Life, Old Street (Japanese Restaurant) 02.03.08
Sunday evenings are typically quite unproductive for me, but I decided to give Channel 4’s irritatingly predictable Wife Swap a miss in favour of a trip into Clerkenwell to Life Japanese restaurant.
Life has an interesting setup with a restaurant on the ground floor and a shop (selling books, strange toys and what not) and bar in the basement. A completely empty restaurant and a slightly nervy waitress created a bit of an odd atmosphere, but it’s a nice looking place in a modern loft-like, bare brick wall sort of way.
The cheapest set menus are £25 and we went for the Teriyaki and Tempura versions of these - both were the same expect for the main dish. The sushi starter was OK but nothing special. Next up was the miso soup which was as you’d expect if you were expecting miso soup. This was followed by the salmon and sea bass sashimi (3 slices of each) which looked and tasted marvelous. The main courses were both good and surprisingly large. The set menu ended on a really high note with a delicious matcha (fine powder used to make green tea) Crème brûlée.
The bar downstairs has a certain charm, if completely empty on a Sunday evening, with bargain happy hour prices of £2 a pint (5pm to 8pm).
Overall a decent meal with highlights being the sashimi and Crème brûlée. Lovely stuff.
Details
Life
2-4 Old Street
London
EC1V 9AA
tel: 020 7250 3737
WEBSITE
MAP