just cooking during hurricane Irene weekend....

I went to my friend's place to evacuate from the potential house lock down during Irene.

In the end, for me at least, Irene proved not too much, but it was fun to cook and eat and drink all weekend!

We had Sukiyaki, and made the leftover into a Gyu-don...

 then of course, Japanaese curry...

the great part about this is how we put in so, much, garlic in it! 

that way it tastes so much better the next day :)

also had great Sundubu jigae!

Emergency beer was consumed accordingly...

1 or 8 again!!!

SO!

1 or 8 is the love of my life, thanks to the amazing Kazusan!!!!

I'm just going to post the pictures....imagine me going "yummmmm (dreamy eyes)" for all you see below;

this is Shinika!!!

its a baby squid of a specific type of squid (which i forgot) but they use one whole squid for one nigiri!!!

and--------gasp! shinko!!!

3 little silver vinegar marinated fish for one nigiri! and its AMAZING!!!!

anago is one of my favorites, its served warm here!

toro to top off an already droll worthy sea urchin and ikura!

shinika again, this time flipped upside down and with simply good salt and a splash of lemon!!!

♥♥♥

Shokoshu

In order to write this entry, I learned that what you call Shokoshu in Japanese as Shaoxing Wine in English.

Hmmmm interesting... shokoshu is a stinky alcohol that pretty much tastes like medicine but once you get used to it, its really good (as is every hard liqueur...) and it's cheap!

 I like to have shokoshu with nitamago(marinated boiled egg- in this case marinated in soy sauce based broth for 2 days) and menma.

I also made mayo-marinated hakusai cabbages.

the glass is a beautiful kiriko cut glass.

The nitamago I aimed for was supposed to have a raw yolk that would absorb the soy sauce and turn it into a slightly jelly-ish texture but in this case I think I boiled it too long...was still good!

Mussels from Juliette

I made pescatore from the leftover mussels I had at Juliette in Williamsburg.

They were good spicy mussels in tomato broth with Italian sausages and rosemary, lots of garlic and lemon.

All i did was heat the pasta and add Parmesan cheese and voila, spicy pescatore!

It was so much better than I expected it to be, I text messaged my friends lol

minca

oh minca how I love you so!

Went for yet another midnight ramen, this time to my favorite ramen joint; minca.

I had Minca Shio Ramen today.

we shared a daikon salad with sesame dressing.

with a very summer-y blue minca Tshirt employee.

Roberta's

haven't been to Roberta's in a while, so I was very excited to be back again.

I got a pizza for brunch! So happy (^^)

This is a guanciale & egg pizza (they told me guanciale is the smoked bacon cheek of a pig).

Very interesting, and I mean it in a good way.

El Faro

When someone asks "Paella" you answer, "El Faro"!

It's that simple.

Clam Marinara is a great side dish with garlic sauce that goes great with the seafood paella. 

Otto and their cute strong drinks.

Sorry, I have no idea what this drink was but it was good, very grape fruity...

Lychee with their $1.5 Chang beers

It was POURING the other day when I was about to meet my friend in LES.

Thank goodness he had the bright idea to meet at Lychee, with cheap good food and cheaper beer deals!

I love their tom yam soup!

It has this great sour vinegar & fish flavor that begs to be an hangover soup... not that it was but it could if it needs to be!

Seo - Sanshiro Ramen

Seo restaurant turns into a Ramen joint called Sanshiro late t night at the bar counter.

When you eat midnight ramen, you should probably give up your healthy diet and just go for it, but when you think about the next morning when you wake up not feeling light and bright but full and garlicky, Sanshiro's moderately light ramen is great...

Petite Abeille

Croque Monsieur at Petite Abeille...what a treat!

Thanks to K for taking me there, and yes we will share the supposedly phenomenal waffles next time! :D

Asia Society

I did like the Ai Weiwei exhibit of photographs he took in the '80s..but more than that, I am thankful that they have a cute bright lit glass enclosed cafe.

All items on the menu tend to have a flair of "Asian" in them, this not being any exception...thai curry flavored chicken salad brunch dish.

The chicken was yogurty with sliced almonds and raisins, and the salad was hakusai with sesame ponzu dressing.   

Setagaya

when Ippudo is crowded, what do you do?

you go to setagaya near by and sit and eat immediately!

I had karaka-miso-ramen and it was great.

Spicy, miso~!

Hagi

I can't believe I dont have any posts on Hagi.

I used to go there so often...even now I think at least once every few weeks although I neither work/live anywhere close to it.

I usually have Edamame, Karaage with oroshi ponzu, Daikon salad and some form of carb...

in this case, Mentaiko spaghetti!

For some reason Ive been very Mentaiko spa now a days...but hey, it's good stuff!

At Hagi, don't expect to be seated right away.

I usually leave my name and number and go upstairs to Iroha (and only drink, cus Id end up eating at Hagi anyways) and wait till they call from downstairs.

I used to just wait outside but that's pretty boring especially in this summer heat....

Beer outdoor at Mission Dolores

It's often said that Parkslope is not the most nightlife friendly place around, but I do consider myself lucky that there is a place called Mission Dolores close to where I live thats an open air beer place.

But since the happy hour is till 7PM and theres no way Im able to get there on any given work day, it's strictly for my summer Fridays when I manage to take any off!

Now that's something to look forward to!

Toma tuna somen

in lieu of the summer heat discouraging me from cooking, I made somen with tomato&tuna, a recipe I found on cookpad.

It was so much better than I expected so I decided to post it :)

Pearl oyster bar

It's my first time at Pearl Oyster Bar.  It is a tiny cute crowded little joint, but wow, what a gorgeous lobster roll!! it comes with a mountain of string fries...

we also had steamers....they look just like mini-jabba the huts....

I learned not to drink the soup-looking thing on the side cus thats just the water to wash out the jabba the huts sand off...

oh but after the washing and dipping in butter oil, heaven awaits!!!

So good!

Must come back again :D