Yataimura Maru

We have been anxiously anticipating the opening of Shigezo's east side restaurant, Yataimura Maru, since they announced last October plans to open on SE Division. The new restaurant, Yataimura Maru, is inspired by izakaya alley in Tokyo with individual food "stalls" littered throughout the space, with a ramen stall, a sushi stall and a robata stall. We love everything on Shigezo's menu, and was excited to see if the new East-side Izakaya would have some new menu items.

Of all the menu items we were most interested in trying dishes off the robata side and grabbed a seat at the curved robata bar. If you sit at the robata bar your food is handed to you via a long paddle board typically seen at robata restaurants in Japan.

We quickly zero'd in on the kinpira fries. Our favorite item of the night left us thinking why hasn't anyone else thought of battering up gobo root vegetables that have been marinated in typical Japanese mixture of soy sauce and mirin - completely addictive.

Next came the grilled meats. Beef tongue, yummy chicken meatballs and another favorite of the night softboiled quail eggs wrapped in bacon (the cutest interpretation of bacon and eggs I have ever seen or eaten).

Then came the one vegetable item of the night, grilled eggplant topped with shaved bonito flakes that danced ontop of the char-smoked sliced eggplant. Really delicious.

The most anticipated dishes of the night was the housemade tamago (Japanese folded omelet). Served with a side of ketchup, the gooey insides was crazy good and gobbled up with a side of rice.

Another dish we were anxious to try was the croquettes. These snackable fried potato dumplings were stuffed with shrimp and weren't as firm and hand-holdable as the ones we had in Japan, but the macaroni salad served with it was truly memorable. We'll be trying to recreate this macaroni salad for potlucks this summer.

And last, but not least we placed an order for the yakionigiri (grilled rice triangles). Served with pickled root vegetables, these weren't as good as the ones we had at Toshi's on Mike's birthday, but were pretty good nonetheless.

Before leaving we made a quick walk through the other stations/stalls in the restaurant and peaked into the ramen stall. Those noodles, I dream of those noodles!

Yataimura Maru is absolutely adorable and delicious. We'll definitely be back again and again and again!

Happy Year of the Snake

This last weekend was Lunar New Year. We are officially now in the Year of the Snake. To be honest, I don't think I know anyone who is born in this year and don't know too much about the implications of the year of the snake, so I had to look it up.

Basically, the year of the snake is a year not to make hasty decisions, for the snake is methodical, steady and calculating. It is a year for discipline and not losing sight of your focus. When a snake strikes it is deliberate and with purpose. So, what are your intentions and things you will be focusing on this year?

We celebrated the New Year all weekend long with a small family gathering on New Year's Day, ate lots of ceremonial foods and pressed our luck for the New Year, which left us broke and realizing we'll have to work hard for everything this year, but I think it will all pay off in the end! Happy New Year Everyone!

Life (as in eating), As of Late

We didn't have anything planned for the weekend, which was a good thing because we both had annoying head colds, making for a perfect weekend of unplanned relaxing and a marathon viewing of Breaking Bad Season 2 in a day and half - all 13 episodes. Somehow we managed to get the house mostly cleaned before the weekend started, so we didn't even have to worry about that. Our only real errand was to pick up some beef to make these terrific noodle bowls after we realized how many packets of rice stick noodles (5!) we had tucked in the cupboard when we made this yummy noodles dish.

By Sunday the weather had turned cloudy and unmotivating so we cancelled dinner plans and turned the excess marinated beef into jerky and made some yogurt cheese. I learned Mike will basically do anything if you promise him a salami and cheese snack, including doing an inventory of the black hole that is our freezer, where we found the last of our summer berries and made this for dessert. Orchids from our wedding re-bloomed! There were several buds, but the excess winter heat withered all but two blossoms. We thought this was very symbolic.  

Cooking With BA: Learning Family Recipes - Bun Rieu

We've been learning to cook some of my favorite Vietnamese dishes with my parents, which really reminded us of this great Japanese cooking series on Youtube titled "Cooking with Dog". If you ever want to learn how to cook wonderful Japanese food, this web series is the best.

