Japanese home cooking

Another day at cchw's apartment for a home cooking dinner, we transformed ourselves into japanese aunties making a home style japanese meal minus the curly auntie hair style, floral aprons, and slippers with white socks.

First we had the sake flavored pomfret. The sauce which was cooked with dashi was extremely tasty.

Miso soup with clams. Clams were very sweet with light miso taste. This is so easy to make.

Sauteed gobo and carrots in dashi sauce. I always like gobo because of its bitterness and crunchy texture. the dashi sauce did lighten some of the bitterness of gobo, it was perfect with a hint of sesame oil and lots of sesame seeds.

Instead of grilling the yakionigini we used a frying pan to sear the rice balls. We made two kinds of nigini - cured plums and miso paste. A bit tricky to make the miso rice balls since it was easily burnt with miso on the surface.

For dessert something quick and easy. Sesame shiratama with vanilla ice cream with kinako dusting.

What a successful cookout again.. we were becoming more efficient and managed to finish cooking within an hour... our skills were just getting better and better!

Matsubishi @ Marriot

Four of us went to Matsubishi @ the marriot hotel to satisfy the birthday boy's craving for teppanyaki.. Actually it is my first time having teppanyaki in HK, I remembered dining at Benihana when I was young, but we didn't have that good of experience there which reverted us back to the traditional sushi and donburi whenever we dined out.

Teppanyaki is all about a guy standing in front of you performing a show of searing food and frying rice... and here is our guy who have been working at the restaurant for over decades.... wouldn't he get bored by performing the same act everyday?

A salad and gyoza to start off our meal.

We all went for a set menu which comprises of scallop/eel, sirloin beef/kurobuta pork, fried rice and sauteed veggies.

First off, our chef went on a full explanation of the origin of scallop while grilling and dicing our lovely shellfish. Our scallops are huge with large gonads...the shell itself is as big as my hand. I guess the chef is way too chatty and didn't notice he has overcooked our scallops.. what a bummer, they would have been so juicy if they are not overcooked....

Next we had our sirloin/pork. Chef placed a piece of toasted bread on our plates to absorb the excess fat of the meat. It looks like a special home made bread with their own seal on it.. but surprisingly it is actually the normal HK garden brand, nothing fancy about it...

We had 3 dipping sauce in front of us - ponzi/soy, tomato with apple, sesame

The sirloin was cooked perfectly, tender and juicy. The meat can go by itself without the dipping sauce.. it was served with fried garlic chips as an extra kick. well.. i have already established that this is not a good place for dating.. with that much of garlic what kind of distance do you want to keep with your dating partner..

The kurobota pork was thinly sliced and wrapped with scallions and fried garlic chips when grilled. The pork definitely is much better than the China fed ones sold at wet market..which are basically tasteless. Instead of thin slices, I would really want to try the pork loin since kurobuta pork is supposedly super tender and fatty.

After the meat course, chef started making the fried rice. The technique is fast moving hands, super hot pan, little oil, cooled rice, fresh ingredients, and lots of scallions. The fried rice was nicely done, seasoned perfectly with slight soy sauce flavor. Comparing the jap fried rice to chinese fried rice... I think I would still prefer the chinese version because of the seafood flavor from dried scallops.

To sum up - decent food, good atmostphere, nice decor, dimmed lighting, clean bathrooms.. one weak point is inexperienced staffs who didn't refill our choya every now and then...other than that a good meal overall.

Kaiseki

Back to HK now..but still can stop myself from posting pictures of my japan trip...

While we were still in noboribetsu, we stayed at a very nice onsen, which is different from the traditional japanese style, and features the modern fusion with beautiful furniture and decor.

For a night of stay, we enjoyed soaking ourselves into miracle water that made our skin glowed, and most importantly, a delicate kaiseiki dinner that featured the finest of noboribetsu.

A glass of champagne as a perfect start of the meal, and then plates and plates of delicious fusion food that last for 3 hrs long..
Love the seaweed tofu with uni.. very interesting texture that almost like mochi..





Love the beef, so tender and juicy.

You wouldn't believe it, the rice was really good!! every piece of rice glowed with glossiness and transparency.. and it's the best bowl of rice I've ever had.

After a night of big dinner and long onsen dip, we started the morning with another big meal. We had the choice of western or japanese style breakfast menu.


and of course the t stem melon... so good! =P

Food marathon Part I

Instead of drowning myself in sorrow, I took a more positive approach to weather the day of getting a yr older. The celebration came down to meeting up with good friends, chatting for four hours straight over gourmet meals at fancy restaurants.

Friday night, we got ourselves a table at Zuma, renowned to be one of the best japanese fusion restaurants in the world. Located at Landmark, the place was surprisingly huge, with sushi bar, indoor and outdoor dining space. The crowd was predominantly caucasians, or chinese who only know english, all dressed up, and reminiscent of what you would expect to see in nyc, with people who seem to have plenty of money to splurge, know the way to enjoy life, come to the restaurant to see and to be seen.

The food overall was fine but not great. I was expecting much more sophisticated and innovative dishes than what I had that night. There's no doubt that they used the best ingredients that were available, the lobster sashimi was indeed very fresh and still retained the saltiness of the sea. The beef tartare was fresh to taste instead of greasy. The scallop was cooked perfectly without a bit of roughness. I guess my problem with the meal is that the dishes didn't surprise me at all...the presentation was very pretty, the ingredients were very fresh, but the flavors were very ordinary. My other problem is that the dishes were way too small and not value for money..a guy can walk out feeling hungry after spending hkd1000 per head...




A fashionable guy slightly gay looking walked in with four girls, all dressed in tight sparkling short dresses with plunging neckline, parked at a table in the open terrace. Normally I wouldn't pay too much attention or criticizing other diners, but that guy looked too much like a pimp and the girls looked like working girls. Well.. at least they should be the expensive ones to dine at Zuma.
Second dinner at Fish at Marriot. The weather was perfect with sea breeze, and the restaurant has very nice ambience with a swimming pool on the side. We had fried calamari, lobster and crab cake, spicy seafood pasta and char-grilled blue nose with fries on the side. Reminded me of the food in Tassi.

I LOVE the birthday cake from Joel Robuchon, which is a passionfruit with white chocolate cake. This is what I like to call a dreamy cake.

More food pictures to come...to be continued......

Addicted to Japanese

Don't remember when and why it was started.. I have been eating Japanese food at least three times a week now. It seems Japanese is the obvious and convenient choice for weekday lunch.

Another JP lunch at Kiku - eel and sashimi set for HKD230. The set comes with a small appetizer of a piece of crab leg, steamed egg custard and marinated seaweed. I like the tiny touch of beauty with a small daisy next to the sashimi. I LOVE the eel as it was cooked perfectly and the meat was so soft and melted as soon as I put into my mouth. The sauce was soo addictive I chowed down the whole set with a full stomach..