Moshi Monthly Member Deals

Oct 2016

Member's Offer #1
Half prince on winter sakes
To warm up as the days draw in, take advantage of our half price offer on sakes that work well served hot!

Member's Offer #2
Kids eat half price over half term

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Member's Offers Terms & Conditions

Terms and Condition offer #1:
Half price sake: Available anytime Monday to Friday until November 4th. The following sakes are available half price: Midorikawa, Hananomai, Eikofuji. Chose any size sake and receive the second order on the house.

Terms and Conditions offer #2:
Kids eat half price over half term: Children under the age of 14 eat for half price. The discount will be based on the average spend on food of the whole group. Maximum number of children per adult 2 to take advantage of the offer. Drinks are charged at advertised prices. Offer available anytime after 2pm Monday to Friday until November 4th.

General Terms and Conditions:
The offers cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion. Not redeemable for cash. Please present your Member's card to take advantage of these offers.

For reservations or enquiries please call the restaurant on 020-7247 3227, or email liverpoolstreet@moshimoshi.co.uk.

Koshihikari craft beer

With the arrival of our new spring menu we are introducing a craft beer from Japan this month. Made from rice, and brewed the time consuming decoction method, originally from Germany, the beer goes on sale in time for Easter! We hope you will take advantage of our Member's offer and enjoy a glass of Koshihikari craft beer.

Wishing you all a happy Easter!

If you were tucked up keeping warm at home on Friday last week you may have seen Jamie & Jimmie's Friday Night Feast on Channel 4 that featured me and Hong, (whom I've been fortunate enough to work with since the beginning in 1994), cooking up dishes made with generally under-used parts of fish (well…Hong was doing the cooking to be precise!) Jamie was keen to highlight the waste we inflict on nature in our desire to eat only selective parts of a beast – the fillet for example. The UK wastes perfectly edible parts of a fish such as its liver or its head, and on top of that, we waste entire species like horse mackerel or dogfish. In Japan of course none of this would go to the bin; it would be positively relished. We hope you've noticed our acknowledgment to the traditions of Japanese cooking and have tried some of the more esoteric dishes on our menu such as the prawn heads and monkfish liver, as well as dog fish masquerading as eel.

Jimmy emphasised the nutritional value we abandon in discarding these less popular parts, from the omega 3 oils in the salmon skin to the minerals and vitamins in the prawn heads and monkfish liver.

Aside from having great fun working with Jamie and Jimmy for the day (thanks guys), it is fantastic to see these issues being brought into the public's conscious. What we chose to eat, does after all, shape the world we live in.

To catch us on Jamie and Jimmy's Friday Night Feast click here.

We stopped using standard farmed prawns for our ebi nigiri sushi where traceablity on the product was virtually zero – implying to me that they could be some of the worst farmed prawns from Vietnam and Thailand, low in nutrition, full of antibiotics and damaging to mangrove habitats. We found a prawn that is farmed in New Caledonia that harvests only once a year, are farmed in natural lagoons, don't use antibiotics, are fed on natural feed and are not intensively stocked. Though heaps better than our previous prawns, they are still farmed. My hope this year is to find a sustainable wild-caught prawn. Not an easy task given that prawn fisheries are often the most wasteful fisheries in terms of discards. Because prawns are small, the mesh on the nets has necessarily to be small, too, so lots of larger fish get inadvertently caught. And because prawns are expensive, the fish aren't worth bringing to shore so get thrown away dead, back in to the sea. So the challenge is to find a wild prawn that does less damage to the seas than a well-managed farmed prawn. And the added complication is that the wild prawns often don't sit neatly on top of a small piece of rice!

The outcome of switching to the better farmed prawns is that rather than arriving in pre-prepared plastic trays of prawn tails, they came whole, so after we'd made the nigiri sushi, we had lots of prawn heads going into the bin. And hence, the prawn head crispies were born! Being able to charge a little (£1.90) for the prawn heads has made it easier to bare the significantly higher cost of the better farmed prawns. A big thank you to our customers who enjoy eating them! You are in turn helping us to be able to afford serving the more ethical prawns.

