Food, food, and more food

On Thursday a few of us went out for lunch. There's a sushi place in Lyon where there is all-you-can-eat sushi at lunchtime (they have it at dinnertime as well, but it's a whole lot more expensive), and since I've only heard them talk about it, I wanted to go and try it... Unfortunately the weather wasn't very good, so Goh decided not to go, and he didn't call the restaurant to reserve. But...he didn't inform Reen that we weren't going, and that's how, in the end, we ended up going out, 'cos Reen didn't want to prepare lunch at home :P (I had already checked with him, he said he didn't want to go, and he called me back after I had started preparing my lunch! grr...) Tsk tsk...what lousy organisation...

At that time it was already too late to reserve (no places left) so we went out to find another restaurant and finally decided to go into Toya. There are two in Lyon, and I'm wondering whether it's a restaurant chain. The one we went to was on Cours Vitton (Vitton street, if you like); actually we didn't even know there was one there, we always saw the other one (on the way to Guillotière, the Asian neighbourhood)

Inside the restaurant it was super-dark...here's the proof:


It was so hard to read the menu!

But surprisingly the photos of the food came out okay (not too dark, I mean). I'll put a few photos, 'cos their presentation was pretty good. (can't say the same for my photos though :P)

There is such a craze for Japanese food lately (come on la, on so many blogs I read, everyone seems to know everything about Japanese food...or come to think of it, all kinds of food)...is there a need to introduce the dishes?

The appetizer:

miso soup and some salad

Reen and I shared two sushi sets:



Goh had sashimi, which came with meat skewers (brochettes la, I don't really know what it's called in English, someone tell me?) and rice.

I'm putting the sashimi only; you already know what satay-sticks/brochettes and rice look like :P

Frankly, I wouldn't say that sushi is especially delicious. I've tried it a few times, and each time it's pretty good, but nothing to rave about. Which is why I wanted (and still want, actually) to go and try the sushi buffet...I feel that it's especially the variety that counts, because if you have a big plate of identical sushi, in the end you get tired of that particular kind of sushi. Sharing two plates like we did was a way to have more types of sushi :)

It's not the end of the post yet...didn't I say "and more food"? ;) Today I had lunch with Jiqiong...she wanted to let me try a Szechuan fish soup. It was really spicy...and she didn't even put in the whole packet of soup paste!

Nice :)
I bet we can find this in Malaysia...I just don't know where :P

And can you guess what this is?


She showed me the packet...saying that she thought I would know it...but it was frozen (and peeled) so I couldn't recognise it. The name on the packet was familiar, but I couldn't for the life of me think of what it was. That is, until I ate it...

Have you managed to figure out what it is?

It's yam! On the packet the name was taro. I didn't know we could just simply stir-fry yam this way...

For the moment, I want keropok lekor when I get back to Malaysia. Ying Sim and WW have made me think of it... (I shall try to take photos of keropok lekor for the non-East-coast people...if I remember ;P )