The Tables a Computer?! | Inamo Soho

Asian food is probably my favourite cuisine so when Zoe told me about a pan Asian restaurant with interactive tables I headed straight to Soho.

When you enter the restaurant it's very dark, but you soon see this is because there are images being projected down onto each of the tables. when you are seated you are shown how to use the 'table' and to be quite honest my friend and I were both amazed. You have a mouse pad in the corner of the table to control the screen and then a computer menu with different tabs; one to order drinks, one for food, games and entertainment, a map of the restaurant (so you don't have to awkwardly ask where the toilets are) and even a live chef cam!

We looked through the drinks menu and quickly order some cocktails... of course! I had some sort of blackberry mojito which you selected off the menu then chose to send your order when you're ready. 

The drinks were then promptly delivered to our table while we looked through the food menu. As you looked at each item on the menu a picture of it was projected onto the plate in front of you, which I really liked as you actually got to see what you were ordering. The dishes in Inamo aren't bought out in courses like starter main and dessert they are just bought out as they are ready in the kitchen, so we just started off ordering a few items.

The first thing that arrived was the dragon roll sushi. I personally had never tried sushi before as I'm not too keen on fish but I was really excited about this dish as it had tempura prawns in the sushi and was topped with avocado and mayonnaise. These were absolutely delicious especially with the crispy prawns in the centre we finished these so fast and ended up ordering another portion because we loved them so much.  

The next dish to arrive was Ebi Tempura, this was just pieces of tempura prawn with some garlic aioli with a chilli on the top. These were really simple but also really nice.

Then arrived the chicken gyoza. Gyoza are one of my favourite foods and the best I've ever had are from Myung Ga which is just off of Carnaby street and sadly I think they've set my expectations too high as i didn't really like these ones in Inamo the filling was alright but the dumpling skin was thick which made them really chewy.

While waiting for all our dishes to arrive we played around with all the other features on the table, playing pop the balloon and battle ships (which I absolutely smashed) it was so much fun! We ordered even more food and it gradually began to arrive.. 

Yakatori was the next dish to arrive which was 5 different skewers; beef with ginger, chicken and sesame, pork belly, salmon and mahi mahi. These were really dry and some were quite bland like the beef skewer was just really chewy, I just kept dipping them all in soy sauce. The best was the salmon it had some mayonnaise on it and black sesame seeds. We also got some kimichi because it would have been rude not too!

Finally we got shrimp and vegetable dim sum and some Korean chicken wings. The dim sum was fantastic! There's really not much else to say about them, we finished them so fast and ordered another portion straight away (I would return to this restaurant for these alone!). The Korean chicken wings were good they were covered in a sweet spicy sauce and dusted with desiccated coconut. 

I think how much you enjoy this restaurant  would really depend on what you order, I did find a few dishes that I really loved and others that I wanted to try but just wouldn't order them again. I loved the whole interactive experience and it was just so easy to get carried away with what you were ordering because you could just ordered more whenever you wanted so it can end up quite expensive (especially when they add the service charge which made us laugh seeing as the table did most of the work) but I really want to go back and try some other things off the menu.

Emily

7/10

Shoreditch Adventures | Reds True Barbecue & Bounce

Hannah: This week we ventured to Shoreditch for food, lots of cocktails and a friendly game of ping pong, what more could you want from a weekend?! After being recommended Reds True Barbecue by a friend I was super excited to go and try it out; cocktails and American barbecued food YUMMY!!

Katherine: So after a long day at work I had the excitement of Reds True Barbecue and ping-pong to look forward too. What a hard life aye. We got to Reds and was sent downstairs to the bar whilst we waited for our table. It was super awesome and I want it for my bedroom (please and thanks).

Zoe:  MATE. I love customer service and this was on point. When we arrived it was
30 minute wait and due to past experiences with waiting for tables (not mentioning any names...Harvester cough) we were slightly worried but in London you pay for what you get; this awesome waitress politely explained "sorry ladies, if you go downstairs to our bar and get yourself a few cocktails we'll be with you shortly"' that's all it needs to keep us happy!

Emily: The place was dark and rustic with loads of fairy lights and mismatched chairs... I loved it! Sweet Home Alabama playing from the speakers as we sat at the bar waiting for the table.

Zoe: I completely forgot about the wait as I was amazed by the decor. It was better than I imagined... Underground trees with fairy lights, an awesome bar and A LOAD of candles.

Katherine: We were greeted at the bar by the friendliest guy who was banter... what more could we ask for. He didn't even have time to finish pouring our drinks before we were greeted again by another banter/friendly waiter who said he would bring our drinks over and showed us to our table. 

Emily: The cocktails looked amazing loads of fruity citrusy gin based drinks. The first drink I got was the 'Basil Bramble Sling' which was so good and then an 'Alexis Texas' which was also amazing it was like passion fruit, vodka and prosecco so pretty much everything good.

Zoe: We were quite happy and chilled the cocktails were what I can only describe as f*cking amazing, I started off by getting "Cloth Hall Cooler" aka the pengest drink that will make you go blind (it was so strong).

Katherine: The selection of cocktails to choose from was something else, I would spend about 10 minutes just looking because I wanted EVERYTHING.. sadly my bank account couldn't afford that.

Emily: The food menu was a leather bound book, I think it was meant to look like a bible- they call it 'The Good Book', it was really cool how they kept the theme running throughout the restaurant with small details like this. Sweet Home Alabama had started to play again for probably about the forth time but it was quite funny, all the food sounded amazing.

