scubainstructor87

Hi everyone,

Anybody know restaurant in London that made cooked sushi?
I'm pregnant and cant eat regular sushi.

Thanks!

LapLap

Congratulations on the pregnancy!

I personally got extremely irritated with the conflicting advice offered to pregnant women. In the UK it was about avoiding raw fish, in Japan it was about avoiding fish that would be contaminated with pollutants such as mercury (advice that, to me, made more sense)

Most of the supermarkets and places where mass produced sushi is available in the UK have the cooked kinds. I'm not able to recommend any of these because they're all rather vile.

Somewhere like Sushi of Shiori will have a few options that you can feel comfortable about enjoying. I can see at least 8 options on their online menu http://www.sushiofshiori.co.uk/menu.html
Or you can just ask if they can do a chirashizushi without salmon eggs or other raw fish ingredients.

Pretty much any high quality Japanese restaurant will be able to accommodate you if you explain your requirements, particularly if you aren't picky about the alternatives such as Kanpyo and marinaded fried tofu (used in inari sushi).

As I said, as the foods I avoided when pregnant might be different to what you are avoiding it's hard to say (I looked through the advice offered in the UK, Spain and Japan and tried to find a common sense to these, the UK advice against cheese made from unpasteurised milk was what made me most annoyed.)
Good sushi is only something I have a few times a year. Very good sushi I'm lucky to have once a year or once every two years. Bad sushi... Have had more than my fill of this. For this reason I'd suggest just getting something delicious at somewhere like Shimogamo in Camden (great lunch choices for about a tenner) and then treating yourself to something amazing which you might even be able to share with your child - tip, young children generally love salmon eggs and the supposedly challenging sushi.

trueblu

Generally good advice. As stated, 'sushi' need not be raw fish, and almost all decent japanese restaurants will have cooked sushi items. I hope OP doesn't mean a restaurant that would cook what was meant to be raw however!

However, I do take exception to the bolded. Pregnancy, believe it or not, weakens the immune system (a fetus is a natural 'transplant', and the body doesn't want to reject it). Therefore the body is more susceptible to certain organisms, such as Listeria which can be found in unpateurised cheese. Although rare, listeriosis can result in miscarriage, or much, much worse.

Getting a life/baby threatening infection from raw fish is less common -- one can acquire the flukes/worms that come with the territory, but that is almost as likely when not pregnant.

tb

LapLap

And one might also contract listeriosis from a bagged salad, pre-cut fruit and cold deli-items from the chiller cabinet.
The no soft cheese advice I can understand but Gruyere, Comt�, Appenzeller and any other hard cheese made from raw milk?

So the current advice, as it filters through to pregnant ladies in the UK, means that mums to be are carefully denying themselves the joys of a decent cheddar or Parmesan whilst keeping themselves healthy with a salad made from a bag of lambs lettuce and hummus with some pre-packaged cut melon.

I'm not saying that a good example of Emmental is entirely 100% risk free but when you look at the huge amounts of foods that can support listeria it's not at all high up in my own list of bogeyman concerns. In other words, it's not up there with Brie, babaganoush coleslaw and p�t�.
Where possible I'd urge anyone with a foetus to look after to after to try and understand the advice they are given rather than just blindly follow it, and that includes any advice I give.

The Neals Yard Dairy have an information leaflet with their own carefully considered views of cheese from unpasteurised milk in relation to pregnancy and for anyone who wants to learn more about the risks before giving up on yet another of life's great pleasures I'd definitely recommend having a chat with them before making up your mind.

Edit to add: just realised that the corpse in the salad example isn't the one I had in mind http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pict...ket-salad.html
But another case from little more than a year ago.

trueblu

Again, agree in general. Btw, when I was advocating avoiding unpasteurised cheese -- I did mean soft (by and large) and not excluding other items, such as deli meats. My wife had a massive mortadella craving during pregnancy, so would microwave for (?a few) seconds and eat away...

Anyway, I do feel this is all rather OT to the OP. I do wonder whether they did mean cooking of meant to be raw fish??

tb

Reason077

Advice from the NHS:

"It's usually safe to eat sushi and other dishes made with raw fish when you're pregnant. However, depending on what fish the sushi is made from, you may need to make sure that it�s been frozen first.

Sushi that is sold in shops or restaurants, whether ready made or made in the shop, should be safe to eat. Food safety regulations require shops and restaurants to freeze raw fish used to make sushi at -20C for at least 24 hours."

nutwpinut

There was more to that quote:

Reason077

Yes, that's good advice also, but not specific to sushi/uncooked fish.

The part I quoted was the bit which is specifically relevant to dispelling the myth that you shouldn't eat sushi when pregnant

scubainstructor87

trueblu

Not sure why the sad face. Eating preferences during pregancy are entirely personal. My wife decided not to eat sushi or rare steak during pregnancy - which the Japanese and French respectively would scoff at, but that made her feel more comfortable in her choice, that's fine.

Me suffering in solidarity was less fun!

Enjoy your pregnancy!

Btw, it's still not clear from your OP whether you wanted the restaurant to cook otherwise what would be raw fish (e.g. tuna), or whether there are restaurants that offer sushi with no raw fish (e.g grilled eel)?

tb