I recently visited Tombo in London with my friend as we both love Japanese food and she recommended their green tea desserts and since I’m a sucker for all things green tea flavoured, it was a no brainer. Luckily I had my camera with me but low lighting = noisy pics! Tombo is located just off Exhibition Road in South Kensington, it’s a great little restaurant serving up authentic simple Japanese food. It’s not trying to be anything different or too fancy – just really simple honest Japanese food which is quite refreshing.
Firstly let’s talk about the tea. I love green tea and I chose their Bonsai tea which is their Genmai Cha tea (green tea and roasted brown rice ) which is my favourite kind of green tea! I really liked that they gave you a thermos of hot water to pour into a traditional Japanese teapot which the tea leaves were in. That way, the tea leaves don’t over brew in the water which is better for the tea and means that it is much tastier. It was so incredibly fragrant, I’d come back here just for the tea alone.
For dinner I chose their Miso Salmon Bento which was a really generous portion and pretty healthy too. It came with sides including broccoli and fine beans, pickles, lotus root and a hijikki salad (seaweed) with edamame beans. The rice was multi grain and I spied some pearl barley in the mix which is something my family in HK do sometimes too. As with Japanese meals, the bento was really balanced and not at all heavy so there was plenty of room for dessert!
I finished off my meal with some matcha green tea soft serve ice cream which I haven’t had since I was back in HK. Japanese soft serve is one of my favourite things so I was so happy to have this for dessert. I finished the ice cream pretty quickly and found that the bottom of the cone was filled with oats which was a challenge to eat without making a mess! My friend had their matcha sundae which had green tea brownies and I may have had a little food envy….I’ll definitely be back to try that next time! I’d really recommend this place if you want some good honest Japanese food without any of the gimmicks.
