eat much that's on the menu anyway, I think I ate there once, and it was just for a hot fudge sundae. I mean, I WAS in Russia to try it's cuisine! Right....?

 Not really... Being the incredible sushi whore that I was, I frequently had sushi. And that means every 3-4 days. Sometimes even two days in a row, because this bitch don't care. This was a "5 person sushi set", and we beasted it in 3...and left the restaurant still hungry. (We paid about 400 roubles each, so like £8 each?) But it was a very fancy restaurant!

Ресторан "НАО"(Nao) 
Адрес: Казань, ул. Галактионова (Galaktionova), 6
Телефон:  236-16-94  link

Yes caught in the act here! This time it was after a long day at the beach! One thing which was very popular in Kazan (and maybe in the rest of Russia? I'm not sure) are "Pizza-sushi" places. Although it may sound like a weird combination (I mean come on Pinocchio/Small Tokyo was the name of this place! ^ ), it worked out very much in my favour because I was always annoying the hell out of everyone, trying to get people to have sushi with me. However with pizza-sushi places, they could choose to have pizza if they weren't cool enough to have sushi with me! Win win situation! This restaurant was nice too and rather decently price, (a sushi set like what you see on my plate there was about 300 roubles? so £6)

Pinocchio/Small Tokyo
улица Профессора Нужин (Professora Nuzhin, right off Pushkina)

Thanks to Pola for the photo 

However, bad service in restaurants and shops are the norm when in Russia. Here are me and Pola happily munching away while Ellie just sits and starves. Her food arrived when we finished!

But my favourite place of all was Планета Суши, which is a big chain sushi restaurant in Russia, but the lunch set was such a good deal that we always tried to make it in time to have it! 210 roubles (just over £4) for a drink, an appetizer for example, 8 sushi rolls (i always got the Philadelphia roll) and a main course, like noodles or rice (The mushroom and Salmon noodles with sesame sauce was my fave!). So cheap and SO filling, we always walked out clutching our bellies and desperately finding the nearest bench to have a food coma in. The a-la-carte menu is also amazing with really funky sounding fancy rolls and even dim sum! But it is a little pricier than other place for that!

Russia also had an amazing selection of crisp flavours. Here i'm holding up a packet of the new Salsa flavour by Lays. Yum! They also had many other amazing flavours like Mushroom, potato with butter and dill, pickles and dill, smoked cheese, bacon, crab, sausage, salmon and cream sauce and my favourite flavour of all : RED CAVIAR. 

The root of all my problems.  via

Another hotspot for us poor students was the кулинария "5 рублей" (Kulinaria pyat rublei), a self service type cafe right on Baumana (number 21, opposite Dom Knigi) where everything is lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and incredibly cheap while being incredibly delicious. From pirozhki (these baked or fried pastries with fillings such as potato, cabbage or mushroom and cheese) to semi fried buttery potato cubes, to soups, to rice, to kotlets (cutlets) made of beans or cabbage and salads too. It was just a great place to go and eat as it was so cheap and delicious.

(Left) Rice with mushrooms and carrots (it even had a saffrony taste to it!) - 30 roubles, (Top Right) Baked пирожок (pirozhok) with mushroom and cheese - 15 roubles, (Bottom Right) Mushroom and potato salad with mayonnaise and spring onions  - 30 roubles.  Total of 70 roubles which is £1.40!!! )

The inside of the cafe. There were always long lines at lunch time. Lots of students and workers eat there. Great place for a quick bite.

Another similar buffet/self-service style cafe we went to every now and then (especially if this place was too packed) was чак-чак (chak-chak), just up the road on Baumana as well. It was slightly more expensive with a similar meal costing about 180 roubles but with a little more variety and meat dishes as well.

Credits to Pola

 Of course the infamous дом чай (Dom chai) which is also on Baumana is also another similar place with similar food again. However the prices just cannot compare with кулинария "5 рублей".

A salmon пирог (pirog) or pie! yummy!

