Sick Day

Hit with a virus that knocked me out. Plain Cantonese-style rice congee, served with a preserved duck egg.

Dumplings

Potstickers, gyozas, whathaveyou. A while ago some friends and I had spent the afternoon making batches of Chinese dumplings and frying them up for dinner. We each went home with freezer bagfuls for a rainy day. This rainy day I pan fried some of the pork and yellow chive dumplings, making sure to get nicely browned, crispy bottoms. For the dipping sauce I like to mix equal parts soy sauce and rice vinegar, grated garlic and a dash each of sesame oil and Tabasco sauce.

Still Rainy

Pan-fried udon noodles with shredded beef, shiitake mushroom, sesame and onions.

Quickies

Here's a crappy picture of a completely uncrappy Cobb salad I made with the scraps of proscuitto and blue goat cheese from the BC Day long weekend. I was so famished, I hastily took the pic before I devoured this.


Forgot to talk about how refreshing Zaru Soba is in the summer heat, served cold. These are the green tea buckwheat noodles. Easy peasy.

Catch Up

Quick catch up after spending weeks in a culinary wasteland...I made a proscuitto, mushroom and chives tart using organic frozen puff pastry.


Feeling deprived of fresh greens, I also had an enormous craving for caesar salad.


And a quick snack..."japanese" meatballs.


Basically pan-fried Ikea frozen meatballs (not bad for frozen meat) with ottogi (pork cutlet sauce), Kewpie mayo, toasted sesame seeds and dried nori strips.

The weather's suddenly beautiful, spring is arriving, and hopefully I'll be hitting some markets soon. It's good to be back.

Rice Cooker Bibimbap

Making bibimbap (a Korean rice dish) in a rice cooker is such a genius idea. I adapted my first attempt using the brilliant suggestion from Teczcape. In my small kitchen, I don't have much room for any more small appliances or a big Korean stone pot, so this is perfect.

I cooked the rice as usual, and when the cooker was done, I threw in a big handful of spinach, cut up kimchi, nori strips, and a sprinkle of furikake. I shut the rice cooker again and pressed the "cook" button once more. After it was "twice done" in a few minutes, I cracked in two quail eggs and let the machine steam it for another minute. The eggs were too cooked for my liking; next time I'll crack the eggs in just prior to mixing it up before serving. Forcing the rice cooker to "re-cook" it several times dries up the rice more, which gives you some crispy edges--similar to the slightly toasted rice you get when bibimbap is cooked in a traditional Korean hot stone pot.

Tale of Two Izakayas

I went to two izakayas in Richmond over the weekend and came away with two very different experiences. First night I paid my first and last visit to Manzo Itamae (located on Capstan way, not to be confused with the Manzo on Alexandra Road), which has taken over the now defunct Dozo restaurant.

We ordered five dishes, starting with the flying fish sashimi. We originally tried to order the bluefin, but were told that they were all out (which was strange since it was on the day's specials and we had arrived early, being the second set of customers in the place). The flying fish was well-presented, but we found a small bone in a piece and a fish scale on another. The sashimi also wasn't very fresh; a distinct "fishy" odor prevented us from even finishing the 7 or 8 pieces that were there. The sashimi was $19.

We also ordered a standard izakaya dish--grilled squid. A sizeable dish, the squid came with some nicely crispy tentacles, and was served plain with a slice of lemon. I also had to try their chopped scallop roll and of everything we had that night, I think this was the best thing that evening.

Next came the grilled ox tongue and a pan-fried udon dish. The ox tongue turned out to be six thinly-cut pieces (which we suspected were cut wrong--against the grain of the meat) which were rubbery. The udon noodles, pan-fried with scallions, mushrooms and beef, were remarkably bland. The beef was dried and overcooked.

For the five dishes, our bill came to $56.

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Disappointed with the previous night's meal, we decided to pay a visit to one of our favorite izakayas, Nan Chuu. The last few visits we noticed quite a few changes to their menu and now they have finally come out with newly updated menu. We ordered seven dishes.

