Slurping up noodles...

At the end of last year, FI and I headed out for date night at Ippudo, a delicious ramen restaurant in the East Village. This was one of the five that Chef Morimoto had rated and we wanted to try out all five of them. This was our 3rd one (after Momofuku and Rai Rai Ken).

There was a pretty long wait for a table, so we hung out at the bar. We got there right at 8pm at the end of happy hour. The bartender was nice and still gave us the happy hour priced beers. "You're my last two!" he told us.

The bar is decorated with packs of dried ramen!


The backdrop of the bar are decorative ramen bowls!


We decided on a fried chicken appetizer. There were 2 sauces, one sweet & sour and the other kind of spicy. I alternated the sauces and that was a good way to mix the flavors. The chicken was nice and crispy but super moist inside and not greasy at all. The lemon juice was a nice acidic touch to the chicken as well.


Then we split 2 kinds of ramen soup. One was the original flavor with a white broth. This noodle soup was delicious. It wasn't super salty but still really flavorful. The noodles were chewy yet soft. The weather was super cold so it was nice to eat a hot bowl of noodles. I tried to get a bite of pork, noodle, and soup in every spoonful.


The other kind of ramen we had was a more salty broth with the pork with a crispy skin. This was delicious as well.

Halfway through our bowls of soup, we switched so we could taste both ramens. We both ended up liking the original better. And as we've learned from other eating establishments (Beard Papa and Pinkberry), the original is always the best.

Another year goes by...

For our anniversary, FI took me to Ushiwakamaru, a fabulously low-key traditional Japanese restaurant in the West Village. It was a surprise, so I all knew was that I had to be at the corner of W. Houston and MacDougall. I actually got there a little early and it was freezing so I ducked into the restaurant on the corner for a glass of wine and to warm up. I hoped it wasn't the place we were having dinner, which it wasn't.

We had 7pm reservations and when we arrived, we saw that FI's name was written along with 7pm on a little placecard at our seats at the counter. This place was recommended by his co-worker who also suggested we sit at the counter so we could see the chefs do their sushi magic.

Our place settings at the counter.


We ordered sake and they brought out a tray of sake cups, all mismatched, for us to choose from. This was fun! I've never done this before, but I'm guessing sake cups are like wine glasses - different shapes for different types of sake.


We decided to go with the chef's menu where they make you plates of sushi based on what they know is fresh and have available and how they want you to enjoy the meal.

What was super cool was that we got to watch him prepare our meal in front of us and watch him do other meals as well.

Here is the sushi board with the different kinds of seafood he picked out and sorting before plating.


We started out with an appetizer - a fried eggplant soup that was very light and warm in our tummies.


First course - sashmi. I ate it from right to left, going darker in color. Each piece of fish was so fresh, there was no fishy taste and it melted in my mouth.


I gasped at the octopus tentacles the chef pulled out and he agreeably posed for a snapshot.


Second course - sushi, plain on rice. We had all of our sushi and sashmi in Japan this way and loved it. The freshness of the fish required no other "weird" ingredients (cream cheese, avocado, veggies, etc.) to mask its taste. We actually didn't go out for sushi for about 3 months after we got back, figuring that any taste would just make us miss the sushi in Japan even more. But these were delicious. I even did the unorthodox method of putting the sushi in my mouth upside-down (as suggested by Barry Nalebuff) so I could taste the fish better.


Third course - different types of sushi. Here we got to try some other kinds of seafood - eel, roe, etc. What was cool about these sushi pieces was the different textures of each piece. The red roe was soft and each bead exploded with salty goodness. The eel tasting a bit tougher than fish so you had something to chew. The yellow roe with lots of little beads that rolled around on your tongue.


Finally we had a red bean dessert with tapioca balls. This was a wonderful way to end the evening. Red bean is one of my favorite dessert ingredients.


It was a great anniversary dinner. I loved the truly authentic sushi they had and it was fun to be surprised by the chef's menu.

Japanese meat on a stick

To celebrate our almost-anniversary, FI and I went to Yakitori Torys for dinner. It's a higher-end yakitori place and is a lot quieter than the places on St. Mark's.

A simple and clean table setting. I like this plate and chopstick holder.


We love going to Yakitori Torys and even though we're really all about the meat on a stick, we love their steamed vegetables. I think we mainly like them for the sauces they come with - sesame, wasabi mayonnaise, and flavored salt. Every time we've eaten there, we order the vegetables. And every time we eat it and say "We can make this at home!" But it's really not the same without the sauces. Which we need to figure out where to buy.


Then it was on to meat on a stick! First up, chicken skin. Now chicken skin has a pretty fatty chewy texture, so you need to grill it just right to get it crispy and not gooey and fatty. Torys does a great job with chicken skin; I think they just take their time grilling yakitori so it's actually cooked well.


More meat on a stick! From top to bottom - kalbi beef, chicken oysters (tender part of the thigh), and soft knee bone (of chicken). All were delicious! The kalbi was juicy and tender. The chicken oysters were so soft and easy to eat and were very tasty too. The knee bone did not taste like cartilage at all.

Then one of our entrees showed up - grilled squid. That's a spicy mayonnaise on top. The Asians sure love using mayonnaise as a hot condiment. We saw it on top of all sorts of food - vegetables, fish, meat - when we were in Taiwan and Japan. The squid was pretty tasty, but the mayonnaise made it super rich. This was the only dish we didn't quite finish.


