Exclusive Wagama test dishes at the Noodle Lab

Wagamama is a famous restaurant in the UK that everyone should have heard of, but how many people know about their test kitchen.

Noodle lab is a stylish modern restaurant located in Old Street, London.

At the Noodle lab, you will find the regular menu as well as some exclusive test dishes which are in development before they roll them out.

I have been eyeing their menus to see if there are any test dishes that interest me to try.

Spotted the Soulful scoops which is three scoops comprising of matcha ice cream, ube ice cream and mango passionfruit sorbet.

Overall, I liked matcha and ube but they were a bit too icy in texture for my liking and the flavours could have been bolder especially the ube.

As for the texture you can really feel the crunch of the ice crystals in your mouth and you can see the ice crystals in the photos.

The mango passionfruit sorbet was a bit syrupy but that's the way mango is.

After asking the staff, they said the ice creams are made by Northern Bloc.

Free #heurachristmassandwich from the Heura popup shop!

 Heura is a brand from Barcelona that specializes in plant based meats.

I found out about them at the food expo in London!

This Christmas, they are giving away 5000 vegan turkey sandwiches at a pop up shop near Leicester Square station.

These sandwiches are made by "made in Hackey" featuring a meat-free turkey with rosemary and thyme seasoning, along with cranberry-infused, egg-free mayonnaise. Herby parmentier potatoes, crispy onions, pickled red cabbage, mushroom gravy, and vegan sausage are featured too.

I got my hands on one of these delicious sandwiches and the best thing is that you can't really tell it is vegan and all the ingredients in the sandwich are amazing especially the parmentier potatoes and pickled red cabbage to the mayonnaise and gravy.

Details of the popup:

58 Charing Cross Rd, London WC2H 0BB

Dec 9-14th

11am-7pm

South Indian and Sri Lankan food crawl at West Croydon

If you crave for South Indian and Sri Lankan food, West Croydon is a haven to satisfy all these cravings.

Sri Lankan food and South Indian food overlap so you will find they both have vadas, kottus, hoppers and many more items.

On my recent search for a South Indian/Sri Lankan fix, I discovered that there are so many of these shops plotted on London Road near Croydon Hospital.

Each and everyone is different and unique in their own ways.

I ended up trying Indo - Ceylon Spice Restaurant, Sambal Express, Rotti Mama and Colombo Express.

I tried the chicken liver curry, vada and Pittu from Rotti Mama, 

Onion and Chilli vada from Ceylon, 

Spinach vada, dhal vada and a sweet dessert Watalappam from Colombo Express, 

Spinach vada from Sambal Express.

I was definitely bowled over by the chicken liver curry which was velvety pieces of chicken liver in a fiery curry paste.

chicken liver curry from Rotti Mama

The pittu was basically coconut and grounded rice compacted into a cylindrical shape, best eaten with curries.

spinach vada and red rice pittu from Rotti Mama

The rest of the items I tried was the vada.

You can think of vada as a morish fluffy crispy lentil doughnut which is similar to potato in the middle and there are many flavours available like plain, spinach, spicy, onions etc.

Different shops will have their own recipes and flavours but personally Colombo Express was my favourite for the vadas while the vada from Indo - Ceylon had a nice Sichuan peppercorn kick.

Spinach vada

Vada, Mixed spices vada and Spinach vada

Finished with sweet dessert Watalappam which tasted like custard pudding with cinnamon.

Indo - Ceylon Spice Restaurant, 337 London Road:

Sambal Express, 332 London Road:

Rotti Mama, 341 London Road

Colombo Express, 255 London Road:

A special trip just for shoestring fries

During my food journey and all these restaurant visits, I have not had many shoestring fries in my meals, mainly because not many places offer it.

When I found out that Gourmet Burger Kitchen had them, it was my top priority to go and I only had that to appreciate how delicious they were.

I visited the Waterloo branch where the intangable service could have been better but the shoestring fries were more than brilliant.

The fries were ready and bought over not long after ordering but no sauces were offered nor did they tell me about the sauces so I had to ask for some sauces midway eating the fries.

It was a delight eating these fries because they were fried to perfection, each and every was uniform in width and the colour was perfectly blonde.

The texture was crisp on the outside with a perfectly silky centre.

Overall, I am so glad I had the skinny fries and will definitely come back for them.

Make your own Musubi over lunch at Musubi Hiro

I love Musubi so when I found out about Musubi Hiro it was on my list to try.

There are two different types of Musubis, the Japanese triangle shaped ones and the Hawaiaan ones with spam!

The pairing of spam and rice are so comforting as well as satisfying.

Musubi Hiro is a modern restaurant with a fun twist as they serve this Super mega musubi which is deep fried coated in bread crumbs and the Panupuri pop with an Indian twist filled with minced meat!

For lunch, they are now doing a three course set lunch with free flow drinks!

The best part is having fun making your own musubi for the main course and have it your way and a thirst quenching free flow mocktail.

The omakase starters were basically three different sides: seaweed, pickles and salad.

For the musubi main course, I had the torched eel with teriayki sauce for an extra HKD28 which was really worth it because eels are torched to order so they are nice and hot.

Hence you get to make a musubi filled with lovely and warm eel which is soft, sweet and sticky.

The soft egg yolk was another bonus to go with the meal so overall it was quite filling.

Overall a nice and filling lunch with energetic vibes.

Will be returning for dinner or late afternoon snacks sometime.

MUSUBI HIRO

37 Cochraine Street

中環閣麟街37號地下