Manga Sushi Japanese Restaurant on King Street in Nottingham seems to style itself between Sushi and Noodles.  As you might expect the menu had a lot of sushi options on it, and perhaps really  that was what I should have been ordering.

To be honest I popped in here because I fancied some noodles or maybe some kind of rice bowl, and I had quite a few to choose from. I was moments away from ordering a starter of vegetable dumplings or gyoza as they call them here and a bowl of the udon noodles or Chicken Yakidon to give the correct name

Then at the last minute I ended up moving out of my comfort zone ordering a bento box of all things, I seemed to have felt the need to try something more Japanese.

Eel Bento Box

I had really gone out on a bit of a limb by ordering the Eel Bento Box. I had too, I needed to stop just eating safe meals! It did really seem like a good idea at the time.

I really do like eel, but I do not eat it that often, years ago when I was an associate prof type at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan we ate it in a really tasty soup and we picked it up from the local market when it was still ‘wriggling’, we had it smoked, deep fried, and it was all good so I was hopeful to try the Manga version

Here at Manga Sushi, the Manga eel bento was described as coming with “King Prawn Gyoza, King Prawn Tempura, Seaweed Pickle” I figured it had eel in as well, and not just because I could see that in the pictures in the menu 🙂

I kind of enjoyed this, but I didn’t really get too excited about it. The actual eel itself had a nice delicate flavour, but could have been better if it had not been served on some sad  salad. The Seaweed pickle had the best flavour in the box, it actually had the only discernible taste and overpowered when you mixed it with anything else in the box.

The Prawn tempura was probably great for the Western Taste, and the prawn itself was ok, it was a bit soggy though. The prawn dumplings that were hidden underneath were not at all bad, they dipped well in a bit of soy, and on their own were quite acceptable.

I ate all of the rice as I was quite hungry.

I also liked the miso soup that came with the box and I most certainly enjoyed my bottle of beer, perhaps though that is one to talk to group about

I suppose in the end I had been kind of curious, and at a price point of £16.95 I kind of felt that in this case Curiosity probably did kill the cat, or in this case the eel

It was good to try something different but next time I would maybe just get some noodles and go back to being less adventurous? Nah!  🙂

Manga Sushi is located at 21 King Street, Nottingham, NG1 2AY

It is in the row of restaurants between Loch Fyne and French Living