Land of the Rising Sun

I recently had the opportunity to spend 10 days in Tokyo Japan.  At first I was nervous that I'd have a hard time finding food I could eat, even with my adventurous palate, but I was pleasantly surprised at the variety and quality of the food I ate.  Here's a long line of pictures of the various meals I ate, hope you enjoy it:

Cold udon (wheat) noodles dipped in flavored soy sauce with a side of rice and pork tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet)

 

Table set for shabu-shabu (translates as "swish-swish" for the way you cook raw meat in the boiling water)

Raw beef and pork sections to be cooked in boiling water

Various veggies that you add to the water to flavor it

Boiling water with piece of seaweed to add flavor

Tuna sashimi lunch with homemade miso soup (look at how fresh the tuna is - I've never seen tuna that color before)

Yakitori - meat and veggies cooked over hot coals and served on skewers, this is chicken wrapped in a green leaf and cucumber with dried fish skin on top

Chicken cartilage - tried it and it tasted fine but the texture is what did me in

Chicken hearts - first time I've eaten them and I liked them

Chicken with scallion

Asparagus wrapped in bacon

Shrimp

Meatball and corn

Sashimi with vinegar dressing and veggies

Grilled lamb with veggie slaw

"French Fries" with cheese dipping sauce

Potato and rice fritter

Breaded oysters with tangy dipping sauce

Spicy fried chicken (not sure why it was served with tortilla chips)

Japanese pizza - not my favorite

Noodles in fish sauce - very tasty

Ground chicken skewers over rice with salad and miso soup

Japanese Chinese food - beef with peppers

Garlic chicken with green beans and peppers

Amazing chicken soup - starts off with crispy rice nuggets that absorb the broth and soften

Amuse bouche at the teppanyaki restaurant - raw fish with tangy sauce and pomegranate seeds

Green salad with fruit and vinaigrette

Materials for our teppanyaki meal - that's kobe beef, which I'd been dying to try in Japan

Dipping sauces for the meal - soy sauce, garlic ginger sauce and vanilla soy sauce

Teppanyaki chef cooking our meal

Cooked meal

Close-up of the kobe beef - I ordered it medium rare and it was amazing

Dessert - fruit with vanilla ice cream

Another amuse bouche - chicken with avocado and sprouts

Cheese plate

Shrimp with veggies

Japanese version of sweet potato fries

Otoro tuna sushi and sashimi

Homemade "NY-style" cheesecake

Cheese tart with mango and caramel

Street food - fresh, hot doughnut with sweet red bean inside

Salad and cheese soup at french restaurant

Beef with rice and cream sauce

There were a lot of other meals that I ate when I was in Tokyo but I didn't get pictures of them all.  Needless to say, I've mastered eating with chopsticks and really enjoyed the wide variety of good food that was available in Japan.  I hope I get to go back again soon!

Thanksgiving Dinner - Take One

A few days after Thanksgiving I got the idea that I should try and make an entire Thanksgiving dinner on my own, well in advance of any opportunity I might have to actually cook a turkey for other people.  So, I went to the grocery store and managed to find all the ingredients I would need to make a Thanksgiving dinner, at pretty cheap prices given that Thanksgiving had just passed.  

Here is the menu I attempted:

Roasted Turkey Breast (I purchased Butterball turkey breasts because they were my only option at the store, see my note below on whether I'd buy Butterball breasts again)

Gravy (winged this recipe since I've made gravy from scratch several times)

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Cornbread Dressing with Pancetta, Apples and Mushrooms

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pomegranate, Almond and Vanilla Butter (recipe calls for pecans but I don't like pecans so I substituted in roasted sliced almonds) 

Pomegranate Molasses  (I used Alton Brown's molasses recipe since the recipe above doesn't include step for the molasses)

Here are some pictures of various stages of the dishes:

 (buttered turkey breasts waiting to go into the oven)

 (caramelizing apples and onions for dressing)

 (vanilla bean butter)

 (components of dressing all mixed together, 

ready to go into baking dish)

 (turkey breasts after they were pulled from the oven)

 (pomegranate molasses)

 (gravy from scratch using the shallots and turkey drippings)

 (brussel sprouts drizzled with pomegranate molasses, 

pomegranate seeds, toasted almonds and

melted vanilla butter)

 (creamy mashed potatoes)

 (finished meal)

Here are my general observations after taking on the task:

• Making Thanksgiving dinner by yourself is very tiring (I took a 2 hour nap after I was done)
• I love brussel sprouts but the prep for the dish, including making your own pomegranate molasses, was too much effort for a so-so dish
• The leftover vanilla butter can be saved and used later on pancakes - yum!
• I halved the dressing recipe and I still had too much bread for the liquid portion of the dressing, leaving my dressing rather dry.  Next time I'll skip the cornbread or just use less of it, it was the driest of all the breads used in the recipe.
• I will never again buy Butterball turkey breasts, they were overly salty and the texture was mealy.  I will remedy this next time by ordering organic turkey breasts

Looking back on it now, I was pretty ambitious with my menu but I also know that I learn best from my mistakes and so I'll know for when I really have to cook Thanksgiving dinner what to serve and what to skip.  All in all, I have no regrets in taking on such a large task.  I plan to try some of the dishes again in the hopes that I can have a perfected repertoire of Thanksgiving dishes for when it's my turn to host a Thanksgiving dinner.