A week full of Gastroventures

I am way behind on these posts!!! The hubby and I have been having a good time faster than we have time to write about them. We will just have to consolidate and shorten our food experiences in the past week into 1 post. Here we go!

Monday: YO! Sushi 
This place is a chain restaurant for sushi on the conveyer belt. Mondays are £2.50 per plate days so the place was insanely packed! I would say it's more on the standard, not-so-special sushi but was a fair experience. If I were to rate it, it's more "average" than anything else.

Tuesday: Nando's Peri Peri Chicken

They called this place "Mexican", but I didn't really get a lot of Mexican from it. Peri Peri chicken seems to be very popular in the UK. Basically, they marinate the chicken in this specific kind of chili pepper native to parts of Africa and Portugal. The sauce also includes citrus peel, onion, garlic, pepper, salt, lemon juice, bay leaves, paprika, pimiento, basil, oregano, and tarragon. The chicken is then roasted, much like a rotisserie chicken. We ordered a whole chicken for the two of us and shared sides of mashed peas, mashed potatoes, corn and rice. It's another chain restaurant that was fair... didn't blow our socks off.

 

Wednesday: Wagamama's

This was my second trip to Wagamama's, not because I enjoyed it but because I really wanted it to be good. The restaurant itself looks nice and modern with an open floor plan and long tables and benches. It seemed like a hip contemporary Asian fusion place. Unfortunately, the food is horrible. The first time I went, I had the Wagamama Ramen bowl with a side of seaweed salad. The broth tasted like a powder in water, was extremely salt and had no other flavor besides just salt. The noodles were soggy and there wasn't much going on in terms of toppings. I came here again this week and tried the rice bowl. The hubby ordered a Tom Yum soup bowl with noodles. My dish was basically a fried rice and his noodles were once again soggy with a lack of any flavor besides salt for the Tom Yum. The only thing that's good about this place is the fresh fruit juices they make. They are fresh and delicious straight out of a juicer, but unfortunately is pricey (£4-6 per glass).

Tom Yum Noodle Soup

Rice Bowl

Strawberry Apple Orange Mint

Wagamama Ramen

Thursday: Hotel Maiyango

Attached to a small boutique hotel, this restaurant is considered one of the best in Leicester for fine dining. It's rated in the top 10 on Trip Advisor and boasts of a hot spot for Queen Elizabeth when she visited the city. We went big and ordered the 9-course prix fixe meal.

#1 Starter: Goat Cheese Mousse

There were little bits of beets garnished around the plate to compliment the richness of the goat cheese and topped with some spring greens. 

#2 Starter: Crab Tien with Bloody Mary Sorbet

This had some fishiness to it and a savory sorbet was interesting... not sure if I really loved this one.

#3: Gressingham duck and toasted brioche
The greens on every dish have been the same so far. The plum chutney-like sauce with the plum was probably the best part of this dish.

#4: Halibut and Scallop
Both were slightly overcooked, but was alright.

#5: Basil and Lemon SmashThe small shot glass was a frozen lemon ice. It was extremely tart and worked alright with the more bitter smash in the glass. Both were lemony, just different aspects of both when it comes to tart and bitter.

#6 Beef Fillet with Mushrooms and Shallots

#7: Assorted Desserts
This was best course! We got to try a little bit of every dessert they offered.

From left to right:

dark chocolate fondant, salted caramel ice cream, berry compote // warm spiced pear and almond tart, cardamom ice cream white chocolate and lavender panna cotta, blueberry sorbet,pistachios // champagne jelly, citrus tuile, vanilla milk sorbet // tonka bean crème brûlée, berry sorbet, almond tuile

#8: Assorted Cheeses and Fruit

#9: Mocha Martini with Home made Petit Fours
Tasted a bit like Espresso water?

The meal lacked complexity in its flavors. It is really hard to compare much of anything these days after eating at Petrus. For Leicester though, it was a good effort.

So if you made it this far, major props to you. I'm about to pass out myself... we only just got to Thursday here. The weekend will have to wait for the next post. 

Next, we went to Nottingham, Warwick, Birmingham and Bradgate Park in Leicester. Yes, all of these places just on the weekend.

Here's a small previous of the gorgeous Bradgate Park

Until next time... Cheers!