We also went to an Ukrainian restaurant once, which was recommended by our Russian teacher called Корчма Млин which is right off Baumana. It was my first time having Ukrainian food and being the massive dumpling fan that I am, I decided to try the Varyenky. These dumplings can either be boiled or fried (being the fatty that I am these are obviously fried), and typically have fillings such as mashed potato, cabbage or even cherries! I decided to go for the mashed potato, and I also chose to have some fried onions with it (though I thought it was going to be inside the dumpling), and there was also the option to have other toppings such as fried mushrooms. Also please note the giant dollop of evil semtana in the corner (die bitch die). These dumplings were definitely not what I had in mind (when I think fried dumpling, I think gyoza/gao zi style things with thin crispy skin) however, the skin of these dumplings were very thick and doughy, it was almost like a panzerotti (or just like a mini pirozhok). I thought that it was a very carby meal with the dough and the potatoes together and it was a little bland, but very nice and interesting nonetheless! 

Корчма Млин
Островского 39/6 (Университетская)

Dessert at the Nation-wide cafe chain Shokoladnitza (theyve got good food!)

Buterbrots with red caviar which we had at the theatre while watching the ballet as well as a Russian cheesecake thing which my friend was obsessed with.

And of course, there was vodka.A lot of vodka. My dear friend Ellie (check out her blog here!) bought me a bottle of this "Norma" vodka. (No it's not "Hopma" but the "H" is a N and the "p" is a R). It sure was good vodka!!! This bad boy is only about 240 roubles (under 5 quid.) Yeah, the amazing thing about Russia was that all the naughty, sinful vices were DIRT cheap. Pack of cigarettes? 72 roubles for the nicer ones (£1.40 - cheaper than duty free!) Half litre can of beer? about 40 roubles (80p. YES) Oh Baltika 7, I love you.

xx Vagabond Girl

3 days in LA - Day 2 (Warning : may inflict an increase of appetite)

What better way to start the day than with some good old breakfast food? And what better way to have good old breakfast food than have true American brunch at IHOP?! IHOP aka International House of Pancakes (which I beg to differ, is not really International at all, since we do not have it in Hong Kong!  ) is a place which I suppose serves all day breakfast! 

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I am actually a pescatarian meaning that I do not eat any meat (chicken, beef, pork or lamb) but I still eat fish and seafood (partly because of my unhealthy addiction of sushi). Because of this, Cindy and her family ordered this vegetarian savoury crepe for me. The crepe was wrapped around cheese and spinach and was covered in melted cheese. It was truly delicious, and the fact that it was wrapped with a thin crepe (instead of an omelette) made it not as heavy as it looked.

They also ordered a beef and cheese omelette which also came with a stack of pancakes. One thing that I noticed when reading the menu was that the amount of calories in each dish was displayed next to the price. A very good feature of American restaurants as I generally like to know how much i'm consuming and whether I should eat something or not despite how delicious it looks.

Although this was a good feature, the fact that every dish had about 800-1200 calories really put me off the food. The crepes had about 800, the omelette had about 1100. The worst part was that I knew that if I wanted to at least maintain my weight, my body needed only about 1400 calories (and if i wanted to lose weight my body needed about 1200!) so I basically did not have to eat for the rest of the day! Normally if I ate a lot in Hong Kong and I couldn't go to the gym, I would walk an absurd distance halfway across town instead of taking the MTR (subway) just to burn some calories and explore the town a little, but being in California where it was impossible to go anywhere without a car, it simply was not possible. :(

Since we also ordered a plate of sausages, bacon, egg and hashbrowns (which I did not eat as there was meat touching everything ) that also came with ANOTHER stack of pancakes. What really excited me was how they had 4 different kinds of sauces to pour over the pancakes! "Old Fashioned", "Butter Pecan", Strawberry and Blueberry. So I had two pancakes and tried each sauce over each half of a pancake. I must say though, "Old Fashioned" and "Butter Pecan" tasted rather similar... I couldn't really taste the difference (maybe because they are both brown?) :P

After shopping my tits off at the nearest CVS pharamacy and then continuing at a nearby mall, Cindy decided to take me to "Boba" or what we in Hong Kong call Bubble tea! I was surprised that it was so popular in America! Though I have to admit that the area that Cindy lived in was mainly full of Asians.  The menu too was full of typical asian snacks that I have back in Hong Kong : Shaved ice, thick toast, not to mention "boba"/bubble tea (and you could choose to have aloe, sago, mochi etc.). This made me really feel at home!

Another thing I noticed is that in this area, not only were there a lot of asians, but there were a lot of Cantonese speakers!  So I really felt as if I was still in Hong Kong! With people in the cinema and in restaurants jabbering away. Mwahahah I understand what everyone is saying! Latinos speaking Spanish, I  understand you too.

