Sushi in Zurich

So when it came time to figure out where to eat for dinner, it was a complicated process. This was mostly due to the whole smoking being allowed in restaurants thing. I actually found a few resources online that list non-smoking restaurants in Zurich. The selections ended up being quite slim. There was a thai place, a vegetarian place way south of downtown, and a few other places. Yes, in the entire giant city of Zurich, exist only a handful of places where there is no smoking. So this was one of the reasons why I ended up at Isakaya. Yes, I came to Zurich and ate sushi. In the land of fondue and raclette, I ate raw fish.
It is a teeny tiny place, with no smoking, and no cell phone use. Hallelujah! There are about 15 seats in the place, tops. About a handful of tables and some seats at the bar. They sell sushi. That's it. No ramen, no udon, no chicken teriyaki. Just sushi. There's only one chef - the old japanese dude. And he makes all the food. There's no kitchen, it's just sushi bar.
I got a cup of miso soup and the sunomono salad. The miso was excellent, and had some juliennes of daikon in it. This is the first miso I've ever had where they threw in some daikon, and I quite enjoyed it. The sunomono was also excellent, zesty, sweet, and sour.
I got a sushi platter called " ganze portion" which had some tuna roll, cucumber roll, and sushi pieces of salmon, tuna, yellowtail, shrimp, tamago, and masago. This wasn't the prettiest sushi in the world. In fact, it seemed quite hastily made and not well put together. The rice kept falling apart. But damn it if it wasn't super fresh and delicious. Who knew? Not necessarily made with love, but made with super fresh ingredients. Mr. Japanese sushi chef in Zurich was a bit heavy handed with the wasabi though. There were a few bites where my sinuses were cleaned! The sushi itself wasn't freakishly expensive, but the soup and salad and water were ridiculously overpriced. That's how they stick it to you. If you're in Zurich and need delicious smoke-free sushi, stop by here! You won't find any crazy rolls or bento boxes, but you'll get extremely fresh sushi made with like.

Lunch In Zurich

I hopped a train back to Zurich to spend the day there before heading back to Dublin. Zurich is super cute too, but much bigger. I walked tons that day, but never really made my way out of a tiny area of town. Let me tell you a little something about Switzerland. Damn, it be expensive people. Like it doesn't make sense to me kind of expensive. But that's just the way it is. The grocery prices are just somewhat expensive, but prepared food is just horrifically overpriced.

And here's another horrible thing about eating in Switzerland. You can smoke in restaurants. Like 99% of them. And people just do it. All the time. Morning, noon, and night. Coming from Philadelphia, and having just come from Dublin, both cities which are smoke-free, it was such a strange reminder of the past. So finding places to eat that aren't smoky can be extremely difficult.
Most department stores have a dining hall. They tend to be very popular because they are somewhat affordable. Well, relatively affordable, for switzerland prices. And they're smoke-free. So I decided to check one out for my one lunch in Zurich. They had hot meals but my body was hankering for some veggies. So I got this little thing of salad. This is considered a medium salad in switzerland. I got all kinds of random stuff and quite enjoyed it. Yes, those are beets. You're looking at a beet lover. The green drink you see is freshly squeezed kiwi juice. Not quite sweet enough, but still great! And don't even think about asking how much this meal cost. Much more than you would think. But I consider it cheap here!
It was still cold this day. It was also raining. And then all of a sudden, it turned to hail! Yes, hail! I ended up walking back to the hotel in the middle of a hailstorm. Check em out! I watched it fall from my hotel room...

Flying Again

The next leg in this journey was in Switzerland, so I headed off to the airport to catch my flight to Zurich. Grabbed a lovely latte at Soho Coffee. It was excellent.
Swiss Air, my first time on this fine carrier. Great flight. They even gave us sandwiches, and I didn't have to pay for it. This is laugenbread, which I've been seeing all over the place now. There was sliced chicken, cheese, and mustard on it. At first, I freaked out about the mustard because I'm not a mustard fan, but I just decided to eat it anyway, and it was just fine. I could barely taste the mustard, even though it was very seedy looking. I am definitely a fan of this bread though! They even asked us if we wanted seconds... but I did not partake. The other sandwiches were laugenbread also, but just with mozzarella cheese.
And yes, they gave us little mini toblerones too.