Eating healthily is clearly something we dwell on at this time of year; Moshi Moshi has consistently seen an increase in sushi and sashimi sales in January, and I'm sure this is a pledge to ourselves to eat less or more healthily after an over-indulgent Christmas. New allergen legislation came into effect in December, and while it's probably passed you by, it has caused interesting discussion here. We featured our delicious pork katsu in last month's email, with a heavy focus on the provenance of the pork. Taking so much time to source our pork only to match it with the product that fared least well in our allergen declarations seems rather a contradiction. I was in two minds whether or not to raise the slippery topic of our curry sauce, but a customer's comment recently compelled me to speak out! She asked about our chicken oyako, which I explained was a hearty chicken omelette, made with good eggs and chicken, leeks and soy on a bed of brown rice if she liked. She responded saying she wanted something ' fresher' and opted for the pork katsu curry.

I was speechless! Maybe there are simply too many ways to define ' fresh' but a curry sauce that comes in a block from a large Japanese food processing company that gets literally 'melted down' didn't strike me as one that met freshness criteria - however loosely defined (and that's before you even start on the deep-fried pork versus pan-fried omeltte). The curry has no fewer than 7 of the allergens in the required new legislation, but aside from that, in my opinion, it has close to zero nutritional value as it is so heavily processed and full of additives and flavourings in addition to all the 'allergens'. There are plenty of studies to show that the huge increase in allergies in fact result from our overly processed food rather than from the ingredients themselves.

In the past our menus noted under our curry rice ' this dish certainly doesn't meet our additive-free policy! ' but I was encouraged to take it off as it was deemed bad marketing. I am pleased therefore that legislation has to some extent moved that discussion forward.

Click here to hear why Joe Wood decided to 'go natural'

Tonkatsu was developed in Japan in the late 19th century as they were experimenting with Western cuisine. A pork fillet or loin is coated with egg and flour and then dipped in panko breadcrumbs and deep-fried. It is served with shredded cabbage and Tonkatsu brown sauce – similar to Worcestershire sauce. More recently it has become the base accompaniment to curry rice, a dish that came to Japan via England. The first curry-coffee house opened in Canning Town in 1747.

The recipe for English curry –sweeter than those of India with the addition of sugar from the Caribbean colonies, became codified about this time. English returning from the Raj helped popularise this food and British seamen were active disseminators of it. Curry powder, a British invention, standardised the taste, and it was this that arrived in Japan and became 'Japanese'. …So we have only ourselves to blame!

Eating less and eating well might serve us well in the Year of the Sheep.

' The Sheep is a symbol of peace, balance, harmony and calmness. This will be reflected in The Year of the Sheep 2015 where we need to use our minds more than being physically active to solve any problem that might arise. In the first half of 2015 the processes that have been in place for the past years will make way in the second half for both political and economic situations in the world to be void of turmoil and conflict. Closer to the summer months, when positive events will start overshadowing negatives ones, people of many countries will finally be able to sigh with relief and restore their faith in the future.

It is hard to report on 2015 in detail, but one thing is for sure: the events that 2015 has in store will prove unforgettable! Unbelievable striking events are ahead – we just need to be patient enough to wait for them to happen...'

So there you have it, your annual horoscope from Japan!

I don't suppose UKIP have given much thought to their fisheries policy, but this will surely be right up their street! It is Greenpeace's latest campaign to redress the imbalance of power in the fishing fleet and specifically quota allocation, and put this before all the political parties to adopt it in their manifestos.