Our other entree was a pork stew with a turnip and a boiled egg. The boiled egg was like a tea egg and the turnip was pretty soft and salty after being cooked in the broth. The pork was so good. The fatty layer on top and the silvers of lean meat on bottom were thoroughly soaked in broth and a nice soy sauce flavor. It was such a great combination of textures to eat and I would alternate bites of the pork with bites of the turnip and the egg.

We also had a lamb chop. The meat was grilled well, but not very flavorful. It was actually pretty bland and putting lemon juice on it just made it taste like sour meat.


Our final yakitori was tsukune (basically a giant chicken meatball) with diced radish. We had forgotten what tsukune was but it was a special on the menu, so we got it thinking it looked pretty good. And it was pretty good. Very tender and the meatball was very well mixed and tasty. The diced radish added a nice crunchy addition.


We couldn't finish our dinner without sharing a dessert. We ended up with a pumpkin creme brulee. This was a cold dessert and the texture was much denser (due to the pumpkin) than your normal creme brulee. But it was really smooth and yummy and I almost wanted to lick the ramekin clean. :)


Yakitori Torys is one of the few restaurants we keep going back to. Not only is it pretty close to our apartment, but it's also delicious and they always have new specials on their menus. Highly recommended!

Rice Triangles Part II: Getting in the Middle of It

To continue on expanding my rice triangle-making skills, I decided to next make rice balls with fillings.

FI and I had bought some beautiful unagi (grilled eel) to eat over rice. Instead of over rice, I tried to make them in rice.

Here's the eel in the packaging. I love the soy/teriyaki/plum sauce that gets added to the eel when it's grilled.


Here's the leftover rice from my last rice-triangle-making session. I added a little water and heated it up in the microwave so it would have the hot, sticky consistency needed for rice patties.


Since the eel had been in our refrigerator, I grilled it first in our toaster oven to get it hot.


This time, instead of filling the rice mold, I only put in rice to fill up 2/3 of the mold.


Then I gently packed the rice down and topped it with a couple of pieces of eel.


Next I put more rice on top and filled the mold. Finally I put the top on and squeezed it tight so the rice patties would form.


I was able to make 6 more rice patties with the leftovers. FI and I already ate one of them before I had a chance to take a picture.


Here's the inside of one. FI liked the seaweed we used last time so he insisted we have them with these as well.


The rice triangles were super yummy. The eel was tasty and the rice soaked up all of the sauce. We only ate 4 of them and I got to pack the other two in one of my Bento boxes for lunch the next day!

A little Japanese meal

To continue on with the rice triangles, they were just a part of our pseudo-Japanese meal this past weekend.

I made 6 rice triangles (two of them have already been eaten by FI and I) and decided I wanted to try frying a couple of them.
I put in a little oil and soy sauce (which wasn't a great idea since it has a much lower burning point than oil and started to go black during the frying) in the frying pan and laid 2 of the rice patties in.


It was hard to fry them. They wouldn't stay together as tightly and started falling apart a little bit. Also, the soy sauce burned and charred the patties.


For our veggie, FI stir-fried some Chinese kale or "kai-lan" or "jie-lan" with garlic. I love how green leafy veggies release so much water when they cook that they practically make their own sauce.


The finished kai-lan plated and ready for us to eat. These were super moist and not dry or overcooked. Even the stalks were easy to eat.


From our shopping trip to Mitsuwa, we also bought some tuna sashmi. As I was dumping them out onto a plate, I decided I wanted to plate them properly. So I started lining them up and the lining up became a circling up and I ended up with a ring of tuna on a green plate.


So of course the wasabi and soy sauce had to go in a bowl in the middle of the plate. Here it is all ready for soy sauce.


I added the soy sauce right before we ate.


It was a really simple meal - tuna, rice, and Chinese kale, but it was tasty and fun to prepare. I'm going to be making rice patties all the time now!

Rice Triangles

In Japan, I had gotten a rice mold to make our own rice and seaweed balls, but had never gotten around to using it. But this past weekend, FI and I went shopping at Mitsuwa and I bought some seaweed. So I finally got to try out the rice mold.

Here's the mold, still in its original packaging.


FI cooked the rice. He did a great job and it was perfect. Just the right amount of stickiness.


Here's the pack of flavored seaweed we bought at Mitsuwa.


Before using the mold, I washed it and tried to make sense of any directions on the label. Unfortunately, all Japanese...


There are 2 pieces. So I tried first to put rice on one of them. This didn't really work since there was no depth to the mold and the rice just fell out.


So I tried putting rice in the other piece of the mold. I finally figured out the right amount of rice - basically loosely fill the mold piece - to put for each rice ball.


Then you slide the other piece over the rice and press! The excess rice squirts out the holes and you can try and pack it back in or scrape it off back into the rice cooker.


Then you give the mold a bit of a shake and wiggle and slide the piece with the holes off and voila! Little rice triangles!


Then I put pieces of seaweed on the rice.


One piece is on.


I stuck another strip around the top so most of the rice is covered.


Finished rice triangles! Yummy!


Next I'm going to try them with fillings!