After long fright

I came back to London yesterday evening from Tokyo. Then straightway I went to friend BBQ party. Normally I have jet rag and go to bed very early evening. Surprisingly I went to bed at 1 AM and wake up this morning at 7:30. It is pretty much usual hour already. How easy if it is like this every time.


I bought grape and cherry on the way back from jogging. It will fill water and vitamin into my body. That's essential after a long fright.


Then I made a Cold noodle(hiyashi-chuka) with sesame source for lunch. This dish is very summerly dish and easy to eat even if you have a poor appetite. The Dish was just right for today.

P.S. I got my camera repaired! I could take so much better photo from now on!! Can you tell the difference from old photos?

Dinner at Izu

My parents live within Izu Peninsula in Japan. Famous place for natural spring spa. Most closest town in peninsula to central Tokyo is Atami, located just 40 min away from Tokyo station by bullet train. I take local train another 40 minutes from there, then I reach to Izu valley where my parent live. The place have sea in front, mountain behind and next to lake. Obviously, a lot of nice seafood and veg you could get there. Moreover, my dad loves fishing, so we always get amazing fish for our dinner. My brother and his girlfriend also joined from Tokyo for my first night and second night my friend N's family come to see me. We had so many dishes for both night.


First night; Sashimi, Aji(Jack fish) & Squid BBQ, Salade.


BBQ



I found vegetable stand in local. They also deliver their veg to one of Italian restaurant in local (Produce by Yukio Ishizaki, famous Italian chef in Japan). I got Radish and Rocket for dinner.


N's mum asked him to bring these veg to me. This is organic veg from Nasu valley.
beans, cabbage, carrot, Japanese radish, Mizuna leaf


Second night with N's family
Today's salad is from N. Mizuna and whitebait salad mix with rice cracker.


Another Sashimi (Aori ika, Akai ika, mejina) from my dad.


I start missing cheese so I did this appetizer.
Cod row & cheese in fish stick(Chikuwa) with rocket.


Broad Beans is season!


I wanted to make something with Nira leaf because I can't get same leaf in London. I could get similer one in Chinese shop but taste slightly different. So when i find Nira in local shop yesterday I bought it straight way. This is a dish with it. Nira and Iringi mushroom(I always miss this mushroom too!) wrapped by pork accampany with radish.


Whitebait(Shirasu) & my dad's Mejina marinated with soy source rice bowl.
I also got this whitebait from local shop where some people come to buy it all the way from Tokyo.

Japanese eel at Fukuya in Izu

Probably, this is the best eel place in the world!(at least for me)
Eel with row egg and Wasabi (horse radish) is quite unusual way to eat
but it perfectly work well together.

Breakfast

Thousand year egg is something I want to eat once a while or even everyday.
Some people can't eat it because it looks little gross, that's I agree but nothing could replace it's taste. (It's a bit similar with Natto; smelly beans in term of how people like it or hate it, i guess) If I could start with rice porridge (Congee) with this egg, I would have very happy day! In HK, there are so many Congee cafes in every corner.

Ye shanghai

Ye Shanghai is my favorite restaurant in Hong Kong. It is treat to come here when I visit Hong Kong, although there are so many nice restaurants in Hong Kong, always this is the best for me. Food is contemporary Shanghainese. Very smart delicacies.


To celebrate finishing all my business work in this trip, I start with Shanghai girl cocktail


Pickled Chinese cabbage


Thousand year eggs with bean-curd


Shourompo


Steamed poked belly wrapped with fragrant leaves


Black sesame cream bluree with chestnuts ice cream
I'm big fun of Mango napoleon(this is must try, layered crunchy Yuba pie with mango cream! Yuba is a delicacy made from the skin forming on the top of gently boiled soybean milk. It's very special to use Yuba for sweet but amazingly works!) here but this time I tried this for change.It was very rich black sesame taste and nice combination with chestnuts ice cream.

After good meal, I went to massage and midnight I took a fright back to Seoul. Still a little journey to back to Tokyo. I'm now in Seoul airport waiting my fright to Tokyo!

Free appetizer

Finally I have finished all my job in Seoul and waiting a fright to go to Hong Kong now.

