The ELIXIR OF YOUTH (their capitals) is a bold claim for a £5.50 salad from Pod but all that salmon, kelp noodles, seaweed, spinach, green cabbage etc etc does look ridiculously healthy and tasted as if the ageing process would be delayed for at least an afternoon.

For the money the salmon is plentiful and only very lightly smoked, so it's almost an alternative to more expensive sushi boxes with less fish and too much boring white sushi rice. You're more likely to resemble the toned models leaping athletically through the air in the new Itsu branding by eating a few boxes of ELIXIR.

Other interesting and colourful things on the shelf include their "mini" size salad boxes for £2.95, with extra chicken for another £1, and the ENERGY SMOOTHIE loaded with banana, purple grape juice, soya milk and museli which all blends into a rather too thick pinkish juice, but even this consistency provides an extra health benefit by giving the face muscles a serious workout when trying to suck it all through a straw.

Pod have grown from nine to twenty shops in the past year, the most recent just opened near Monument, and the next shops will be on Gracechurch Street, Lombard Street and Leather Lane.