Thank you Qype and Tsuru

Our lovely friends at Qype invited us for a night of sushi and sake tasting on Wednesday night. Qype are great at taking all their site's virtual good vibes into the real world. Dave and I were chuffed to be part of it all and in such good company with Annie Mole, Mex, Chris & Hazel from Londonist, Niamh, Tim and of course, Rob and Sabrina from Qype.

Our destination was a little corner of Southwark, tucked behind the Tate. We arrived and found ourselves in a new development of offices and retail units. Now (if you allow me to jump on my soap box for just a moment), if there's one thing we hate at Unchained it's the property developers who think housing decent independent places in their granite, steel and glass creations is too risky. Bah to them. It seems that every new place being developed in this city brings with it a newfangled cocktail of homogenised dullness.

So imagine my relief when we found Tsuru nestled in amongst it all. For anyone thinking Japanese food consists of sushi and soba think again. Our hosts Tsuru restaurant with Akashi-Tai Sake Brewery created an evening of Japanese joy that would make the hardest amongst you melt. We enjoyed a 5 course feast with sake pairing. Take a look at the menu (with the paired sake in brackets):

Eadamame and cocktails (Kappa Saketini)
Carpaccio of Seabass (Daiginjo)
Roasted Aubergine (Honjozo)
Free-range chicken yakitori (Genmai Aged Sake)
Sushi platter (Honjozo Genshu)

Learning about sake was really interesting. My favourite story of the night is that of the Genmai Aged Sake. Apparently their first attempt at creating the sake wasn't very good. In fact, they completely forgot about their creation for a couple of years - allowing it to age in its cask. When they tasted their aged brew they realised they were on to a winner. I have to agree, it is definitely one of my new tipples of choice. If you'd like to sample some of this good stuff, visit drinkshop.com

To read the reviews on Qype click here.

Big love to Qype for the invite.