A Sushi Feast at Oka

I’ve mentioned before that meeting other bloggers can be a bit like online dating…you’ve got plenty of ‘chemistry’ when you’re tweeting, Instagramming and pinning…but what about when you meet in real life? Will the online chemistry still be there or will there be awkward silences and nothing to talk about?

Well I knew they’d be no worries on a group blogger date with Polly, Lauren, Andrea and Jaime…talk of a mutual love of food, travel and blogging would fill any gaps.

As we’re all big sushi-lovers it wasn’t hard to choose the cuisine for our dinner and Oka Restaurant on Kingly Court was suggested as somewhere none of us had been to before. The restaurant is very intimate and already proving popular; we were surprised that we couldn’t get a dinner booking before 8.30 despite booking a month in advance.

Feeling hungry we quickly order a couple of dishes to get us started including tuna tataki or seared tuna served with ponzu….

As well as salmon tartare; both dishes were prepared beautifully, we even ordered another portion of the salmon tartare. With food in front of us it was time to catch up…it was lovely to see Andrea and Jaime again and to meet Polly and Lauren for the first time. Polly is originally from Essex but moved to Doha and blogs about her expat adventures there – she was actually back in the UK for her wedding this weekend! We’d been reading each other’s blogs for the past year, and Polly was even sweet enough to ask me to write a guest post.

I’ve also guest posted on Lauren blog, funnily enough about my top 5 sushi places in London. And as we enjoyed our sushi rolls I found out a bit more about what Lauren was up to since finishing university and her year abroad in Rennes. At the moment she’s really enjoying not having the pressure of exams and she’s got lots of exciting travel plans coming up!

We tried two different types of sushi rolls: California prawn with cucumber, avocado and lime mayo along with Dragon roll prawn tempura, asparagus, spicy mayo topped with avocado.

Actually not only were we celebrating Polly’s pending nuptials and Lauren’s upcoming graduation but we could also raise our glasses to Jaime’s new house and Andrea’s secondment next year in Hong Kong.

Back to the food – our sunomono salad with marinated fish and sesame dressing was slightly lacking and not really a salad.

But a deliciously tender kimchi chicken served with ginger, shallots and red vinegar made up for it. We actually only ended up ordering one main course as it was a hot day and we were really enjoying all the sushi and starter nibbles.

However, clearly it wasn’t too hot to order freshly baked cookie dough with vanilla ice cream, I don’t think there ever can possibly be a wrong time to order cookie dough…unfortunately it was a little disappointing as I thought it tasted slightly burnt. Overall Oka wasn’t the best sushi I’ve ever tried but it was tasty and much less expensive then other sushi restaurants in London.

Jaime and Andrea had to get home but Polly, Lauren and I were keen to stick around for another drink so we headed to Cahoots, a cool fantasy tube station themed bar.

Inside you could have time-travelled back to the 1940’s when people sheltered in the underground during the Blitz. There’s even seating in a real old Bakerloo line carriage, it’s no wonder people mistake the bar for a real underground station.

Every little detail here is covered and we ordered cocktails from a menu that mimics a newspaper, the staff are all in character and period dress and the music is authentic too. It was a really cool place to end the night and I loved spending time with new blogging friends and getting to know everyone and we definitely have the chemistry in real life that we have online.

Oka

1st Floor Kingly Court

Carnaby Street

London

W1B 5PW

0207 734 3556

Cahoots can be found nearby at 13 Kingly Court.