Teri Aki Restaurant

Firstly, apologies to all involved at how long it has taken me to write this blog post! It has been over a month now since Jocelyn was here in England with us and on the last day she was here we decided that driving solidly from Manchester to Stansted airport would be pretty dry.

We therefore decided to have a stop off in what we had heard was the very scenic town of Cambridge. After Bailey had trawled his Facebook friends for recommendations of good Cambridge eateries, we settled on Teri Aki Restaurant - a little Japanese place by the river in the Quayside area of Cambridge as recommended by Nick Back.

On arrival, the restaurant looked quite a lot like a shameless Wagamama's rip off... BUT on closer inspection of the amazing looking menu as well as the scrumptious looking food other diners were eating we began to realise that Teri Aki was a lot more than that and began get very excited indeed.

I have only recently discovered my love of Japanese food so am still learning about what I like and dislike whereas Jocelyn seems to be a bit more of a seasoned pro. I therefore decided to go for a similar version of what she was having - a Bento Meal.

These looked great because they came with Miso Soup, rice and salad all together. So I decided to go for the Sake Bento Meal of chargrilled salmon while Jocelyn ordered the Yasai Tempura Bento Meal. Bailey decided to opt for the Chicken Kare curry. We also ordered a portion of Sake Maki salmon rolls to share.

I absolutely love Green Tea so ordered a refillable cup to accompany my meal also and I loved the cute little design on the mug that they brought it over in. Perfect for sushi novices like me to learn all the names of the types of sushi.

As is seemingly customary in this type of restuarant, the food all arrived at different times. However, the service was really speedy and none of us were waiting for long at all which was good especially given we had a flight to catch.

The first dishes to arrive to arrive were mine and Jocelyn's Miso soups followed by the salmon rolls.

I thought the Miso soup was quite different to other versions I'd tried previously in other Japanese restaurants but this could have been due to the fact it had bean curd and wakame in it as well. It was still really nice anyway and was a perfect start to our meal especially after wandering around in the cold for a while.

The salmon rolls I thought were delicious! The seaweed was a lot lighter in colour than the other times I have tried it and it tasted absolutely amazing - I could have happily sat popping those little bad boys into my mouth for hours!

Jocelyn's Tempura Bento Meal arrived next. 

It looked really tasty with a large salad, some Japanese sticky rice, some pickles and the tempura all in the same box.

My salmon Bento Meal was not far behind.

Now I must say I do really love salmon anyway so was really looking forward to getting my meal BUT nothing could have quite prepared me for the moment that my meal arrive and I tasted my chargrilled salmon... I just couldn't believe how flavoursome and superb it was. The skin was perfectly crispy and just a little bit fatty, the salmon was soft and moist and the Japanese rice was so sticky and yummy. It was probably some of the best salmon I have ever eaten and even though I am writing about this about a month after eating it I can still remember exactly how great it was - so it must have left a good impression on me! Even though I was eating with chopsticks, which I am not very good at, the food was so good I had to try and get every last morsel into my mouth. I know that Jocelyn didn't really enjoy her Japanese pickles but I even loved these.

Bailey's curry was the last thing to arrive, looking hearty and impressive on a cute plate to match the Green Tea mug.

Bailey absolutely loved this curry, not only did he say that the rice was "perfect and sticky" but he also said that this was in his top 10 curries of ALL TIME - and that's not just Japanese curries - all the curries he has eaten in his life! Wow.

And if that isn't testament to how much he enjoyed it then this picture is...

I am absolutely gutted that we live miles and miles away from Cambridge and won't be able to just pop in to Teri Aki again any time soon. This restaurant was an absolute treasure and I would like to thank Nick for recommending it to us - what fine taste you have Nick. I hope that Teri Aki will see the opportunity to open a huge branch of their lovely restaurant here in Manchester so I can go all the time and swoon over your amazing salmon and perfect rice.