A Spark of Taste. Prior to me learning 'Endowment Theory' - I always know that hoarding stuff was beneficial to me and the rest of the human race. I used to collect an array of random items and some not so random. I had (ok, still have) a shoe fetish. Not trainers - shoes - which in turn means *shoeboxes*, which could be filled with all those itty bitty things that no-one else in their right mind would keep. Saturday was a day of purge. Drawers, cupboards and *shoeboxes* in the home/office were all opened and organised.

One such box contained matches, lots of matches. Small traditional boxes of matches, matchbooks and a those little 1 layer matchboxes you get at a bar that are long and thin. It reminded me that this was the overflow box to the matchbox collection that I have (still in storage). It is safe to say that from the age of 10 or so I kept a box from every restaurant that I was taken to and every restaurant that my parents went to. As I grew older and I started to smoke the matchboxes became emptier but they still accumulated in a big glass vase in my bedroom.

It dawned on me that I have not taken a box of matches from a Restaurant for sometime, now it is a business card or their URL. Long gone are the days where you got asked if you would like a table in the smoking section. The smoking ban kinda passed me by, I had stopped smoking some time before and so it did not affect me. I still watch the occasional friend brave the weather for a post-prandial puff.

Of course the lack of smoking means that not only have I put on weight but more importantly I can taste more than before. I never had a problem tasting - flavours were present in all relevant areas of the tongue but everything became a little clearer and more pronounced. The first thing that I remember being cleaner was sushi. This was some years ago now and there were not the plethora of decent Japanese restaurants in London. It all happened at the place that I still think has the best sushi chefs and the freshest fish in London - Defune.

It has literally been around for years. 2 years after I was born in fact.

It is unassuming and barely advertises itself. It sits on the corner and has some Japanese script on its signage. You walk in, always to be greeted - "ashira - shy - ma - zay" - there are a few tables and a sushi bar. A semi obscured staircase in the back right corner takes you down to a teppenyaki area, more tables and even a private room (always packed with Japanese executives). There is a cupboard down there as well, booze bottles with names on them, for regular customers!

I am not going to delve into every dish I have eaten there as that would take far too much time, instead I am going to make a plea:

Go to Defune. It is not the cheapest restaurant in the world. It has (I think) the best sushi in London.

That's all folks. Thanks for coming.

Garlic Confit Review - Every night of the Week