The scale of foreign dominance in fishing quota is revealed by a Greenpeace investigation which shows that 43% of England's fishing quota is held by foreign controlled fishing businesses. It exposes the high concentration of quota in the hands of a few industrial fishing companies, many of them foreign controlled: - Five largest foreign controlled vessels hold 32 per cent of the English quota - - One Dutch-controlled vessel holds 23 per cent of the English quota? - - Five vessels hold 20 per cent of the UK quota? - - The small scale fleet make up four fifths of the entire UK fishing fleet and has just 4 per cent of the UK's quota

Greenpeace carried out the investigation into the UK's quota as part of its new campaign, 'Our Net Gain', which urges the government to reclaim fishing quota for local, low impact fishermen in the UK, which would benefit coastal economies and marine life.

Many blamed their lack of quota and struggle for survival on the European legislation, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). However, the CFP was reformed last year, and now requires national governments to prioritise giving quota to fishing businesses which contribute most to coastal economies and fish using low impact methods, which better protect marine life. Under the latest CFP reforms, quota must be allocated according to criteria informed by sustainability, protection of the environment and the needs of the local economy. Greenpeace is arguing for this to be implemented.

The difficulties our local fishers face was highlighted to me very clearly at Slow Food's Terra Madre in Turin last month, when our Cornish fisherman received a call while we were there informing him that his quota for plaice had been taken away for the remainder of 2014. Given that plaice had constituted 40% of his recent catch, this was a major blow. But what really upset him was that he would be inevitably catching plaice and having to discard them, something hitherto he'd prided himself on never doing. It is a travesty that these small scale fishers who generally fish in a far less damaging way, and have a significantly higher impact on the economies of local coastal communities, are penalised in the same way as the industrial trawler fleets who are invariably the cause of the damaging fishing methods, depletion of fish stocks and subsequent quota restrictions. Please put your name to Greenpeace's campaign : https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/fair-fish

Our Christmas menu is £29.50 head and packed with some real treats , including Cornish fish and vegetable tempura, rib eye beef teriyaki , seasonal greens & sweet potato chips and a wonderful green tea trifle – all kicked off in style with a glass of Prosecco.

PLEASE NOTE WE WILL BE CLOSED from 3PM WEDNESDAY 24th DECEMBER and REOPEN on MONDAY JANUARY 5th

Please join our annual celebration of Slow Food's Terra Madre day on December 10 again this year.

Join us on December 10 for a complimentary Gloucester Old Spot pork tonkatsu! The Forgotten Foods program - Ark of Taste travels the country collecting small-scale quality produce threatened by industrial agriculture, environmental degradation and homogenization. These products are often at risk of extinction!

Slow Food raises awareness so that they may be rediscovered and returned to the market. The program is part of Slow Food's global Ark of Taste which aims to preserve edible biodiversity around the world. Old Spot pig is one of the Ark of Taste products. Just show us your Moshi Members card of Slow Food Members card.

Forecasts all seem to agree on the fact that, in 2050, there will 9 billion people sharing the planet. Considering that today (with a world population of 7 billion) a billion people do not eat adequately, the prospects look gloomy. The most disparate and "authoritative" voices are increasingly stressing the fact that, to feed everyone, it will be necessary to increase productivity by 70 percent (with cultivated land decreasing in the meantime). Hence the rush to genetically manipulate seeds to create hyperproductive plant species. Hence the idea of feeding meat animals on antibiotics and hormones to make them grow in half the normal time. Hence the inevitable destruction of forests to obtain arable land (which nonetheless loses its fertility in the space of a few seasons anyway).

In short, who can worry about biodiversity, animal well-being and climate change when people are dying or risk dying of hunger? But there is an element missing in this analysis—often left unsaid more in bad faith than out of shallowness—that cannot help but leave us with our stomachs knotted: namely that today the earth produces food for 12 billion people. Forty percent of all food produced is wasted and turns to waste without even getting near to the table. *

For this reason we teamed up with the Sustainable Restaurant Association's brilliantly inspired campaign Food Save – a project designed specifically to tackle waste in the restaurant sector.
http://www.foodsave.org/case_category/restaurant/

* Courtesy of Slow Food. To read more of this article click here: http://www.slowfood.com/filemanager/official_docs/SFCONGRESS2012

It's our Birthday!

