First THREE Days in 2010...

Typical Ne-Sho-Gatsu (do nothing but eat/drink and sleep over the first three days in Japanese), we did not do anything special. Weather was not that nice either - really cold or snow. A drive or a walk every day to get fresh air outside, otherwise we stayed in.

At least we cooked every day though - a bit of Japanese (or my home's) tradition Chawan-Mushi (egg custard) one day and Korean style dinner the other day. We nailed the short ribs we usually eat at a Korean restaurant in NJ, even though we still needed some trials/errors on the soup. I made another Kabocha pumpkin dish and this time was even better than last time. I wondered where this pumpkin came from since it is a summer vegetable.

Toshi-Koshi Soba and Smoked Salmon on Bagel

It is tradition to eat Soba noodle - buckwheat noodle on the new year's eve in Japan, so I made warm soup Soba noodle with toasted Abura-Age (deep fried tofu) along with mushroom and green onion. Since it was a kind of special day - new year's eve after all, we cooked steak as well. We went to Whole Foods for the shopping and at the butcher counter we saw New York Strip steak, but it was close to 2 inches thick. So I asked the person to cut it in half, and it came out really nicely - like Japanese/European steak.

There was another round of snow over night, and the surface was covered by the snow again - very pretty.

As our tradition, we had smoked salmon which we bought at Zabar's a couple of days ago on the bagel - one open face sandwich and the other one became sandwich. Their one piece was really big (one tenth of pound), so one piece per person was enough for breakfast.

We concluded 2009 with Japanese tradition and started 2010 with the other...

Wish all a happy new year in 2010...

White New Year's Eve

I don't know there is a such phrase white new year's eve, but we had a few inches of fresh snow this morning. It is beautiful, isn't it?

Even it is not that cold - mid 30s, it has not started melting yet. You can still see the snow on the branches of the trees. Love snow while they are WHITE before turning into gray/black mess.

Upper West in NYC

We tended to come to upper west side more often, but not so much these days. Today we went to our favorite restaurant in this area - Saigon Grill for lunch. This place was introduced to me by my class mate at that time years ago when it was a tiny (not so clean) ma/pa type restaurant, but they did major renovations and massive extension, and now it is one of the most famous Vietnamese restaurants in the city. As usual hot/sweet/sour soup, sweet plum spare ribs, noodle dish (I don't know what it is called but I do know it is #78) along with Okra curry.

I came here with my friends (from outside of the city and Japan) and family, and everyone liked this place. They were all so good and we really should come back here more often.

Next stop was Zabar's to buy smoked salmon. We usually go to Fairway, which is supposed to have the best smoked salmon in the city, but we wanted to test OUR tastes on the smoked salmon. There was a long waiting line for the counter where the salmon was freshly sliced. Their one piece was much bigger than the one at Fairway. (Look for another entry - maybe tomorrow about the tasting result.) We could have gone to H&H, located right next to Zabar's for bagels but we don't like their texture and they do use sugar (which should not be used for bagel) so we passed.

We stopped by at Stew Leonard's for some grocery. This place is famous for dairy products such as milk and yogurt. We buy some prepared food here for a quick dinner usually but not today. Main purpose for this stop was their ice cream. We bought Dutch Chocolate and Strawberry Cream. Oh boy, their ice cream was rich but very refreshing... You can't go back to store bought ice cream once you taste this one. One of my new year resolutions has to be loose 5 lb. but I can't give up this so I need to find some other ways to accomplish that.

Bon Voyage...

Very sad news for me.

My uncle passed away today in Japan. He has been very nice to me and gave me great guidances at my turning points - when I chose the company after the college and others.

Life is too short. I would appreciate what I have and enjoy the life as much as I can - that is my destiny.

Very Special Day

It was a very special day today - some people know why...

We started our day with very nice pastries from a European bakery we love - both were not as sweet as Americans but moist inside and crunchy at the top/outside.

Our lunch was Shabu-Shabu. First time ever we cooked at home. We bought a portable gas top at a Japanese grocery and we used a shallow pot for this (we don't have any special pot for Japanese Na-Be yet). We could not find Kobe Beef but Wa-Gyu (good enough) and typical vegetables for this dish - Napa cabbage, green onions, a few types of mushrooms and Tofu. (Do you see the news papers on top of the coffee table to protect the spillings? I grew up at the house where we protect the table top by the paper when we cooked a dish at the table like Shabu-Shabu and Suki-Yaki.) It was pretty good and we enjoyed the cooking/eating time.

Our day was concluded by the cake - not a Christmas cake though... from a European pastry. It was very rich but not too sweet. I started with a small piece but ended up with another piece.It was a wonderful day and I will remember this day for a long time...

BTW, do you see the blue box? Yes, it was a wonderful gift for me - Thank You.

Korean Food and Grocery Shopping

Before crazy Christmas shopping hits the streets, we went to our grocery shoppings to NJ yesterday. Why NJ? - because there is one of our all time favorite restaurants and we wanted to go to Japanese and Korean grocery stores.

First stop - Korean Tofu Soup restaurant in Fort Lee. I think I posted this place before and several others about Tofu soup in San Francisco (maybe) and Seattle. By far, this place is the best to have hot Tofu soups. We had Kimchi/Beef in hot and Oyster in medium along with beef ribs as usual. I love their soup and ribs, but I love their cucumber pickles (I am not sure I should call it Kimchi or Namul) - bit sweet and of course spicy with sesame flavor. One more thing special about this place is their freshly cooked rice in the stone bowl. It is so good and they pour Korean tea after serving to the bowls.

Next stop was a Japanese grocery to buy something for Christmas dinner, which I will report tomorrow or later, along with something for New Year.

Final stop was a Korean grocery store - H Mart... It seemed very new and we have not been at this store before, while we have been at other locations. It looked much cleaner than others and everything - produce items, meats and of course Kimchi - is fresh and very reasonably priced. We had a bag of Kimchi, yes a bag...

Look how many shopping bags we carried today... We don't need to go for grocery shopping for a while.

Look what I cooked today - someone's favorite - Kabocha pumpkin Ni-Mo-No - typical Japanese cooking method for pumpkin and other vegetables. It came out REALLY good and we will enjoy this over a few days.