Izanagi: Where Dreams Come True.

I'm meant to be trying to get abs, yet in the lead up to the deadly holiday season I find myself eating out more and more for a whole host of reasons. This particular day though, was totally worth it. My fellow Pan-Asian, Thai, Japanese food lover, Efe and I, decided to finally give Izanagi a shot. This place has been on my mind for a looong while because they do sushi, but I wasn't too sure about being served sushi in Nigeria. Then I thought about it logically, if I would eat sushi almost anywhere else in the world why would I not try it here? Anyway, on the recommendation of a good friend of ours, Efe and I trooped along to Izanagi about a week ago (week agooo).

It's on Idejo Street in V.I and as soon as we passed the dodgy looking construction workers and other people hanging about and climbed the stairs, I fell in love. Let me just say now that my expectations for this restaurant were sky high and I was very sure I was going to be at least a little disappointed. Efe and I sat down and perused the menu, giggly with excitement. We looked at the menu and were surprised by some of the prices, 3 maki rolls for N1,200? Yes please! Our waiter was pleasant and quite knowledgable and also very patient as we were consumed by general indecision. In the end, we opted for Prawn Tempura and Chicken Dumplings for starters.

The tempura came with tempura sauce and was coated with the lightest, fluffiest, most delightful batter. The type that doesn't leave you feeling like you've swallowed a wad of oil and clogged up your arteries, the best kind! And the dumplings were extremely flavourful, they came with chilli powder, soy sauce and sesame seeds, but really I enjoyed them just on their own.

Oh before I forget, I had an Izanagi's Kiss to drink, a non alcoholic cocktail with apple juice, coconut juice and some other stuff I've since forgotten. It has the yummiest, most fragrant smell. Efe had an apple juice. No need for expensive drinks when there's food to be had!

For our mains we ordered one plate of Beef Udon Noodles to share along with three maki rolls, from left to right the rolls are "Mango Roll" which was a roll wrapped in a deliciously sweet slither or mango. "Plantain Roll" which had tiny and fairly spicy plantain pieces over a tuna roll and my absolute favourite the "Salmon Skin Roll". The sushi came with a side of wasabi and ginger. The noodles were extremely tasty as well and even though we struggled to finish it, we still picked up all the pieces of tender, well flavoured beef and left the delicious noodles alone.

At this point I have to talk about the service, we got to the restaurant at about 6.30, just half an hour after they open for dinner, (can someone say keen beans?) and were immediately given our choice of seats. By the time we were leaving a couple hours later, all the tables were completely occupied, it was mainly full of expatriates and the crowd ranged from families, to couples, to just friends hanging out. This was a random Tuesday evening, I would hate to see what it's like at the weekend and so my dear friends, if you're planning on going; reserve, reserve, reserve! My main point though is that even through this busy period, our food still came out consistently and seemed to be perfectly timed by our more than able waiter. It was not until towards the end of the meal that I started to feel Mr. Perfect was cheating on us with the other tables around. Lol.

To end the whole fiesta, I ordered the Warm Lava Cake, Efe decided to pass on dessert though. I really considered being a good fitfam girl but what's the point of not trying dessert? Especially when by this time, I was convinced Izanagi could do no wrong! I kissed my "almost" abs goodbye and dove, head first into the warmth of this decadent chocolate cake. If like me, you love chocolate, your taste buds will explode at the richness of this dessert. The sensations of the warm cake and the cold ice cream were enough to make me shed a real life tear and I don't regret getting the cake for one second.

Warning, objects in the pictures are larger than they appear. The serving of cake was probably better suited to two people than one, but who's complaining? My only issue with the dessert was the inclusion of strawberry ice-cream. Yuck. Who does that? At the end of it all, our bill came in the cutest treasure box and I bet you're wondering what the low down is.

A grand total of N19,800. Yup, you read that right. Fortunately for us, it was just within our budget and worth every gaddem kobo! Unfortunately, it means I can't go there once a week until I've exhausted their entire menu like I originally planned to. :( 

So here's my final low down of what has been by far, my best dining experience in the whole of Lagos and certainly my top three in all my experiences.

Food- 9.5/10

Service- 9/10

Ambience- 10/10

Overall- 9.5/10

If you've been meaning to visit Izanagi's then go! If you've never heard of them, still go! If you don't like sushi or other Asian food, hell just go anyways! And if you see me munching away in a corner then come say hey and join me :)

November Challenge- Tripod Headstand

It's hump day again! Wednesday really is my best and worst day of the week you know... I have CDS which means I don't have to go to work, but I have CDS which means I have NYSC stress. I don't really mind CDS and actually I look forward to it a lot of the time. After Batch C 2013 passed out, I took over from the president of the Education CDS Group and it's going okay so far. I myself only have a few more months anyway and I hope I can get something tangible done in this short time left!