We are celebrating 20 years of conveyor belt-sushi arriving in London!
1994 - 2014

What were you doing 20 years ago today? July 24 1994 was the date Moshi Moshi opened its doors for the first time and brought the 'kaiten' sushi conveyer belt to the UK. We'd love to catch up with anyone who visited us in those early days. If you were there, please let us know. The first few to respond will be invited to a special birthday celebration! For a chance to be there at the party please email us your memories of your first visit to Moshi Moshi.

Hugh Ferneally Whittingstall was there, and says:

"Walking into Moshi Moshi for the first time, almost 20 years ago to the day, was one of the most memorable 'first impression' moments of my restaurant reviewing career. The location, the design, the buzz - it all felt very new and exciting. But being suspended in a cool glass capsule over the rail tracks, and sitting on chic minimalist furniture, would have counted for nothing if it wasn't for the outstanding quality of the sushi.

Two decades later it is immensely to the credit of Caroline Bennett and her team that MM is still one of the best places to eat Japanese food in the capital. Not only that, but they are flying the flag for sustainably caught fish in a way that proves that even in the ruthless environment of the London restaurant scene it's still possible to stick to your principles and make a success of your business."

Now it is time to share some of ours. There have been many changes since we first opened 20 years ago in July 1994. But I am privileged to still be working with three incredible chefs who have been with me since the beginning, and Emily at the front of house. I'm sure you'll recognise Hong, Dionisio, Benji and Emily from these photos, as eating sushi every day means they haven't aged much.

Here are some of their first memories of our opening back in the early 90s – 'kitchen confidential' sprang to mind!

"I Remember when we first opened we used to close at 5pm, the City was so quiet in those days, even the pub on the station Hamilton Hall closed at 7pm"

"People didn't know how to eat sushi in those days, nowadays, everyone knows"

"It's like a big happy family working here – after all, I see Dionisio more than I see my family! I remember customers used to walk past the glass window on their way to work in the morning and wave – we would say ' see you later!' and they all came in for lunch. They came early at 11.30am so they didn't have to wait so long in the queue"

"Our customers were mostly men, but there were a few girls that would come in on their own after lunch when it was less busy, and we were young, so we had time to chat them up!"

"Sushi chefs were unusual in those days, we commanded a certain respect from our customers I think and we wanted to treat each one well. We made special dishes for them, and joked with each other 'hey, Dionisio, your girlfriends just come in'. And then one day, for some reason, all our girlfriends came in on the same day – we panicked - didn't know what to do!!"

"I remember a different Christmas party to the one Dionisio remembers – I remember one at Havana in Soho where I came with my wife, we'd been trying for a baby for ages but had given up hope, then soon after that party she conceived and we had a millenium baby! "

"It's nice when customers who have moved away come back to say hello. There are many, but recently I have seen a woman who had moved to Scotland and a man who must have done well in the City and retired early to live in Cambridge and they came back and worried I wouldn't remember them – of course I do! They are surprised I am still here but its nice they are pleased to see me."

"It's nice to see our old customers dropping in when they are in London. Chefs aren't paid much, but seeing that customers are happy, makes me happy."

"I remember Caroline coming over from Tokyo to interview me at the Sheraton hotel in Manila where I worked. She gave me a contract for three years, and I thought to myself 'wow, that's way too long! And here I am 20 years on..."

"I was so happy to be going home in the first year for Christmas that at the Moshi Moshi staff Christmas party I got more drunk than I ever had before, I got into my first ever taxi but couldn't remember where I lived!"

"I remember how much our customers used to eat, they would come four or five times a week for lunch, and the traders would sit in their coloured jackets stacking the plates up vertically and the beer bottles horizontally. Two of them came together nearly every day. I saw one of them again just a few months ago, but he hardly ate anything compared to when he was young!"