The picture above is a really good example of what cooking with my dad is like, casual, meticulous and with lots of beer for when we're waiting for the stock to come to a boil. We recently asked to learn how to cook a soupy noodle dish called Bun Rieu (a pork broth, crab/egg, tomato noodle soup that's not spicy, but tart and sour). Sounds good huh? Cooking with BA (Vietnamese for Dad) isn't like a typical cooking class. Mike was poised and ready to prep cook and help, but soon realize when you learn family recipes you simply sit back and watch because these recipes aren't ever written down, they are tinkered with and you learn simply by observing.

We started off by boiling two small racks of pork short ribs, cut into individual ribs (for easy snacking later).

After the initial boil, we discarded the scummy water and put the ribs back into clean water where we got a clear broth without all the impurities. Next we sat back, drank our beers and watch as BA casually and skillfully cut up the tofu, tomatoes, onions, green onions, leeks and garlic.

Next he cracked 5 eggs into a bowl and added a crab paste with bean oil, which will eventually turn into the steam crab/egg mixture in the soup.

Then we got to cooking, starting with sauteing garlic, onions and shallots in a pot with enough oil to coat the bottom of the pot.

Once the garlic/onion/shallots were tender and translucent we added a whole bunch of paprika until it was combined and starting to stick to the bottom of the pot. Then the magic happened and we deglazed with broth from the spare ribs and then just added all the broth and spare ribs to the pot, which turned into this rich red soup base.

Next we seasoned with salt, sugar, tamarind soup base (for sourness) and a fermented shrimp paste (for muskiness). Once the soup was at a flavor we liked we added the garnishes of tofu, tomatoes and green onions (which BA expertly split at the ends of the whites so they'd bloom in the soup).

At this point we thought the soup was good enough to eat, but then comes the best part and what puts the "Rieu" in the "Bun Rieu", the egg/crab-in-bean-oil mixture was gently laid on top of the soup, covered to steam and become cake-like.

That's basically it, now all that's left is to set up the bowls with garnishes and ladle in the soup. But we had to wait until later to eat our bowls because we already had dinner plans and had to wait until the next day.

Traditionally Bun Rieu is served with rice noodles, morning glory greens (that have been split and curled) and lemon balm herbs for a citrus aroma. Morning glory isn't in season so none of the Asian food markets had any so we improvised and used the greens from our hot pot dinner. BA kept saying Bun Rieu is a very personal dish to each person's tastes and preference. Initially I thought yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's delicious, but once we dug into our first bowl we realized we would have used less of the crab mixture and less of the fermented bean paste (it was muskier than we would have preferred). But at least now we know how to make one of the most quintessential soups in Vietnam and we're armed with a written recipe so we can start tinkering on our own. Thanks BA, again another awesome dish to add to our cooking repertoire.

Winter Hibernation

We were in winter hibernation mode all weekend, and by winter hibernation I mean we spent the whole weekend cooking and eating. During the winter months I love nothing more than staying up late and sleeping in, which we did plenty of, but we had early afternoon plans to meet up with my dad to learn how to cook one of my favorite soups (separate post to come soon)! Our eagerness to get going early was rewarded with a pot of soup on the stove to be eaten all week, a dinner invitation to eat another bone warming hot pot feast and making/eating one of my favorite things in the whole world - eggrolls! We also spent some time with friends, as well as lots of time in bed reading and cuddling because when it's dark and cold out, who cares what time it is.

We also had a reason to bust out our beloved vegetable spinner. A total steal for $12 at our favorite second hand store! We did a test and the Italian brand out-performed the Japanese one we bought years ago. At least we know where we can unload the Japanese one for some quick cash ;)

Our friends stopped by for a visit and our cat even got a visitor.

We ended our weekend reading in bed at an insanely early hour, but was happy as can be to be toasty and warm on a rather dreary and cold winter night. Hope everyone is making the most of the winter!