First to start was the new Ika Tan Tan, which was an appetizer of raw squid and kelp marinated in a spicy sauce and served with strips of dried nori. Heaven! I worried that the squid would be too rubbery and fishy, but I was happily wrong. The squid was slightly chewy, just enough for a good mouthfeel, and was deliciously buttery. The sauce was spicier than I expected, but the heat was well paired with the taste of the nori.

Next, we had one of the chef's daily sashimi selections - 2 pieces of ebi, 3 of tuna, 3 of the hamachi, and 3 of the tako. The tako was more crunchy and soft than rubbery, the hamachi was generously sized and light-tasting, the tuna was perfectly oh-so-slightly seared and melty, and the ebi was amazingly sweet and succulent. The ebi were also larger than I expected. This dish was $24.

Grilled ox tongue is one of my favorites, and their thick cut chunks of perfectly grilled tongue were up to Nan Chuu's usual standards. The meat was flavorful with a slightly smoky beef taste, and it was served with mustard on the side. We also ordered the Gyu Tataki - thin slices of lightly seared beef served with raw scallions and a light soy-based dipping sauce. It was so thin and tender that it almost melts in your mouth. Another favorite of mine is their wagyu beef robata, which were eight cubes of tender marbled Japanese wagyu beef on two skewers. The meat was juicy and tender and perfectly cooked - slightly bleeding rare in the center.

Agedashi tofu is not usually one of my favorites, but I decided to try their take on it. What I expected was a small dish of 3 or 4 cubes of fried tofu with a light vegetable gravy sauce. What came to our table was a bowl of 6 or 7 large cubes of crispy, fried sweet and silky yellow tofu in their "special mushroom sauce" which consisted of shiitake and enoki mushrooms. Delicious!

For dessert, we ordered 3 kinds of ice cream - green tea, mango, and black sesame. The three small scoops came with a dollop of whipped cream, chocolate shavings and a patter of red bean for the green tea ice cream. The mango was standard, and the real standout was the black sesame ice cream. I could've done without the whipped cream and chocolate shavings, and instead asked for more red bean to pair with the black sesame.

For seven dishes at Nan Chuu, our bill came to $58.

Takoyaki Party

What do you get when you put together six people, two takoyaki machines and shochu? A room full of very happily sated friends.

Our takoyaki were made with eggs, baby octopus, cabbage, pickled red ginger, green onion, drizzled with kewpie mayo, ottogi sauce (Japanese pork cutlet sauce), and topped off with a sprinkling of bonito flakes and strips of nori.

Ideally, Osaka-style takoyaki are grilled crisp on the outside, but not overdone, with a slightly mushy center that's supposed to melt in your mouth. Takoyaki can also be consumed dipped in miso soup.

Dinner at Nan Chuu

One of the few authentic Japanese restaurants in Richmond (outside of the Steveston area) and one of my favorite izakayas in Greater Vancouver is Nan Chuu. Owned and run by the Gyoza King people, the food is worth the drive and parking headache (it's on the busy restaurant strip on Alexandra Road).

We started off our meal with the seasonal Monkfish liver. It's amazingly sweet, with a slightly lighter texture than pate and was not the slightest bit fishy.

Next, came the seared tuna tataki (the tuna is good in any form here), chicken skewers (standard robata fare) with mayo, and the Gyu Tataki.



The meat was richly marbled and thinly sliced. Incredibly fresh and tender, their beef tataki is the best I've ever had. Similar to eating buffalo, it actually tastes like what beef is supposed to taste like.

We also had the grilled ox tongue and of course, the ebi mayo.



Nan Chuu opened about 2 years ago and they seem to be in the middle of a transition. Many menu items have been taken off, including one of my favorite sashimi appetizer plates. They've expanded into offering oden, which I have not yet had a chance to try. The atmosphere is less boisterous than some of the Robson St. izakayas and it's a generally more low-key, quieter environment with dimly lit wooden booths, a small bar, and handmade clay dishware. They also have a large selection of Japanese beers, sakes and spirits, as well as shochu-based cocktails.