'Yo! Sushi' School

Sushi, or indeed Japanese cuisine in general is one of those things that I have really gone quite crazy for over the past few years. I love the fresh flavours, its' 'transport-ability', and also how it serves it purpose perfectly as a handy healthy snack to munch on.

My boyfriend and I had always wanted to have a go at making Sushi for ourselves (probably our competitive streak emerging if i'm honest!), so I thought for his birthday we could book into our local 'Yo! Sushi' and give it a go - I mean, how hard can it be hey?!

At £25 each I felt i'd got a really good deal, especially if you look at some of the high end schools in London pushing the £150 mark at the moment (clearly its a 'fashionable' thing to do), so I have to say our expectations were relatively low, however these were soon changed when we realised just how much sushi we were looking to take away with us - pictures to follow!

The 'students' (there was approximately 8 of us) were positioned around the conveyor belt at one end of the restaurant as to not disrupt service, and to start our instructor took us through the basics of cooking sushi rice (slightly different to the normal method - and somewhat more time consuming that our class would allow), and selecting the best fish to get the freshest sushi. He then showed us how to fillet a large piece of salmon selecting the ideal cuts for the sashimi (the meatiest part) and nigiri, as well as explaining that hardly any is wasted including the skin, which is crisped up and used in  rolls at the restaurant.

Then it was our turn, we had the seaweed sheets all to hand, the rice, and a smorgasboard of ingredients from sweet omlette, to crab sticks, and salmon, and all of the vegetables you may need to get yourself started. We worked through the book (see above) given to us at the start of the session, and made a variety of rolls, sashimi and nigiri to our liking. I have to admit, knowing that we were taking the stuff home, my 'offerings' were possibly not the prettiest, and instead stuffed full of as much stuff as I could possibly manage - but they tasted lovely!

My attempts before they were sliced up!

Once we had finished with the varying levels of difficulty the instructor sliced up our rolls (see above) so that we could take our 'lesson' home. As you can see, my initial concern about not having much to eat was pretty pointless. We were starving by the time we left, and couldn't wait to break into our FOUR boxes of sushi, however in a poor effort we could only devour about half of them, which meant a sushi lunch for me the following day!

From start to finish it was approximately two hours long, and I honestly didn't stop smiling! Whether it was at the fact another student put a thick layer of chilli powder instead of 'sprinkling lightly' as was initially suggested (and then regretting his attempt at being alpha-male when he couldn't swallow without choking), or my poor attempt at squeezing 8 crab sticks into a roll...it really was a great evening out, and something I will definitely attempt to try at home (we got our bamboo mats to take home with us, so that's one less thing to have to buy!)