"I've seen lots of customers come in as singles, then find a girlfriend, and now they come in with their teenage children! "

"Well I remember a German customer coming in every day, many customers did, but he came in because he wanted to see me"

"One day he came in with flowers and chocolates for me, ....but my husband was working in the kitchen"

"Another of my regulars was an old man who always kissed me on the cheek... Dionisio used to joke with me that his lips were cold... anyway, he always ate uni (sea urchin), ikura salmon roe and scallop... but he doesn't come anymore"

"When I first arrived from the Philippines I started work and had to ask a customer what the orange fish was... Salmon he said! "

"I've often had to be vigilant - customers try to hide plates in their bags or leave them in the toilet. A few times other customers have spotted them up to no good and alerted me to the thieves. That was nice."

"It's nice when the regulars walk past and wave, sometimes I saw customers coming in 5 times a week. They always told it was the best sushi in London. A young couple used to come in as girlfriend and boyfriend, now they come in with their children, and still tell me ' we love the food, we love the people, we love the place' and now their children are saying the same thing. Then we had a regular who even through her pregnancy came in most days and her baby was really strong! Now she comes in with her 3 children."

"Back in the old days some customers used to think I was the owner, and come up to me and say ' good business!' ... I was a bit shy to hear that! "

"I miss some of my old colleagues, especially Tulay our manager for a while, and Yuki. Yuki fell in love with one of our chefs, and they planned to live with each other in Brazil, but he didn't even turn up to the airport."

"Yuki has won the lottery now, over a million I hear, so that was her blessing. We still all love the chef though, he's still with us! At the beginning I remember it wasn't easy – the Italian mafia management used to eat in front of us and sit at the back together and tell us to get on with our work – we Asians were like the slaves."

"One day, we saw one of the cashiers taking money from the till, we told the manager, but because the cashier was a friend of his he did nothing, so we all went on strike. Me and Mr Hong, Benji and Dionsio, we shut the restaurant and went and sat in MacDonalds! I've loved meeting all the people here, they are what keep me going."

In a few days time we will be 20 years old! Celebrate today with a 20% discount on all food! Just show us your Members card to benefit from the offer anytime from 11.30am to 10pm.

Gone are the days when our customers wanted diet coke with a crabstick and avocado maki roll. Everyone's palates seem to have become more refined over the last 20 years. Now customers devour more obscure dishes like our ankimo, the liver of the monkfish – our 'foie gras' of the sea – or our prawn head crispies. Who would have thought the British would eat anything with eyeballs intact? And instead of Coca Cola with sushi, you are opting for a cup of sencha green tea or an Asahi.

Moshi Moshi is committed to sustainable food and we are delighted to be working with the Marine Stewardship Council on the tricky business of traceability in the fisheries chain.

Here's what they had to say about our collaboration: "At the MSC we work with partners like Moshi Moshi to safeguard seafood stocks for this and future generations. Buying seafood bearing our blue ecolabel will help us do just that". Being a sushi chef might be hard, choosing MSC isn't.

Watch MSC video here.

Well, today is our big day - we are officially 20 years old. We've been overwhelmed by the responses from you, our much treasured and lovely customers. We are throwing a party tonight, and are thrilled to have so many of our loyal and regular customers join us. Here are snippets of some of the memories you have kindly shared with us:


"'I can remember my initial excitement at being seated at a bar where the little multicoloured plates busily sped past carrying their precious cargo. Having only experienced the usual suspects of cooked fish from these shores, what those plates were carrying could have been from another planet - the unusual presentation, wonderful textures, unrecognisable colours and glistening in the light, looking so fresh that they could almost jump off the merry go round." - Chris


"Moshi Moshi very soon became the place I go to treat myself. I have had birthday celebrations, office xmas parties and other occasions but first and foremost usually once a month I slip into the Liverpool Street restaurant nod to Hong, sit at the bar alone and think, watching those busy little plates going about their business and enjoying every mouthful of what they carry." - Chris