Hannah: We promptly ordered our food and were informed the kitchen was backed up which was fine, we weren't going Bounce till 11 so had loads of time to kill and a menu full of cocktails to try, I had already fallen in love with the Honey Berry Smash. 

Zoe: I finally got what my mouth was watering for all that day...The beef brisket sandwich!

Emily: I decided to go for The Dirty Buffalo Chicken Sandwhich with a side of mac and cheese because Hannah said we could share our sides if I got that and she got the bbq pit beans, which didn't happen in the end when she decided that she didn't like the mac and cheese.

Katherine: We was basically pretty drunk before we got our food, which was pretty daym good but it was so spicy and I can't handle it. I'm not complaining the cocktails made up for it.

Hannah: Hahahaha, Katherine your mouth was on fire, it took you a billion years to eat it! 

Emily: The food looked amazing it came on a metal tray with the Mac and cheese in a little pot on the side all very in keeping with the theme they were going for. 

Hannah: I must admit I was slightly disappointed as my chicken burger was cold and the 'pulled chicken' on top was more like a chicken breast and was also cold, but despite that it tasted nice. The barbecue beans I had on the side were to die for though and I would order them again in a heartbeat, beans with pulled pork in them, AMAZING!

Zoe: My food was so good, however after ordering a few more cocktails it was one of them moments where you have to undo your jeans because your having way to much fun enjoying belly bloating cocktails. So in the end I only ate half of this mouth watering beef concoction ... but somehow my coleslaw seem to have disappeared. Don't know how that happened. I inhaled it! (I'm very picky when it comes to coleslaw) not quite my dads but it's up there.

Emily: I wasn't a fan of the Mac and cheese it was a bit floury but I'm not a big pasta fan anyway. The burger tasted alright but it was so spicy and I like spicy food but this was really spicy and it didn't warn you of that anywhere on the menu. It was so spicy you couldn't really taste anything else and the chicken was quite cold so that was disappointing but I think I might have just ordered wrong because everyone else's food in the restaurant looked really good.

Hannah: After finishing our meal we still had loads of time so we headed to the bar where we had some banter with the bar guys who decided to make up some cocktails for us to get us super drunk!

Katherine: We got free shots from them...I even managed to get two because I'm a boss and banter.

Emily: I like both of the cocktails the bar men made up; the first was raspberry vodka, grenadine and some other bits so was quite strong but really sweet and the other was loads of lime cordial and maybe rum or vodka which was really strong and no one else would finish it so I just had to drink them for them.

Hannah: Basically we just had to cups of vodka with a hint of flavour, they were gross! 

Zoe: All the staff were so polite which made our stay even more awesome. In my mind it doesn't make sense you can pay a slightly lower price to go to a dingy restaurant down the road from you, you can go to London pay a few extra pound (its really not a lot of difference in price compared to the change in quality) for the wonderful service, delicious food and bloody good cocktails. 

Katherine: After a short stumble down the road singing When We Were Young, (Nailing all the notes I may add because we are pretty sick singers) we arrived at bounce. We were greeted by a bouncer who didn't even ID us... so that means we finally look old. Don't know if I should laugh or cry. 

Hannah: I had booked a table for us already so we walked in and were shown to our table and ordered more delicious cocktails (mine was proper holiday like and tasted like a big Porn Star Martini) and then it was game on! My cocktail was rudely knocked over by a boy on the table next to us and after informing him that he had spilled my entire drink he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away, RUDE! The waitress was lovely though and when I told her she immediately brought another one over for free!

Zoe: Ping pong with cocktails is the perfect combo. However if your sh*t before a couple of cocktails down you... Your even more sh*t after. Sorry Em but come on it's not called wave your bat and see where it gets you in life it's table tennis.

Hannah: We played in pairs and I have never laughed so much as I did watching Emily drunkenly hitting ping pong balls at the ceiling, the rest of us might as well have gone home, she was just playing with the ceiling.

Katherine: EMILY YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED PING PONG AGAIN, you'll only allowed on the sub line. I know you said you had bad hand and eye co-ordination but oh my word, you hit practically everyone around us and the ceiling a fair few 100 times.

Emily: I was tipsy but I'm just not good at sports anyway okay! I did warn you all! Wait until you see me bowling...

Hannah: Tipsy is an understatement there Emily! After a team talk excluding Emily we managed to keep the balls away from her and 'send her long' and actually get some back and forth rhythm going and turns out the rest of us were pretty decent at ping pong, who'd have known! We laughed, we drank cocktails and we hit some ping pongs. It was an awesome night.

Zoe: My god it was amusing. Obviously cocktails I had a elderflower spritz I love a spritz me. It was so refreshing and again friends don't like my spritz sh*t so I'm winning.

Katherine: Apart from Emily killing everyone in the place the staff were super friendly and got us cocktails whilst we was playing. At one point I had a cocktail in one hand and a ping pong bat in the other, living dangerously and loving life.

Hannah: Despite the food at Reds True Barbecue I would definitely go back I would just order differently and I would always go back to Bounce it's something different to do over the weekend and a guaranteed laugh!

Emily: I would go back to Reds True BBQ but for cocktails but not for food and the others have informed me that I'm not allowed to return to bounce but I would happily if allowed.

Zoe: Overall cocktails awesome. Food way to much but who complains about to much food that's just silly. May I just add I was awesome being netball captain in school I had table tennis covered.

Katherine: I would recommend these two places to anyone would loves a drink and also an awesome night. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

                                                                                                                               

REDS TRUE BBQ 

6.75/10

BOUNCE 

                     8/10                                    

Where should we go next? Know any good cocktail bars, BBQ places or just different thing up London? Comment Below