The lighting in California is always amazing. Even in the "parking lot"

We then made our way to Old town pasadena. An outdoor shopping area full of shops and restaurants. Naturally we decided to sweep through all the classic places, Forever 21, H&M, Zara etc.

After a long day of just buying everything in sight, we decided it was time for more food. Being the incredibly indecisive people we are, we kept asking each other what we wanted to eat. I am a huge fan of Japanese food (particularly sushi!) while Cindy hated raw food but loved meat. So we narrowed it down to Cheesecake factory or this Japanese restaurant that we were standing in front of. Since Cindy didn't want to walk all the way to the Cheesecake factory  we decided to eat at the Japanese Restaurant called Kabuki.

I must say that it fully satisfied my sushi craving (but only for the day, since I get sushi cravings every day! Every meal even!).

The meal started off with some salad or miso soup. I chose the miso soup as I felt like it fit the mood much more. Sadly I must say that it was rather disappointing as the tofu bits were minuscule and looked really spongy and weird.

The sushi however was amazing!  It was really comparable to the delicious ones in Hong Kong. The salmon looked almost fake for some reason, but it was really good nonetheless. I didn't know what some of the fish was as I usually just order salmon (as it is my absolute favourite), but they were delicious. The rolls were average, but maybe thats because I prefer traditional nigiri sushi.

Cindy on the other hand ordered this roast scallop with fried onion and bacon. I tried a little bit and it sure tasted good! However one of the downers of this place was the service - which was very poor. The waiters were slow and tended to forget things. For example we dropped a fork on the floor and they took about 10 minutes to get us a new one. Cindy also wanted to ask after she ordered the scallops whether they would be fully cooked, again we got ignored for so long that the food arrived before we could get anyone's attention! So it was a shame that the service ruined the overall experience at this restaurant. (The man sitting on the table next to ours even recommended that we "throw a shoe" at the waiters! haha!)

Sushi with my sister/best friend!

So after school, I went for sushi with my "sister" (we're not really related but we're too similar in so many ways!) at one of my favourite sushi restaurants in town, Monster sushi. It is located in Langham Place, a huge mall in Mongkok, one of the busiest districts in Hong Kong, (I have mentioned this before in my blog, "Crowded corner") .

On the twelth floor of this gigantic mall, is Monster Sushi. 

Normally it is absolutely packed with people especially at dinner time and at lunch time during weekends. However, I went at about 4:00 so the restaurant was almost empty and we got to sit at an amazing table right on the edge of this glass pane over looking mong kok. 

 

Just imagine! how this would look like at night! with all the neon signs, lights and people! 

The ambiance was also really nice, with the weird bulbous lamps all clustered together. However I must say that the music did not really fit as it was mainly like pop music! 

Sushi is my absolute favourite food in the world! I love dimsum, I love Italian food, French food, anything, don't get me wrong, but sushi is just my favourite of all! The first we had was Inari with Mango and Salmon, which although may sound like a weird combination is actually pretty amazing. The other is a seared salmon (which is seared with this blowtorch thing, i saw them do it I was like WOAHHHHHH!) with mayonnaise (i personally like to call this salmon jizz sushi :P  ) 

Next we had eel and avocado rolls (much better than the original eel), and a toro and salmon gunkan, another one of my personal favourites that I order all the time. 

Spicy Soft-shelled crab sushi (it actually wasn't that spicy) and the godzilla roll, a specialty of the restaurant. I had never tried this before, and when it came, we weren't really sure what was in it exactly. However I know that there is a bit of crab and maybe fish? and some cheese, and it is kind of hot as there is some crispy thing on once side so the cheese is warm and kinda melty. It was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. just like WOW. 

So so so yummy. I really recommend it! 

We also ordered grape sodas, which had these little jelly cubes at the bottom as well, since my friend doesn't like tea, and they offer free green tea with unlimited refill here. It was also cheaper to get two. We also ordered Inari sushi and shrimp tempura sushi.

In total we spent about $250, so it is slightly more expensive than your standard "Genki sushi" but for example the standard salmon sushi is $14 for 2 and the salmon is very big compared to the rice, so I would say it is reasonable. 

Also everytime you go they give you this coupon for $100 off the next time you go, however it is only valid if you eat after 9:30pm.

Langham Place!

note : some images taken from : 

http://entone.com