Aya, Clarendon Street, D2

There's something quite mesmerizing about watching little plates of sushi and sashimi move at a stately pace around a conveyer belt. All those different shapes, colours and combinations drifting gently by, waiting for you to snap out of it and decide which one to pick first.

It took me a while to choose because I've never tried sushi before (how can that be?) and was quite content to enjoy the visual feast for a while. But once I'd grabbed a plate of spicy noodles, I picked up pace a bit, trying some salmon, nori rolls, a bit of tuna and then wontons stuffed with more salmon. Yum.

Many other tempting dishes paraded by as well - mackerel, prawns, mussels, squid and a couple of things I couldn't identify, but I was feeling a little unadventurous since it was my first sushi trip (oh the foodie shame).

Except for the little mystery bundles in the slightly blurry picture above.* They'd made a couple of sexy, twinkling rounds on the conveyer belt and Mr B. had noticed me eyeballing them.

'Do you want to try them? I'll go halves with you.'
'Alright then. They're such a gorgeous colour but I've no idea what they are.'

We asked the waitress and she told us it was fantail roe. None the wiser, we shrugged our shoulders and tried a piece each. Kind of peppery, kind of crunchy. Pretty nice. I'd eat it again.

Then I got home and googled fantail. DON'T CLICK ON THIS LINK if you'd rather not know what it is. Don't say I didn't warn you.

However, it hasn't put me off in any way, shape or form. In fact, the whole thing was a little bit addictive - it's nearly dinnertime and I'd like some more, please. I want to know what all those mystery dishes are, work my way through the menu, try everything at least once, maybe twice for good measure. So I'll be going back as soon as possible :-) Although that's all I need - a new food addiction...

*I'm not keen on taking photos in restaurants as I feel it's a bit annoying for other customers - they didn't ask to have a flash bulb popped in their eyes when they're there to enjoy the food. But that green was so cool, I just had to show it to you. So I managed to turn the flash off and get a couple of sneaky snaps.