Japan Centre - Happy Eel Day!

Day before yesterday was Eel Day in Japan -- the hottest day of the year when you are supposed to eat lots of yummy eel to cool down. We were in London, where it certainly wasn't the hottest day (even for this poor excuse of a summer), but having missed celebrating Ocean Day a few weeks earlier Eel Day seemed like the perfect excuse for a celebration. And also the perfect excuse to sample the restaurant in the Japan Centre on Piccadilly, which comes highly recommended by London's Japanese restaurants. It's a simple place, with a small sushi counter and then area with normal tables. Sparse decor included a row of decorative sake bottles and a cute blackboard sign telling us that the restaurant though of the customers as of its own children. The menu offers a wide range of Japanese dishes, but with the day in mind, we went for eel "don" (£15ish )- a bowl of rice and spring onions, topped with the most tender, slightly sweet and cameralised looking piece of eel and served with miso soup. Add a couple of cans of Japanese beer (£3 ish) and it made for a delicious, if fairly low key dinner. I now want to come back and sample more of their offerings. Not to mention check out the Japanese house wares shop upstairs.

Japan Centre, 212 Piccadilly, W1J 9HX; Tube: Picadilly