Anyways hump day also means it's work out Wednesdays! Today I want to share with you guys this challenge I took up at the beginning of the month, I was going to share before but then I thought, well why not? The challenge is to conquer the Forearm Headstand aka Tripod Headstead. Before we get into pictures, some background and a disclaimer. I am NOT a fitness expert, please check with a doctor or health physician before trying new exercises.

I am THE most inflexible person you will ever meet. Or I was anyways, I can't touch my toes for the life of me, my hands barely go past my knees, but some time ago while I was in Manchester I took pole dancing classes for fun and more or less became obsessed with core balance, strength and flexibility. People always look at pole as something sexy strippers do in seedy night clubs but until you've tried it you really can't understand the coordination and control it takes to be able to gracefully execute some moves. I love seeing dancers like the ones at "Fight" being able to contort their bodies into beautiful shapes and make it look effortless. I stopped going to pole after I moved away from Manchester and I lost my obsession a bit, I no longer spent hours on youtube watching MissDirdyBirdy or Jenyne Butterfly. However, one day when I was driving home, I started noticing pain in my right hip and literally just thought to myself, "Girl, you are too young for this!" and so I incorporated stretching as a major part of my exercise routine.

In pole one of the exciting things we did was headstands and I remember feeling so nervous the first time I ever kicked up into one. I decided that this month I wanted to be able to achieve a headstand with no kicking up, just like the way Maria my former pole instructor used to and thus started the challenge. I already knew the basics of the headstand but used PopSugar Fitness to further break it down. For reference, this is what it should look like.

The first step is getting into Tripod Balance but to get there you have to extend your legs out then walk your feet towards your face while transferring more of your weight to your head and arms before carefully lifting one leg and then the other. No hopping allowed. 

For this you actually need some flexibility in the hamstrings of which I have been building slowly.It probably took me about a week to be able to hold this pose for more than 5 seconds, now I'm super comfortable here and get into it every single time. 

Then you need to try and lift your knees off your triceps and then back down with control. This is a serious core killer! After many days I finally got the courage to lift my knees off my arms, it's all about going slow, breathing and feeling your body. Of course I fell backwards and hit the wall many times, haha. But that's why the wall is there in the first place! 

A few nights ago through sheer determination, after hitting the wall yet again, I pushed off gently from it and voila! I'm holding the tripod headstand with my knees at sort of a 90 degree angle, I managed to count to 5 before falling out of the pose but now I know my body can get there, I can't wait to push just a little longer next time. Can you tell how excited I am?? 

I'm feeling really hopeful that I can nail this with my legs extended by the time the month ends in the next 10 days! Practice, practice practice.

I realised that my hamstrings are holding me back also if I ever want to be able to go straight into a headstand they need to be a bit more flexible and so I've been working on loosening those too and maybe one day I will be able to touch my toes also! December challenge maybe? My ultimate stretching goal of life is to be able to do the front splits. Haha. Ambitious? Maybe. But what's life without a little challenge?

How's your hump day going? What fitness challenges have you set for yourself in the short and long term? Share with me! Also, am I like, the only one who can't touch their toes? *embarassed face*

P.S. Apologies for the atrocious picture quality, it was pretty dark when I did this and it also took a lot of experimenting, these were the best ones!

An Evening of Dance: "Fight!'

So this past weekend was quite a busy one for me. While I was watching Interstellar with Deola, right before we went to Coral Blue, I got a phone call from a good family friend of mine Namir, who had extra tickets to a dance production taking place at Muson Centre called "Fight". It was a super tight squeeze but anyone that knows me knows that I love stage productions and so I plotted and rearranged my day and made it to Muson Centre just in time. When I think of arts, I rarely remember contemporary dance to be one of the best forms of conveying messages and feelings but this was a nice reminder.

The theme of the production was "fight" obvious huh... And there were various scenarios pulled from the theme. I don't have pictures from every single dance because there were a lot of lighting effects and my camera couldn't always keep up.

 The very first dance was to Breathe Me by Sia, which is a song that I lovee! If you haven't heard this song before then stop what you're doing and YouTube it right now! Well... When you're done reading it. Depending on my current state of mind the song has the ability to move me to tears and even though I was very chipper that day, watching the dancers move so fluidly and gracefully definitely brought a tear to my eye.

This dancer moved to a spoken word piece about fighting with ones inner demons and using positive thoughts to conquer the negative being that is in almost all of us. It was quite an emotive piece and I liked that it was different to the rest.

They also performed to Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran and it was really really cool. I got some nice shots of one of the couples although this one was performed by almost all if not all the dancers.

