Now, I know Leeds is our university, our home and our favourite city. However, I’ve got one place I simply cannot neglect any longer. I’d like to take you away from our vibrant city to the luxurious centre of London’s Covent Garden. I need to tell you about this experience, as it was the highlight of my one-day trip to London.
I booked this restaurant as a surprise for my boyfriend for his 21st birthday. It’s a big one, so I needed to pull out all the stops.
We have tried many cuisines – as you have already read about in my previous Date Night Diary entries – however there is one in particular we have not tried. This is sushi. An unusual choice for a restaurant: it sets a new precedent against the typical UK restaurants of Italian, Indian and Chinese. I knew my partner had wanted to try it for some time, and thought what better occasion than his birthday, in a ‘bottomless sushi and tapas’ experience.
The restaurant was hidden down a side street, adding to this mystery for his surprise dinner. Upon entry I could see my boyfriend’s eyes scanning the room, trying to work out where we were. His face lit up at the name of the experience, and then even more so when he saw the table. Because each table was not just a table. It was an extra-large tablet, entirely touchscreen, where you could scroll through the menu virtually and tap on the food to order it to your table. Not only that, but the table also had a selection of games, including air hockey and mind games which you could play against each other across the table.
The food arrived, placed on top of the table, all on their small, separate dishes. Each sushi plate had about 4 pieces of sushi, from fish to vegetarian. I highly recommend vegetarian sushi rolls if you are new to the cuisine. It’s a great starting point and will only make you more confident to try the more daring dishes. The tapas ranged from edamame to soups to ribs and katsu chicken… I could continue forever. This was the best chicken katsu I had ever tasted, may I add. My only critique of the menu was that I felt there was not enough of a range in sushi types or flavours. I’ve since been to other sushi restaurants where these is chicken and duck sushi, and all different types of rolls. However, as an introduction to Japanese cuisine, it was the perfect start. We tried pretty much every dish on the menu, and how could we not when all the food was bottomless?
The price range was at the higher end as it was London, however we definitely ate our money’s worth. The service was perfect, with smiling waiters bringing over the food in less than a 5-minute wait. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, as did my boyfriend from the huge grin on his face as we rolled out the door full of food. And don’t worry, I won’t gate-keep any longer. This luxurious, high-tech restaurant is called Inamo, and I could not recommend more for a date night out in London!
Written by: Madeleine Brooks
Edited by: Hannah Marie