Sushi Train, Sydney

After a super short 3-hour flight to Singapore with a fun 2-hour layover at the Changi airport, then a fast and comfortable 7-hour flight both by Singapore Airlines, I'm finally here in Sydney, Australia!

Me and my empty flight from Singapore to Sydney. Philippine Airlines does straight flights from Manila, but Sg Air was about 100 dollars cheaper. I also didn't mind the layover in Changi because I got to window shop, my favorite activity! There was also wifi at the airport so I was BBMing, Vibering and Facebooking my friends the whole time. Oh, Instagramming and Snapchatting too! YES, I talk to all my friends on those apps and even more! Haha.

I was just so happy that the flight was this empty. The flight from Manila to Singapore was pretty full, but it was only 3 hours so after I read a few travel magazines, ate and dozed off a little, before I knew it we had landed. But this flight from Sing to Sydney was so good, it was from midnight to about 7 or 8am so I just slept the whole way, laid out in one whole row! I had the first snack which was a tuna sandwich, but I had it open faced. I decided not to eat the breakfast on the plane and slept the whole way up to when I absolutely had to sit up for landing instead.

This is the view from my Ninang's apartment! Ninang is godmother in Filipino, by the way. I'm so lucky that she invited me to stay with her for 4 weeks! So far, I'm loving my stay and looking forward to all the fun (and food!) that I will be having. She's a chef so she cooks really well and has a very good palate. Anyway, she has a nice cozy 1-bedroom apartment overlooking the garden in her complex. I think that this is a really good choice for her because she told me that the view makes her feel like she lives in a hotel and I agree! Her place is decorated very nicely and though the furniture came with the apartment, she added her own decor and it really gave the whole place her personal touch.

After I had landed, settled down at her apartment and ate the lunch she cooked herself, I went with her to run some errands then we had dinner at Sushi Train, which is a Japanese restaurant near her house.

Even though my parents don't approve of sushi going around in conveyor belts, I bet if any of us took them to a place like this they woud approve! According to Ninang who is a chef here, the law in Australia is that if cooked food isn't consumed (especially the raw ones like sushi), they must be thrown out. So all the food here was guaranteed to be fresh. This was a great option for us because we were so hungry and we didn't have to wait for our food to be cooked or worse, cook it ourselves. A great alternative to fast food!

The first thing we got was this seared salmon nigiri. I wanted to share this with my Ninang but then she said she wanted her own, so we got one each. But when I had my first bite of it, I was so happy that I had gotten my own because it was SO GOOD! This is seared salmon with a cheese and Japanese mayo topping, with ebiko. The rice is underneath. So good, I died! This is definitely my champion of that night.

A roll that I had stupidly mistaken for maguro (tuna). It was good, but too much like the salad we ordered. This had sun-dried tomato, cheese and avocado in it. I asked for a fork and knife to cut out half of the rice that it was wrapped in.

Gyoza which my Ninang liked a lot! It tasted like it really was made out of pork and nothing else. No fillers!

The garden salad which my Ninang ordered. She said that it was different from the last time she ate it, because they probably used the veggies in season at that time which are different from the ones available now. Those are carrots, avocado, green beans, onions, cucumber, lettuce and sun-dried tomatoes in a vinegar dressing. The dressing was very light and didn't fight with the taste of the sushi, which is what I bet the chef of the restaurant was trying to achieve. Well, he definitely succeeded!

Lastly, we shared two slices of roasted pork nigiri. I found this so cute because it's not really sushi, it's just a way for the restaurant to get their entrees on the train! The rice balls underneath were made out of the sticky Japanese rice and not the sushi rice. It was also slathered in teriyaki sauce. Yum!

So that's all for my first day in Sydney! I hope to have time to do this every day so that I remember my trip better and I can look back at this later on!

'Til the next post!