A couple of days ago, I was with some friends in the centre of Madrid and we decided that we felt like going somewhere for food.
We fancied some Japanese food, but all of the restaurants that we knew of closed at 4pm and didn't open again until 6pm.
Besides, if I go to a Japanese restaurant to eat sushi, I usually opt for a buffet-style situation so that I can eat all the sushi that I want because it is normally quite expensive and it makes more sense if I want to take full advantage of my hunger.
So, when we saw that almost all of the restaurants that had all-you-can-eat sushi were closed at that time of day, I envisioned myself eating some Domino's Pizza or something else along those lines. But, suddenly, one of my friends remembered a restaurant that we had seen on our way into the city centre that seemed to look quite good, as well as being relatively affordable.
This was the advert that we saw, which ultimately convinced us to go and eat there.
As you will be able to see, the offer they had on at the time was very tempting.
Anyway, after little to no discussion about it, we decided to head off in direction of this restaurant: Nigiri.
Those of you who are sushi lovers will know that nigiris are the kind of sushi that consist of a slice of (what is normally) salmon, tuna, butterfish, prawn or octopus on top of a condensed ball of rice in an oval shape.
Nigiris are my favourite type of sushi, especially salmon nigiris, which I am known to go crazy over.
So, yeah, after seeing just the offer and the name of the restaurant, I couldn't resist going there.
Nigiri is situated in Madrid city centre, in the middle of Calle Fuencarral, which is a perfect location for being a new restaurant. In all honesty, it seems a bit flashy when you walk past it and see the huge sign with the name of the restaurant and the window that lets you see the inside of the place too. If you're lucky, you can even see the chefs preparing the sushi in the kitchen from where you are out on the street.
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Once we arrived at the restaurant, we went inside and waited until a guy came over to serve us, but he actually told us that it was a self-service fast food place.
Don't be put off by that though. The only thing that we had to do in terms of "self-service" was go up to the fridges, choose what we wanted to eat and then take it to the cash register to pay for it.
But watch yourself, don't just think that it's junk food just because it's served quickly - it's not. All of the little trays in the fridge are handmade by the chef, which you could see him making before placing the sushi in these trays both within the restaurant and from the outside in Calle Fuencarral.
What this restaurant offered is way of eating healthy, yet fast food, which is something that you don't see every day.
Even still, I don't think that it is super, super healthy because all of the sushi trays contain monosodium glutamate, which is known to cause addiction. So, I recommend that you only visit this restaurant if you are walking past it, and avoid that this becomes a place that you go to very often.
In the fridges, there is a huge variety of items for you to choose from: from makis, nigiris and sashimis, to tempura, ramen, onigiri, tartares, yakisoba, and desserts. In terms of the desserts, you are, once again, spoilt for choice: dorayaki (with red bean paste or chocolate), mochis, matcha, chokobi (Shin Chan biscuits), and Pocky (sold as Mikado in Europe), amongst other things.
In the end, I decided to buy chicken ramen with gyozas, whereas my friends bought teriyaki beef yakisoba, a tray of sushi with tuna, salmon and butterfish nigiris, salmon and avocado makis, and california rolls, as well as teriyaki meat skewers.
And, for dessert, I picked up a red bean paste dorayaki - the original variety.
I don't know if you will know this, but you usually see dorayakis in anime shows, especially in Doraemon. They are not filled with chocolate, however (despite originally thinking that they were), but actually a paste made of sweet red beans.
The chocolate dorayakis came to be more recently because the Western people didn't enjoy the exotic flavours and they are quite babyish when it comes to trying new things. So, I guess that the Japanese eventually realised the issue at hand and began to make chocolate dorayakis.
I don't know if it's just me who thinks this, but I feel like they only used to make the red bean paste dorayakis and no other varieties were available.
I chose to try the red bean one because I had never tried it before, nor had I come across a shop where I could buy one, so I was quite excited when I found one here at Nigiri.
In terms of drinks, my friends chose something strange that had extracts and little bits of aloe vera in it, which I highly doubt I will try again because the overall taste and feeling of drinking the little bits left me feeling perturbed after just the first try.
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In total, we spent around 46€ if I remember correctly. I will admit that it's a little bit expensive, but the quality is more than satisfactory.
Look, I won't say that it was spectacular (nor really good, for that matter) because it could have been better, but for something designed to be quick and easy, it was fine.
I think I remember that the ramen cost 5€, the yakisoba was around 6€ (we bought three of these), the tray of sushi was somewhat more expensive costing around 14€, the skewers were 6€ ish, the drink, 3€, and then the dorayaki was 1. 50€.
I have a little bit of advice for those of you who want to order ramen if, in the end, you decide to come to this peculiar "fast food" restaurant.
There are several types of ramen:
- Chicken ramen with chicken gyozas
- Spicy chicken ramen
- Veal ramen
- Seafood ramen
- Vegetable ramen
And, with regards to the liquid to heat up the noodles, you also have a variety of options to choose from:
- Hot water
- Miso soup (without tofu and seaweed bits)
- Chicken soup
- Soup with soy sauce
I am a big fan of miso, so I decided to choose this to have with the ramen noodles. Bad decision.
Chicken ramen requires quite a salty sauce with an intense taste, and miso, unfortunately, is a smoother soup that is very easy to swallow. So, while I was eating the noodles, they seemed a bit bland and I ultimately regret not having ordered them with the chicken or soy sauce soup.
