'Birthweek' - Nobu

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” 
― William Shakespeare

As far as birthdays go, I like to drag mine out as long as I can.  So this year was to be no different and I celebrated with a very indulgent birthday week!

After a lovely time at home with family - consisting of lunch out, lots of champagne and cake and cuddles from my gorgeous baby cousin I jumped on the train and travelled back to London to continue the festivities.

I was in work on my birthday and so we had a delicious breakfast of granola, yogurt, and honey served in champagne flutes... (somehow eating granola out of flutes makes it even more decadent!)

  ...freshly baked croissants for them and a beautiful hamper of gluten free goodies from Selfridges Food Hall for me. 

 (If like me you aren't good with wheat then Selfridges food hall is the place to go! They have their own GF bakery on-site and the choice is unbelievable -I highly recommend the Raspberry apricotines!)

After work, I raced home, ran a bath, made some phonecalls, and got dressed for dinner.  C was arriving at 7.00pm and we were off to Nobu Berkeley Street for a birthday meal!

We had pre-dinner drinks in the bar downstairs, I went off menu and ordered a Lychee Martini and C ordered James Joyce's Martini...

Both were delicious, C's was slightly stronger tasting than mine and I felt my garnish could have been slightly more inventive but they did the trick!  After drinks we were led upstairs and shown to our table where we started to peruse the menu... 

We have a slight tendency to over order in restaurants and as we fancied everything on the menu, this was going to be a tough decision....  We ordered some warm saki to help the process...

Once the waiter had agreed we had ordered more than enough we sat back, sipped our saki and looked forward to our meal.

We started with the usual - edamame beans and rock salt - followed by Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalapeno. This was in-cred-i-ble, I could have eaten a whole dish of it on my own, so tasty and light.  (So good it was gone before I even had time to take a photo, sorry!)

Next up was lobster tacos.  These are miniature yet delicious, quite sweet tasting, and were a contrast to the zingyness and fresh taste of the other dishes.  They weren't my favourite, and I suppose also quite expensive for the size of them, but delicious all the same.

The Tuna Sashimi Salad with Matsuhisa Dressing  then arrived at our table.  C had loved this dish last time and I have to say it didn't disappoint!  

 

(The pictures really don't do it justice....)

Within a bed of salad, under carrot mooli are quite large, lightly seared, pieces of tuna in the most delicious dressing I've ever had.  The dressing (named after Mr Nobu himself!) is made of soy sauce, mustard, rice vinegar, onions, ground pepper, sesame oil, grapeseed oil and sugar.  It complimented the fresh tuna and crunchy salad so well.  By far one of my favourite dishes!

Next came the Soft shell Crab roll. This was C's favourite

We also had the Salmon and avocado inside out roll but both agreed the soft crab roll was the winner out of the two!

We also had King Crab Tempura with Ama Ponzu which was delicious - warm with a very light batter how tempura should be - before the final act of the Black Cod Den Miso.  

Black Cod is Nobu's signature dish and you can't go to Nobu without trying it, just once.  I absolutely love black cod, being a fish lover and with a sweet tooth it is my ultimate dish.  I always love black cod but I particularly love the way Nobu do it - it's moist, the right side of sweet and presented with it's own little 'paintbrush' in order to brush your own miso on. 

Feeling contently full and with so many delicious flavours on the tongue we politely refused dessert ..and so instead made our way downstairs to the bar for a nightcap!

...Espresso martinis, the perfect ending to a lovely evening.

I find lots of restaurants in London can be hyped up and overrated, people visit them because it's good to be seen there, however Nobu deserves all of the hype that it gets.  Every bite is literally a taste sensation, their standard of food never alters and is always innovative and beautifully presented.  A truly great restaurant who's food speaks for itself...

You can book Nobu online here or it's always good to call.  

Thank you Nobu Matsuhisa for setting the standard!