The old Sushi Marina has always been a weeknight standby for me.   I liked that you were always welcomed with a smiling face, and you could rely on seeing a new dish written on the slips of paper and taped to the walls.  I spent many nights slipping into a table and looking forward to some black pepper jalapeno tuna, Cajun salmon and tuna on fire.

Sadly, those items are gone. The free miso soup is gone too… it will cost you about $3 now.  But thankfully the new owners seem just as friendly and they’ve maintained the welcoming atmosphere.   I would suggest they lose the radio though, or at least upgrade to a commercial-free service like Pandora.  It kind of kills the mood when the music stops and a car dealership ad comes on and starts yelling at everyone to buy a Corolla.  The menu has entirely changed, although the usual sushi standards are there.  Also the prices have gone up by about 20%, which is not insignificant.

On to our dinner.  We started out with the shrimp shumai (above),  which very well may have been the best I’ve had.  The dumplings are delicate with a soup-like consistency inside.  Very nice.  The salmon sushi was buttery, and I liked the touch of lemon.  I think overall the quality of the fish was a little better than it used to be at the old Marina, which makes the price increase a little easier to take.

Next we had the Eggplant Crisp (right), which was basically eggplant tempura with some minced tuna and an avocado slice on top.  Nice presentation, but the tempura seemed heavy and a little greasy.  It was also very hard to eat without making a complete mess.

The highlight of the evening was the Peppered Tuna with Salsa sashimi (below).  The tuna is coated in black pepper, lightly seared and served with fresh salsa.  The black pepper is brilliant… it dances on your tongue as the tuna melts away.  The salsa has jalapeno and avocado which adds a nice texture, although I preferred to eat the salsa separately between pieces of fish.  Definitely a new favorite!

Out with the old, in with the new.  And with that there is always some give and take.  I miss the old standards but I like the other changes.  I’ll be back and hopefully I’ll find a few more dishes I like as much as that black pepper tuna.

You have a long trip ahead.  Heathrow is on the far west side of London, and the Aloft is on the far East side.  The hotel is attached to a DLR (Docklands Light Rail) station though, so once you finally do get off the train you’re not far from your room.  I did not take a cab, and at breakfast I heard a person talking about what a nightmare her cab ride was the night before.  She said it took nearly two hours to get to the hotel, and I can only imagine what that cost.

So I recommend the trains.  It will take you about 60-90 minutes and cost around £24 total.  Here’s how to get there:  From Heathrow, take the amazing London Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station (only 15 minutes!).  If you buy a round-trip ticket it will cost you about £17 each way.  When you get to Paddington, buy an Oyster Card.  I can’t emphasize this enough.  Yes they will charge you a £5 deposit but it’s worth it, and you can turn it in at any station to get your deposit back on your way home.

Once you have your Oyster Card, take the Circle (yellow) Undergound line to Tower Hill.  This can be confusing as there are two Circle trains that come through Paddington… you want the one that is in the same station as the Hammersmith & City (pink) line.   Here is a link to a Tube map.

When you get to Tower Hill, you’ll actually have to exit the Tube station and walk across the street to the DLR station.  It’s pretty close but there are some steps involved, so consider that if you’re hauling a lot of luggage.  (I have an alternate route below if you don’t want to have to go out on the street).  When you exit the Tube station you should see signs directing you to the DLR.  Stay to the left and cross one street and you should see the DLR Tower Gateway Station sign.  You’re almost there!

Take the DLR train that goes to Beckton.  You’re going to get off at the Prince Regent Station.  Once you exit the train, walk up the stairs and go to the right.  You will see the Aloft Hotel directly in front of you.  Walk around to the left of the ExCel building entrance and you’ll see the hotel restaurant called FEDE.  Just past the restaurant on the left is a revolving door into the hotel.   You made it!  And you probably saved around £100 by not taking a cab.

Alternate Route:  If you don’t want to have to go out on the street at the Tower Hill station, here is an alternate route.  It takes a little longer as it involves one extra transfer.  You’ll still take the Heathrow Express to Paddington.  But this time you’ll take the Bakerloo Line (brown) East to Baker Street.  There you’ll transfer to the Jubilee line (grey) to Canning Town.  Have a seat on that train… you’re going to be on it a while.  Once you get to Canning Town you’ll transfer to the DLR that goes to Beckton.  You’ll hop off at Prince Regent, which is only three stations away.  Then follow the walking directions in the previous paragraph.

