Few weeks ago and
promoted a new tag called #introduceyourhometown with their challenge to present the hidden gems of your home town. I loved the idea from the moment i discovered it, but when i was writing a post about my home town Ljubljana (read it here: Welcome to Ljubljana - The Dragon City!) i realized that there is still much to see and discover in Ljubljana even for me. And I realized that in the best time possible.
Me and my wife started dating on 7th of July 2007 (07.07.07 - lucky for me ... a date i can't forget!!) and first Friday in July it was our 10th anniversary. After months of thinking where should we go to celebrate, we decided to spend our anniversary in our home town - Ljubljana. But since the occasion is quite big, we wanted to make it memorable. But what to do in a town you already know?
First we started with visiting the best Japanese restaurant in the town. It's called Sushimama and it's located on Wolf street right in the city center. We made a reservation just to be sure to have somewhere to sit. It was 4 O'Clock and we arrived in a completely empty restaurant. After speaking with a bartender he suggested that we can sit wherever we want (no kidding?). So we took a table next to the window with a nice view on a busy Wolf street even though the weather was on the edge of a storm.
When ever i come to the restaurant i haven't been before i ask the bartender what is the house recommendation. And this is the menu he suggested.
First we started with a small appetizer: edamame - Immature soy been steamed and salted
The only thing edible are the beans inside the pod. So you have to squeeze them out. Quite funny and since it's salty it's a great appetizer
Next we ordered miso crab soup for me and wakame soup (with algae and shiitake mushrooms) for my wife
Both of them were delicious and with a bit of extra added chili in my soup i couldn't imagine a better soup.
After that we got our main dish. Two menus with nigiri and sushi rolls combined and served on a single plate
It was absolutely wonderful. The taste, the combinations with wasabi and ginger, the freshness of the fish and presentation. We both loved it. Sushi rolls were filled either with tuna or combination of avocado and shrimp. The nigiri sushi was with squid, octopus, salmon, tuna, mackerel, shrimp and the last fish i can't remember (the upper left on the picture if anyone recognize it??).
Since Japanese food is light we had room for deserts. And the deserts they are serving should be banned! They were amazing and i can imagine myself eating 2-3 of those easily!
My wife ordered a Mango pudding. It was light, chilled and delicious with a strong mango-vanilla flavor.
My pick for desert was a cake with hazelnut muss, pineapple and raspberry sauce. This desert is a big recommendation for anyone visiting Sushimama! I don't know if they serve it all year around, because it's not on the online menu but do ask for it.
Oh and i almost forgot. We were drinking an ice tea with ginger, limes and mint leaves. Very refreshing and tasty, excellent for the hot summer weather.
The total price was 68€. This is maybe a bit more expensive than the average meal (with soup, main dish and desert) in city center but if you like sushi i would say it's worth it!
I've taken some more pictures of the interior. It's a really nice place, usually it is full and you do need a reservation, but since it was Friday right after work, we didn't see much people inside. It was a completely different story in the evening when we were walking by - it looked full from the outside.
Our lunch was over and we were ready for the Ana Desetnica. It's a street theater festival celebrating 20th anniversary. It's free and really well visited. For this event the main street was closed for traffic every day from 4 O'Clock till midnight and you could watch performances with fire, street performances, animation performances on stilts, street circus, or just sit on a sofa in the middle of a street and chat with your friends. But it's best if i stop and you can see it for your self on the pictures below.
After the performances we went for a dinner in a place called Ljubljanski Dvor, located on one of the oldest squares in Ljubljana - Dvorni trg. It's a combination of a fine restaurant and a pizza place and both pizzas and dishes are really good. But since it's on the very good location it is usually full. I like this place because this was the No.1 pizza place that me and my parents were visiting in my childhood.
We ate 2 salads as main dishes. It was fresh, light and even tho the place was full, the service was quick and professional from order to payment.
The last place we planed for the evening was once the tallest building in Central Europe and even longer in the Balkan region - Nebotičnik (English translation is Skyscraper :) ). It was build in 1933 and is 70m tall :). For the comparison: Empire state building - 381m, Taipei 101 - 508m, Shanghai Tower - 632m, Burj Khalifa - 830. As you can see it isn't really tall and in most countries they wouldn't even call it a Skyscraper. Anyway the best thing about this place is, that they have a cocktail bar and a coffee shop at the top floor. So we decided to finish our day with a cocktail above the city and boy how disappointed we were ... Cocktails were expensive, badly made, service was lousy, the only good thing was the view
and the amazing rounded stairs leading to the bottom of the building
(HINT: you can take the lift up, and the stairs down, but the stairs entry is hidden. You need to take the stairs inside the bar and than at the bottom go through the door that looks like an emergency exit).
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