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rarerollingobject

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Everything posted by rarerollingobject

  1. It was nice and rich and collagen-y..and at Ichiran, after ordering your base bowl, they give you a 'customisation' sheet where you can specify "a little rich, medium rich, very rich, very very rich" as to the soup stock, the firmness of your noodle (so to speak), the amount of green onion you'd like, garlic or no, menma or no, and about a dozen other options for the included price. I actually loved the sense of privacy but such is the luxury of the tourist. Thanks for the link - interesting article. Not to make light of a serious issue, but it's funny you mentioned cake - all of my friends there refer to me as 'Kurisumasu keeki' (Christmas cake, ie. past its prime sort of thing) for refusing thus far to get married.
  2. A couple of enjoyable tonkatsu meals from my last Japan trip: Katsukura in Takashimaya Times Square, Tokyo (unless someone who can read the chopstick wrapper is about to prove my memory wrong). Lusciously fatty kurobuta rosu katsu. And I really loved the yuzu dressing. Rosu katsu and ebi fry set (and yes, I know I shouldn't have used my pestle to stir the sauce - what can I say, I'm a heathen). This is in Osaka but I can't recall what restaurant.. Katsukura (and the pestles of doom! ) in Kyoto. The cabbage here was so incredibly juicy and moreish, I ate about three serves. Though I think this branch actually had sesame dressing rather than yuzu.
  3. The next day we met some friends for lunch. In a sort of deflating coincidence, we walked past this sushi restaurant in Shibuya on the way to meet them, and the place had the world's hugest queue. As we passed it, I looked at all the people in the queue, lots of them camera-toting tourists, and thought "Suckers! An hour's wait to get into what looks like some boring mainstream tourist trap, nothing like the cool, secret, funky hidden gem my Tokyoite friends are no doubt going to take us to!". We met our friends, and they led us to..yep, right back to that place. Serves me right for being obnoxious. Look at this queue! This was only the back third of it. I don't mind queueing for good food but 90 minutes is pushing my limits a little. The sushi WAS great though, and really well-priced for Tokyo. I see now why it's so popular - Midori Zushi in Shibuya. Started with chawanmushi egg custard and kani miso (crab..er..guts. I LOVE this stuff and ate two servings). Lunch set: Aburi (flame grilled) set: That night, we went to a yakiniku place somewhere in West Shinjuku, where it's a little grungier and seedier (my kind of place). Incredible kimchi and yukke, raw beef with raw egg. I love this mixed into hot rice: Then a lot of meat. Meat'n'beer coma meant I forgot to take photos of much of it, but here's some: To be continued!
  4. Tokyo! First meal in Tokyo was tempura at Tsunahachi, in Shinjuku. I really love the stack of flavoured salts they give you (plain, green tea, sour plum, yuzu). The next day, we went over to Ueno to mooch around the markets and park, but got distracted by this donburi place. Look at that signage! Look at my uni (sea urchin), ikura (salmon roe), and negi toro (chopped tuna with green onion)! Breakfast of champions. My wimpy boyfriend went for some beef thing. Later, for some reason we wanted more tempura, so this was a Ten-ya chain branch in Shinjuku. I went for the hiyakko cold tofu and ten-don, tempura on rice. We then stopped by Isetan food hall for a wee dessert, two Sadaharu Aoki eclairs (matcha green tea, salted butter caramel) and some Henri Le Roux..salted butter caramels. My female vanity compels me to tell you that it's my boyfriend's withered claws holding the box in that photo.