I hope that helps!  It’s a somewhat tedious journey but I still think it’s better than a cab.  And the hotel’s website only lists a cab as transportation options from Heathrow.

As for the hotel, it’s a standard Aloft.  If you’ve stayed at any Aloft hotels in the States you’ll find it very familiar.  The nice thing is the rooms are very large by European standards which is probably why they had to build it so far East.  There is NOTHING within walking distance, so the DLR station will be your lifeline to London.  The easiest place to go for shopping and dining is Canary Wharf, which is less than 10 minutes away.  I found the easiest way to get there is to hop on the DLR and then transfer to the Jubilee Line at the Canning Town station.  The Canary Wharf station is right in the middle of a huge shopping mall.

When I was ready to head to Central London, I took the DLR to Canning Town and then transferred to the Jubilee Line.  The Jubilee Line goes to London Bridge, Waterloo and Westminster, any of which will put you right in the middle of all the action in less than 20 minutes.

Do you have any suggestions for other routes, or any taxi cab experiences?  If so please leave a comment below!

So imagine my surprise when I switched to 97.5 and heard something that sounded… well… artificial.  And then I heard some telling words in a song.  Words like “With your power” and “God” and “Lifting me up”.  Yep.  It was Christian “music”.  And it was awful.  KRUZ was dead and gone, and replaced by this crap.  It happened so quickly.  I didn’t even know they were sick and dying.  I felt so sad as I deleted 97.5 from my presets.

I wish there was a way to resurrect KRUZ.  Anyone have ideas?  I’ll do whatever I can to rid our airwaves of the scourge known as AIR-1 Radio.  They used to be called K-LORD but I guess that was too obvious, so it had to be AIR-1 so it sounds more mainstream.  I can only pray that they go out of business as quickly as possible.  Until then I’ll thank my God that I have XM and Pandora, so I can listen to music without an agenda.

I’m so excited about this!  Earlier this year I started Ventura Home Team, a new real estate company that aims to be the area’s first non-profit real estate brokerage.  After one of our clients buys or sells property, we pay the agent, pay the bills and then we give the rest away to a Ventura County non-profit organization.  Well, last week we had our first closing!  It was a small closing (~$200k), but after everybody was paid there was still $750 left on the table.  Our client said he’d like to see that money go to Make-A-Wish Tri-Counties, so today we headed over there with the check.

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see this idea come to fruition.   I hope it’s the first of many checks we give to non-profits in Ventura County!  As we all know, every charity is seeing their state and federal funding slashed and it’s harder and harder to raise funds from the private sector in this economy.  So instead of sending our profits to a national real estate company’s headquarters in another state, we thought it would be better to create a local real estate company that puts the profits to use right here in Ventura County.  If you agree we hope you’ll work with us the next time you buy or sell property!  Visit VenturaHomeTeam.com for more info.  Cheers!

So I was very disappointed when I logged on tonight to check my travel for the week and noticed that my American flights were missing.  Why?  Because according to the app, American has decided to block access for some reason.  Pageonce suggests calling the AA 800# but when I did the American Airlines rep (who, ironically, was obviously not in America) could only help with reservations.  She had no clue about what Pageonce even is.  Disappointing indeed.

I wrote this post because I searched Google and couldn’t find any info about American and Pageonce.  Am I the only AA Platinum flier using this thing?  I’m hoping somebody might comment who knows what’s going on.  Or maybe share other ideas, for instance it looks like Expedia is still sharing info with Pageonce, so perhaps if I book all my future flights on Expedia instead of aa.com maybe I’ll still be able to use the app?

That first day was pretty rough… I was shocked to learn how many vegetarian items that I like are not vegan. By the end of the day I had decided to head over to Trader Joe’s with their handy Vegan list and start shopping for only Vegan items.   Because of that today was a bit easier.  Breakfast this morning was really good and included TJ’s soy “yogurt” and blueberry fiber muffins.  I’m chronicling the seven days on my other blog, Ventura County Vegan.  The fact that wine and coffee are vegan-approved makes me think that I’ll make it.  I hope you’ll follow along and maybe even try it yourself.  If for no other reason than the fact that the food you take for granted now will taste SO MUCH BETTER in seven days.  =)