Turning Japanese

This day was coming, it was writ large in the skies, but it was still unexpected when it happened. Let me explain.

I had plainly made a bad decision to go and have a meeting with a client in London at lunchtime without taking any kind of sustenance with me. I just feel it would look a little unprofessional to rock up with my own picnic hamper and start munching on Quails Eggs and Caviar, because of course that is what I usually eat. Doesn’t everyone? Well that and a bag of Hula Hoops.

It meant that by the time I got out mid-afternoon I was Hank Marvin as they would say in cockney rhyming slang, and this was apt as I was in East London at the time. Seriously, I could have eaten a horse but the little shop by the tube station didn’t have any. They did have a Curried Egg sandwich mind you but even in my famished state that didn’t look appealing.

So I headed back towards Kings Cross with a rumbling stomach that echoed all the way up through the tunnels of the Northern Line. I checked the time and realised that when I got back to civilisation I had to stop off for a conference call. I concluded that Kings Cross may not be the ideal place for this as, at the moment, it’s noisy and crowded due to the fact that they are re-building the place and, just for fun, penning everyone in with ticket barriers.

I decided to wander across to St Pancras to grab a sandwich and maybe sit down for the call. I staggered in clutching my stomach surprised that people couldn’t see that I was visibly wasting away. I wandered deliriously past Costa Coffee as I could see that it was rammed full of exchange students and pensioners, and then past a place called Paul, which I didn’t trust as it was too empty.

I could see a branch of Boots in the distance and for a moment I could almost taste a meal deal but by now I was almost on my knees dragging my empty husk of a body along the floor. Then I saw it, bright orange and shiny, with little plates of food which appeared to be gliding magnificently amongst the diners within. I was drawn in by this neon nirvana and I staggered closer for a better view, and then through my bleary eyes I could see that a young smiling woman had approached me. “Have you been to Yo! Sushi before?” she asked.

I hadn’t, and through my tears of hunger I explained how I, to my eternal shame, was a sushi virgin. You see I’ve seen them before, there’s one in Selfridges in Birmingham that’s always caught my eye, but I’ve never quite had the courage to join the young and hip punters in case I didn’t like what was on offer and ended up embarrassing myself by choking on a squid’s tentacle. That and the fact that the present Mrs Hayward believes that eating raw fish is “dirty”.

The young lady escorted me to a seat and explained to me how it all worked. I could just make out what she was saying above the increasingly deafening growls from my stomach but I understood that you took what you fancied, that the colour of the bowls the food was in indicated the price of the dish, and there was water available which I could drink until it was coming out of my ears. She handed me some type of catalogue that was supposed to identify the food that was shimmying around in front of me like prizes on The Generation Game and she left me alone to ponder.

I poured some water and contemplated the manual but gave up with this approach as once I’d seen something and worked out what it was the plate was half a mile away. So I used the more direct approach of choosing with my eyes and when I saw something that looked like chicken and salad I grabbed it. I glanced around for cutlery and found the idiot’s chopsticks, joined together at one end so that cack handed morons like me didn’t keep dropping either them or the food on the floor.

The cuisine was excellent and brought me back to life just in time for me to join the conference call. At this time of day it seemed to be a good venue for suited souls like me, a red faced man with a posher laptop than mine was calling another red faced man on his phone, insisting he joined him there for a meeting.

I participated in the call with ease and aplomb and hopefully no-one on the other end heard me tucking in to a Spicy Crab Cake. Once I’d finished the call I decided that I would grab one last thing before I headed off, this time a proper sushi looking thing, all rice and seaweed and raw fish, although it turned out to be crab again, but this one was sweet and lovely.

As working lunches go this one was marvellous. I was only there about half an hour but even with a call in the middle I felt really relaxed afterwards, the environment was really chilled out.

When I paid I explained to the guy at the till that I had just popped my sushi cherry. He asked if I was from London. I said I wasn’t, that I lived just north of Peterborough and we don’t have a Yo! Sushi there. He looked sad for me and said wistfully, “Maybe you will have one day”.

I can only dream as Yo Sushi has now become my new favourite place but given that Peterborough is only just getting a Nando’s, and I’m fairly giddy about that as I’ve not been there either, I think it’ll be a long time before the good people of Peterborough can enjoy the magical conveyor belt of delicious sweet and savoury treats of Yo! Sushi, and that’s a shame.