The next one was about a girl in an abusive relationship and was by far my favourite because the dancers were SPECTACULAR. They were soo connected with each other and the music they danced to was completely wordless which made it even more powerful. They also used the lighting to convey the mood and it was red when times were bad and blue when things were better.

There was also a dance about traditional dancers in an Igbo village fighting for the hand of the King's daughter. This one was hilarious, all the dancers really got into character as villagers and the choreography was excellent too. The costumes were also quite colourful and fun.

I unfortunately couldn't stay till the end, even though I pushed it and stayed an extra 30 minutes longer than I had planned. All in all it was an interesting performance and I'm grateful to Namir for remembering me :)

My only negative comment is that I wish it was more of a connected story rather than a bunch of stories with the same theme because this would have drawn me in a lot more but it was good nonetheless! Someone needs to tell me how exactly people advertise for these things though because I almost never hear about it until the day of the production and then I'm fortunate enough to be able to score some tickets.

Are there any good websites or people to follow on social media platforms to get information on upcoming theatre productions?

Coral Blue: Just Swimming By.

Happy Monday guys!

Does such a thing exist? Well it should actually because why programme our minds to think Mondays are bad or annoying. In that vein, we're going to be talking about one of my favourite things today! FOOD!

Chai, there's nothing that puts a smile on my face faster than food! So this past weekend I tried somewhere new in Lagos, something I haven't actually done for a while even though I have a long list of places to go. But as I've said before, this corpers salary stays holding me back. So on Saturday I went to "Coral Blue" to have a late lunch and was really looking forward to it because it's a seafood restaurant and I love seafood! I'm also tired of going to Ocean Basket (which I would review soon) and so I went with high hopes and expectations.

Coral Blue is located in V.I. at No. 1 Adeyemo Alakija and actually shares its building with another restaurant called Kilimanjaro. The decor is all white and blue to keep in line with the sea theme and it's quite tastefully done.

I especially liked this fishy gentleman that signified the gent's room. The lady fish was just not very cool to be honest but we'd let that slide.

Am I the only one that think he looks Mexican?? Just swimming on by... Haha.

Attention to detail even on the staircase. 

Deola my foodie friend, (remember her from Yellow Chilli?) and I waited for Nkem to arrive but in the mean time busied ourselves taking selfies and being silly, as you do.

 

Once Nkem arrived, we perused the menu and placed our orders, and the waiter brought us some complimentary and very yummy warm bread rolls to keep us happy while we waited.

We waited and caught up with each other, had a good chin wag about the movie "Interstellar" which Deola and I had just seen earlier that day and generally gisted. I was slightly disappointed when my drink came though as the waiter had mixed it up. Deola and I had both ordered Mojitos while Nkem had an Ocean Breeze.

 

When our drinks came the waiter announced that he had one Mojito, one Mokito and the Ocean Breeze. The Mokito is the non alcoholic version of your standard Mojito and he was sure that it was what I had ordered. I immediately recognized my error, you see, when I was ordering I asked for a Mojito, pronounced Mo-hi-toe the way it should be. HOWEVER, most waiters in Lagos pronounce things as they are spelt and so I should have asked for a Mo-GEE-to! The funny thing is my friends and I are always going on about this but it just never occured to me that I should try to blend to their ways. Luckily he was nice enough to take my drink back and make it alcoholic without too much complaining and I trust he didn't spit in it after... I hope.

Not too long after the drinks came and just when we were really starting to get hungry, the mains arrived. Nkem and I had the Sea Shore Paella which is a rice dish with mussels, prawns, crab and calamari. My mouth was watering when I read the description and as difficult as it was for me to make up my mind, I chose it because it had the most variety. Deola had the Ribs and Calamari with a side of fries.

When my food came, I was impressed at the presentation but extremely disappointed at the first bite. Paella is traditionally a very rich, tasty dish but this was more of a very bland fried rice. The rice barely tasted of anything and was visibly coated in a sheen of oil. Ugh. Nkem ended up putting a huge dollop of pepper sauce in her food just to give it some kick and I went for ranch sauce that came with Deola's food. The helping was very big though and I couldn't finish the rice so I just picked out all the yummy calamari instead :D

Overall though, I was underwhelmed and I hate being underwhelmed. 

You can really see the oil on this.

Deola described her ribs and calamari as nice and not much more but from the empty plate at the end of the meal, I think she enjoyed it more than I did mine! My bill for my meal was N5250 which is slightly pricey for just one course but with the amount of sea food I had, isn't that bad. All in all I would go back to Coral Blue again to try something else on the menu, just because I really want to like it and so I'd give them another chance.

In summary though...

Food- 4

Service- 6

Ambience- 8

Overall- 6

Deuces guys, have a great day and an even better week!