The next time that I go there, I will order the chicken soup to see what the ramen tastes like with that.
After paying for all of our food at the till, we decided to go up to the first floor and what a surprise that was!
Whilst we were climbing up the stairs, we realised that there were words written in Japanese on each step, with their meaning in Spanish next to them.
They were short and simple-looking words that anime lovers will surely know, like: 'kokoro' (heart), 'kodomo' (child), 'toshi' (city), and 'ryokan' (a type of traditional Japanese inn that usually accommodate people for one-night stays).
This was something that I loved. And that is not all, there were also huge manga drawings on the walls (I have to admit that I don't know much about them, although I am trying to work out which manga this drawing comes from). Once we arrived at the first floor, however, I was left speechless and with my jaw almost on the floor.
And, besides that, there was also a huge poster that was really kawaii with little drawings of sushi on the wall ('kawaii' means cute in Japanese).
It was all so Japanese that, for a moment, I thought that I was really in Japan.
Once upstairs, I could see that the rear part of this floor was full of television screens all showing different Japanese TV channels and each programme was like being in a different world.
On the first floor, there were more of these television screens, but I thought that they were only part of the decoration because they were very high up and you couldn't really hear what they were saying very well. But, on the other hand, you could hear the shows very well upstairs and sit there and watch them comfortably.
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(Ground floor)
(Upper floor)
On the several television screens dotted around the upper floor of the restaurant, we could see some really bizarre, random and downright meaningless adverts that made us laugh really loudly. We laughed about how truly absurd they were and made us think about whether these really are the kind of adverts that they watch in Japan.
I don't really remember the advertisements that they put on because they were just so weird; one after another, they were automatically deleted from my memory, given how absurd and meaningless they were... but, hey, they were really funny though!
It was all a big performance.
We decided to sit down on the floor at one of the typically little tables that they have in Japanese houses, where you kneel down to eat with a cushion under your knees.
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My friends decided to sit in a very "Western" way, with their legs crossed or sitting with them to one side. I, on the other hand, opted to be a bit more traditional and show some solidarity to the Japanese (given that we were in a Japanese restaurant) and I kneeled up on the floor.
This very characteristic position is called "seiza", which is a sitting posture that emerged thanks to the old-fashioned architecture of the Japanese houses that had furniture that was not particularly high (especially the tables). So, because of this, the Japanese usually went about their daily business whilst kneeling up, be that eating, cooking, watching the television, or simply chatting.
Besides, the floor in these Japanese houses, especially in the living room and the bedrooms, is usually covered with tatami, which makes it much more comfortable to be kneeling up for prolonged periods of time.
So, yeah, I kneeled up and began eating, but not before we had said the typical 'Itadakimasu', bringing the palms of our hands together and making a small bowing gesture towards the food.
Itadakimasu (pronounced "/itadakimas/") means "enjoy your meal" and is always said before eating or drinking anything.
Some of my friends looked at me with a face that said "this girl really is a weirdo", but whatever, I didn't care because it seemed like I was living out my dream of being in Japan, so I just let myself be swept away by the atmosphere.
As well as the low tables and the cushions, there were also the super typical red lanterns that you would find in an izakaya (an informal Japanese pub). These lanterns are called "akachōchin", and you will have surely seen them in anime or manga when the characters go to have a drink after work.
Thinking about this detail just reminded me of another Japanese restaurant that I went to a while ago called Hattori Hanzõ, which is also situated in the centre of Madrid on Gran Vía, and is like a traditional izakaya. All of the decoration resembles these typical Japanese pubs.
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Aside from these lanterns and the low tables with the cushions, there were also high tables with their accompanying stools for those people who are not very used to eating whilst being level with the floor.
Ah, I forgot to say that when you pay for your food, they give you some little packets of wasabi and ginger for you to put on your sushi (if you feel like it), as well as some chopsticks (although you can also ask for a fork if you prefer). And, on each of the tables, there were also little bottles of semi-sweet and normal soy sauce. And, when it came to taking our leftovers home, they put it in trays for us to make it easier to carry.
I should also say that the toilets are very clean, and the restaurant was well-maintained in general.
With regards to the service given the waiting staff, it could have possibly been a bit more "kawaii" and friendly because they honestly seemed a little bit unenthusiastic and not very excited to be working.
When we asked them to recommend us something, they didn't really know how to answer us, and we ultimately ended up deciding ourselves.
This service is the only thing that I would change about the restaurant. The rest of the experience was great, especially the decor.
But anyway, nothing nor nobody is perfect. But, I had a pleasant experience eating at this restaurant, and if I am in and around the Fuencarral area, I will surely end up popping into Nigiri to eat some chicken ramen again... but, next time, it will be with the soy sauce.
And finally, the dessert: the red bean paste dorayaki. I have to admit that it wasn't at all bad, although I forgot to ask if they make them themselves at the restaurant or if they are bought pre-made.
I would even dare to say that they were manufactured, pre-made ones because they tasted a little bit processed and somewhat flavourless. I don't know... it's not like I can really give much of an opinion on the topic because I have never eaten a homemade dorayaki, nor a factory-processed one. But, anyway, the important thing is that it was okay and that I ate it without pulling any weird faces.
Personally, I think that it a really good place for spending some time with friends (whether they are sushi crazy or not), especially as you can sit and watch the Japanese programmes on the numerous television screens.
So, don't hesitate in passing by and popping in for something to eat - you will not regret it!