  5. I've realised I can't go back and re-edit.. That little soba shop with partitions is actually a ramen joint, tonkotsu ramen. Ichiran Ramen on Dotonbori. It was quite interesting, not only were there partitions between eaters but the ordering process was completely anonymous as well. The normal vending machine order, yes, but then as you sit in your partition waiting for your order, you realise it's going to come from the screen in front of you..waist-height and with the kitchen directly behind it, the server lifts the screen, pushes your bowl through, bows and lowers the screen. Essentially you see, speak to, interact with NOONE (noone with a face, anyway). Bliss. Even if you want to order, say, another serving of noodles for your leftover broth, or onsen tamago, you tick what you want on your specially-printed chopstick wrapper and push a little button..up comes the screen, whoosh goes your wrapper, back come your extras. It's a chain, also went to one in Shibuya in Tokyo, and it was DAMN good tonkotsu to boot. You can see the screen and button here, and my surreptitious lift-the-screen-and-take-a-picture picture: All the sushi was from the much-vaunted Endo Sushi at the Osaka Fish Markets. The notable things about this sushi place as far as I could see: 1. You order by the plate. Each plate has five pieces and at Y1000 per plate, it's not too bad for value. 2. The pieces on the plate are generally at the whim of the chef, but will always include one piece of toro. Not the best but definitely not the worst toro I've ever had. 3. There are pots of soy sauce and brushes on every table, and you're to paint the sushi with them. The brushes are communal, so you can see the film of fishy oil on the surface of the soy sauce, collected over who knows how long. I couldn't decide whether that was kind of gross or not, but either way didn't really care and just decided to believe it added a desirable sort of je ne sais quoi to the taste. 4. The owner/head chef clops around in very high and slightly precarious geta slippers, complaining in Japanese how much his feet hurt and sitting down every 1.5 seconds to rest. This was kind of annoying at first as it seriously disrupted my need for constant sushi flow but my feet hurt in high heels sometimes too so I built a bridge and got over it. 5. They could NOT believe I ate five plates. Little did they know I have a second stomach devoted solely to sushi and could have gone a few more.
  6. Watermelon, sprinkled with salt, lime juice and ground chilli. Addictively sweet, hot, sour, salty and cooling.
  7. dcarch, that food looks incredible but I'm more intrigued by what is going on in the top right corner of the razor clams photo..? Another fork bird of some sort?? Holding a clam shell?! Do tell. Dinner tonight for me was a fig, rocket, walnut, jamon and St Agur blue salad: And pizza with prawns, lemon and mint:
  8. Like andiesenji, I regularly use it with lamb. 4 minute lamb cutlets - rub cutlets with a little oil, sprinkle with ras el hanout and salt and sear in a pan for 2 mins each side. People rave. Also cauliflower - sprinkle REH, olive oil, salt and a little sugar over florets and roast in 400F/200C oven for 20 mins till toasty brown. Sprinkle over large raw prawns and grill em. I use a blend by a spice merchant in Sydney that he's jazzed up even further with rose petals, lavender, Sichuan pepper, grains of paradise, long and cubeb pepper, lemon myrtle and mastic (in addition to the base spices). Unbelievably lovely.
  9. But don't bother with the ones from Laurent patisserie in the city, they ARE too chewy. In Sydney, the better ones are Lindt Cafe and Zumbo. But these don't really compare to the Pierre Herme, Mulot, or Laduree hallmarks. Honestly, I think the best way to resolve this is if you mail a large box of your macarons to me in Sydney, and I provide you detailed reviews on all aspects. Yes indeedy.
  10. That's called a posset. Originates from the Middle Ages, actually. Recipe I use is here (I don't bother with the sauce) and you're right, it's really easy and tasty.
  11. I wouldn't describe the good ones as being chewy on the inside. In fact, chewy is a sign of a sub-optimal one, in my very experienced if not very expert macaron-eating opinion. The shell should crackle a little under your teeth but the innards give way to a firm-ish meringue, that seems hefty but is actually quite light. Not sure if this helps, but on an extended macaron tour of Tokyo last year (best macarons in the world, IMO), I took copious photos of their insides, which you can see here at various spots scrolling down through this page:
  12. C. Sapidus's Spicy Goan Prawn Curry, from a Neelam Batra recipe. On a fried leek pilaf. Not the world's most photogenic dish, but delicious it was.
  13. That has to be one of the most beautiful looking things I've ever seen! My belly just literally growled in response, I think it was saying "Heellllllo, sailor..." (as I sit here at work gloomily sipping the only thing I had time to grab this morning, one of those tragic meal replacement shakes.. )
  14. Whatever. I did actually wonder about that, but looked around and saw three Japanese diners do the same, so got on with it. I used to really worry about that kind of stuff when travelling to Japan, the zillions of second level subtle sorts of faux pas a friend of mine likes to call the 'OMG-You're-Doing-It-Wrong Factor', but now I'm all just like, "Meh, just deduct that from my Gaijin Tourist Stupidity Credits, thanks". Will do, we ate lots of tonkatsu on this trip. And thanks for your kind words!
