Sticks & Sushi Review - Covent Garden

Busy Wednesday night at Sticks & Sushi, been wanting to go here for ages now, followed on twitter and been loving the pictures they and customers post @sticksnsushi_UK

Service is friendly and welcoming, staff keep calling out some name as they walk you to your table, don't ask me what it was, despite hearing it many times still could not make it out. once you have sat and ordered you are then given a warm fresh towel to clean your hands, always liked this especially when next thing on is picking and eating with fingers, especially for those not mastered the chop sticks yet

non alcoholic cocktails are excellent especially the one with liquorish & berries, the calpico & yuzu also very good

started with cauliflower that had been fried and served with black sesame truffle sauce, really tasty something different and unusual, cauliflower really picks up the flavour well. Really turns a plain vegetable in to something great.

 This was followed by first plate of sushi

• Daikon Gunkan trout roe with quails egg yolk - really divine roe like popping candy with running yolk that really added to the flavour
• Seared yellow-tail with tsume soy - the searing really helps here, very delicate fish
• Beef Nigri - very tasty beef, perfectly aged and sliced, little nut on top really adds to the total flavour profile

 

First plate of our grilled sticks

• Beef with miso herb butter - perfectly marinated and tender, ate so easy, very good quality meat used
• Panko breaded duck with wasabi Caesar dressing - a stand out dish, really divine, so tender and tasty, you must try these
• Beef with crunchy chilli & garlic - packed with lots of flavour, meat here was not as tender as the beef miso but was OK, just not as tender a little bit tougher, but still a great dish

 

 Second plate of sushi cannot believe i was still going

• Hamachi - really fresh fish used, very tasty and dipped well in the soy and wasabi
• Shrimp - again very fresh and tasty, great quality ingredients
• Miso marinated black cod with tsume & sesame - the heat in this dish really helps all the flavours melt together

 

 Finally another plate of delicious sticks

• Lamb chop with miso herb butter - little bit weird to have bone in rib on sticks, you forget when first biting in to it, but soon remember, again perfect tasting, lamb was extremely tender
• Free range pork and basil - another great meat, its so nice to see somewhere using perfect quality meat in all its dishes
• Scallop wrapped in smoked bacon - absolutely divine, perfect cooked scallops, cooked almost to the point, really succulent - you must try this

Review Hix Oyster House -Lyme Regis

Really nice location , great to sit out on the deck and good old British weather did not let us down

Service is ok, maybe a little too relaxed 2.5 hours for a two course meal, maybe too long for some but it was a nice day. Could do with being a little more attentive to empty water and asking if anyone needs anything, no mid meal check backs done

Excellent starters stand out dish mackerel salad with boiled egg and herb salad, very nice, but had to search for mackerel, a little more would made this a stand out 10/10 dish. I would say in general starters little bit pricey for quantity, however all excellent flavours, average 6/7 out 10

Mains were exceptional except for the dressed crab extremely poorly presented just chucked out of a packet and on to a plate, no care to make it look appealing or appetising, come on chef, you can do better especially for £14 

Other mains in comparison were far better it's hard to believe that same chef served up these different dishes. Rack lamb with cockles was excellent, as was the sea trout with girolle and samphire salad.

I would have scored higher had it not been for the crab main course you can get better on the Cobb for far less