"Happy birthday, Caroline and Moshi Moshi! Like Hugh said – great to see both the business doing well and you sticking to your sustainable fishing principles all these years down the line, inspirational!" - Charlotte


"I've been coming since 1994 and my wife and I broke her no raw fish fast while she was in early labour with our oldest who is now nearly 17!" - Simon


"I have been a devoted customer of yours since the mid nineties when I worked in Canary Wharf!" - Andrew


"I just wanted to congratulate you on 20 years of Moshi Moshi. It is still my favourite Sushi Place, made all the more special by Mr Hong. I hope he is still there as I have not been in a while. The years 1999-2003 were my Moshi Moshi obsession years, when I would go about 4 days a week after work. It is where I took my 18 month old nephew and started his love of sushi and my niece a few years later, when Mr Hong made her a special grape Maki." - Sheba


"Over the years I have leant to really appreciate Moshi Moshi's really fresh fish. I particularly love you Yellow Fin Sashimi. It's one of the reasons I bring people to Moshi Moshi when I want to impress." - Eric


"I remember eating there in 1996 when I started at UBS which was just round the corner. Always a firm favourite.I ate there yesterday and I mentioned that one of the chefs had been with you since I started eating. Quite amazing.

We had a guy from the States who used to come over in the 90's - Dave Schoneberg - affectionately nicknamed Dave Sconeberg - he was a huge man - he held the record for the number of plates eaten - 20 - now that was a lot of sushi!" - Graeme


"A visit to Moshi-Moshi used to be a pay-day treat but now I attend more frequently as I like to practice my Japanese with some of the staff." - Eric


"In 1994, I worked in a City firm, which was only about 10 minutes walk from Liverpool Street Station. One day, a friend mentioned to me that a new sushi place was opening inside the station, and we went there for lunch the following day.
For me, it was love at first sight (and first bite!). The beautiful food creations were floating by on the conveyor, each one of them tempting! The food was delicious, light and satisfying, and we often commented that it was a 'happy food.
We became regulars, always coming early, at about 12, so that we could grab a place, since Moshi Moshi very soon became so popular with the City workers that around 1 pm, there was always a huge queue of devotees.
I used to go there during the day and in the evening, with friends and family, with colleagues from work and with foreign visitors, including Japanese - who were immensely impressed and amused by the food and the ambiance. I took a friend's young son there, who is autistic - possibly, it was his favourite place of all the restaurants I have taken him to, as he could choose any dish he wanted from the conveyor and watch the departing trains at the same time. Moshi Moshi has always been friendly, and after being done up, quite chic. We still go there, even though I do not work in the City anymore. If you want the loveliest sushi place in London, this one is for you! " - Julia


"Caroline, I only recently met you but to say that I've been coming to Moshi Moshi since 2002 and its still my favourite sushi. I've been to previous locations at Brighton, Canary Wharf and Ludgate Circus and now I am a regular customer at Liverpool St. I try and come once a week, and to me Moshi Moshi is a treat to take home on a Friday night to share. " - Tom


"My girlfriend and I love your restaurant and are delighted that it's been so successful Two decades is no mean feat!" - Ben


"Thanks for being an outstanding contributor to building an ethical and sustainable business! You're one of very VERY few restaurants I know that seeks to make a difference." - Ann


"I was one of the people who queued up or got there hugely early to enjoy far too many plates of wonderful sushi – it was and still is a fantastic concept !!" - Andrew

This is a photo of our first ever customer; Marina, from Germany (though at the time, I didn't know that). I remember her walking through the door and asking ' are you open'? I looked at the chefs, they looked at me, shrugged, and we said ' yes, sure!' She spent about £3.60 but had only £2.70 on her - I was just pleased to have welcomed my first customer, so didn't mind at all. Years later on my return from Japan, I went to yoga at a nearby gym ….and there she was, standing in front of me, teaching me downward dog.

Fancy eating like it's 1994?