  15. Yep, stayed overnight in Shojoshin-in, the temple closest to the entrance of Okunoin cemetery, and it was spectacular. Food-wise, it obv served all vegetarian (shojin ryori), and I made one of the great discoveries of my life - gomadofu. For those unfamiliar, it's a 'tofu' made with with finely ground sesame instead of soy beans, and thickened with kudzu or arrowroot. Doesn't sound too appealing perhaps, but it was like the creamiest and most lusciously unctuous soft tofu ever..with a dab of wasabi and some soy sauce, it was one of the best and most memorable things I've eaten in my life, let alone of this trip. Tomorrow I'll post Tokyo and Kyoto pics, and go back and caption these Osaka ones with a little more explanatory detail!
  16. I so love rhubarb! Bought a big bunch today in fact, might look into that pie. Dinner tonight was sous vide lamb fillet - on a freekeh, preserved lemon, parsley, baby spinach, rocket and pistachio salad. Topped with garlic yoghurt and pink peppercorns. Also some intentionally-scorched broccoli, which I forgot to take a photo of. Followed by figs roasted in honey and Pedro Ximenez sherry, with vanilla ice cream.
  17. Wow, it doesn't feel that long ago that I was writing my last Japan trip report for eG! In November 2010, I took a nearly 3 week whirlwhind trip to Japan, and lots of good eating naturally ensued. Visited Osaka, Tokyo and Kyoto (in that order), and with toooo many meals and photos (300+ of food alone!) to organise a day by day write up, I'm just going to post a couple of photos from each place of some memorable meals/food. Osaka! (and Mt Koya) More to come.
  18. Yotam Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu makes incredible use of black pepper, 5 Tbsp worth (though I bump it up more, maybe 7 Tbsp). The recipe is here, but I have to say the pic in his book and the actual result look nothing like the photo on that page, more like the photo on this one.
  19. It's funny you raise this point - nearly had a fight with my boyfriend when we first landed, as with tiredness etc, he seriously suggested going to the Japanese (!) restaurant that was in our hotel (!). I pompously railed and ranted about how I wasn't about to having anything other than Cantonese for our very first meal in HK, and that we have Japanese about three times a week in Sydney, and I certainly wasn't going to have a meal of ANY sort in the hotel for the love of god, and how that's the difference between he and I as travellers and eaters, and how I was outraged he ever thought I'd go for that, and so on and so forth... Unbearable, I am. But coming at it from an angle of a cuisine you couldn't readily get at home and had been craving, it sounds eminently more reasonable.. There are a couple of foods I love but can't get easily in Australia that I will go totally wild for, no matter where I am or whether they're native to the cuisine I've travelled there to explore (e.g. fresh foie gras, macarons - am about to post pics from my recent Japan trip over in the Japan forum where I ate ALOT of these)
  20. No time to visit Macao on this trip, sadly. It was one of my very favourite things as a kid, zipping across on the hydrofoil.
  21. Thanks to all for reading, it was my pleasure! HK is such a great place for eating - I was actually born there and spent most of my childhood there, but have only been back a few times as an adult. Every time I go, I'm re-amazed by the sheer scale and deliciousness of its food culture. Definitely in my Top 3 very favourite food cities, along with Tokyo and Paris.
  22. Yeah, I knew we were charged for them..I think it was actually HKD$10 at Fu Sing and HK$9 at Victoria City or the other way around. Was trying to distinguish that they were a table dish and not something we actually ordered, but you're right, 'complimentary' was the wrong word for that. The garlic WAS salty, but that happily that just called for more Tsingtao!
  23. Day 4 With just breakfast and lunch to be had before our plane, it was right onto the eating. Breakfast was wonton noodles at Mak's CWB branch. We shared: A bowl of prawn wontons in broth each: A 'chutney pork noodle', spicy shredded fatty pork on dry egg noodles: And a dry noodle with prawn roe and oyster sauce: Breakfast-dessert (yes, we are shameless) was at one of the Hui Lao Shan dessert places, that seemed to specialise mostly in mango. Mango pancakes, filled with sweetened egg white and mango chunks: And a mango 'milkshake', liquid mango pudding, mango slices and milk pudding curds at the bottom: A little later, we wanted more roasties before leaving so tracked down Tai Hing Roasties on Jaffe Road for: A milky tea, ingeniously served with the ice on the outside so as not to dilute the brew: And a luscious combo of roast pork, roast goose and char siu. We had one of these plates each - the goose was amazing, but both porks were tiniest bit lean for my liking, to be honest, but still good. And with that, it was off to the airport with our distended bellies and farewell to Hong Kong!
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