For one day only Moshi Moshi customers can go back in time and order our once popular crabstick & avocado maki roll for just 90p – our price in 1994! - and our our second bestselling dish in the early 1990s. Just ask one of our team and 'roll' back the years.

To celebrate our 20th birthday we will be making our 1994 menu and charging 1994 prices at the sushi counter today! Back in 1994 our cheapest plate price was £90p and the most expensive one £2.50 and we had a number of dishes that have now disappeared.

But while our prices may have gone up over the last 20 years, so too have our costs, though not in proportion, a sad reflection on how poorly people and our planet's resources are valued. While our rent was just £8,000 a year in 1994, it has now increased by more than 12 times. Wages though have risen far less dramatically: in 1994 the basic hourly rate of our service team was £3.50; now, I am neither proud or pleased to say, it's set at £6.31, the minimum wage. With housing costs fast outstripping earnings its perhaps no surprise that food suppliers have been facing relentless pressure to keep costs down – with poor animal welfare and environmental destruction the accepted means of staying competitive.

But at Moshi Moshi we firmly and sincerely believe that there has to be better way and we remain committed to good value without costing the Earth . See our website for more details.

Today our birthday celebrations look at joining the health of our customers with the health of the planet.

Japanese food is famously healthy – a typical sushi set is between 200-500 calories and high in omega 3 fatty acids. But they are just the headline benefits; the real beauty of Japanese food lies in its immense diversity of nutrients, from seaweeds and fish roe to yam potatoes and green tea. A typical Japanese meal will be made from all number of ingredients, sourcing a balance of nutrients from the sea, the soil and the sun. I am a firm believer that 'we are what we eat' and that happily enough, almost always, carefully sourced nutritious and delicious foods are not only good for us, but for our planet as well. Below are a few snippets of our commitment to feeding you well:

All our meat is free range and comes from a family farm in Essex where it is fed only on natural foods. All our eggs are free-range.

While we think it is important to stay true to the Japanese tradition of adding sugar and vinegar to sushi rice – we have reduced the amount of sugar to the lowest level possible without compromising the delicate balance of flavours. We also only use low levels of salt and sugar in our other dishes, and substitute sugar with apple juice wherever possible, which is why our teriyaki sauce is do delicious. Diners have a choice of white rice or genmai brown rice with all our hot dishes, and some of our sushi.

Connecting with our fisherman has been one of the many joys I've had in running Moshi Moshi.

For the first decade of our lives, we were relying on fish through wholesellers buying from Billinsgate, and I remember the day I asked my chefs to order fish from the UK for me to try as sashimi. We ordered lemon sole, plaice, megrim, ling and some others, and the chefs dutifully cut it up and prepared it as sashimi. But they wouldn't touch it, leaving me to plough my way through slices of mushy textured flesh and risking food poisoning in the process! Britain just wasn't geared up to eating our fish raw, so when I first met Chris Bean through Slow Food's Terra Madre event, my life changed.

Chris is a coastal fisher who catches off the Lizard in Cornwall. He uses static nets that don't damage the marine environment, and his mesh size is such that he can avoid catching the babies because they can swim through, while the really big fecund fish bounce off, so he is left with a good size of catch from a marine protection point of view. Because he ices on the boat and the fish are taken out of the net by hand, their flesh is in prime condition and dead tasty for us. Since we first started buying from Chris he now takes fish from other like-minded fishers in the area and sells to quality and environmentally aware chefs in London.

I was delighted to hear that from one year to the next he had doubled his income on exactly the same volume of fish, a real success story in my view as it protects the livelihood of these small scale fishers, without whose knowledge we would lose our ability to fish in this way that does little damage to our precious seas.

Here are some photos of your fisherman at work for you – on a day like the one I am writing this today, I can be wholly envious of their labours, but it is timely to remind myself that they get fish to our restaurant even in the height of winter chills and storms. For that I must be truly thankful, as fishing remains the UK's most dangerous profession.

I hope you enjoy the photos.