Those are my yesterday and today's lunch. Best thing about Korean style is you always get all those small dishes(appetizer) when you order main dish, Soup, noodle, rice dish, BBQ, fish, Hot pot or anything they have on menu. Well, This is just happen in Korea. All Korean restaurants in elsewhere charge every single dish... Appetizer always include Kimuchi (Chinese cabbage pickles with chili. Their essential dish for any time) and many different kind of dish. Sometime it would be beans, salad or scrambled egg. Number of dishes comes with main dish is vary, depend on restaurant or depend on how they feel that day but normally around five dishes. Although i once had 15 dishes. That was shocking!


From Yesterday,
Tofu chige(Tofu soup), Toruso bibim bap(rice with mix veg), Keranchin(steamed egg with assorted ingredients) and five accompanied dish.


Deji kuppa (Pork soup)


From today,
Pork soup with five small dishes.

Korean food

Beef soup (Karubi-soup)

Cold noodle

Seafood pancake

Gamjatang

Pasta Pasta Pasta

I'm having jet rag. My eyes are widely open but still too early to start working here in Seoul.Those are all from last week. When I'm busy I often cook pasta because
1, It will be ready within 10 min.
2, I can just put what I have in my fridge.
3, I love it!


Penne with roast Aubergine and chorizo, pesto source


Linguine with Red onion and chorizo, Tomato source


Oh, I forgot what was this really.
Maybe, Gorgonzora cream Tagliatelle...

From Seoul

I left London Sat night and I'm in Seoul now.
This fright meal is gate for Korea, Bibim-bab.


And this is the famous Korean BBQ.
This time I have company from Japan and two of them are food lovers!
So I'm sure we will eat very well this time. This is just beginning!

My little journey of this weekend

I went to short trip this weekend(for me, Sunday&Monday) with my new bicycle.
Sometime most wealthy thing in life is just in front of us. We could see it if we open our mind and door.

On Sunday late afternoon, I suddenly felt that I want to go for bike ride and called my friend D. 'oh, why not! I was board. It will be good to refresh!' that was answer. So we decided to go for bike ride. It was already 6pm, still we had three hours of day light. This is the beauty of summer in London. We started from Victoria park, all the way along side of Regent canal through to Lea valley park. I love walking along side of canal and even this one month I often jogging (this is new to me. I'm not really healthy person but really good to clear in head) but there is limit where i could reach with my limited stamina.. This time bike brought me much more further. This was a view from a pub we stopped for a pint. I didn't feel like I'm in London but still within E5.


After bike ride, I was starving, so i made smoked salmon cream tagliatelle and roast pepper salad. Very simple dish but sometime simple is the best.


Next day, I went back to Canal side with E. We often walk along side of canal together to talk about life, love and dream(Yes, we are quite dreamy). She been telling me to get bike this two years because she knew how much we could have fun to explore secret side of London. We started from Clapton and went to more further to lea valley harbor.


Near here, there is a beautiful park, very quite nothing like London field where almost Soho Sq in east London now.

Then turned around to hackney wick and back to Victoria park.

Then we cycle to Canary wharf.
Hooray! We reach to the river Thames!

We had a grass of wine to celebrate how we did good today.

Time to go back home before it get dark.

From real food festival

I visited Real food festival on Friday. It was a food exhibition of small producers. All those wines and foods were made with their passion. I was there from 11am carrying with my hungover. It wasn't best time to go to food fair. Although almost all wine stand I pass, they offered me tasting. Maybe I looked desperate even with hangover? You know i can't say no to wine. I tried everything was offered of course. Oh my gosh, by the time i finished checking around, i was pretty drank and my head was banging...

Those two are specially i loved from food fair.

Sangiovese from Umblia Italy 2005
You could buy this wine from www.colasanti.co.uk
Wines from this Italian distributer are all from small producers. They carefully making their wine with passion. This owner said he is away from London quite a lot to make sure all producer take right process but i know he must enjoy time in winery and drinking a lot of wine there! What a good life! He had those good smile that you can tell he has good life. Most of people in this fair has got same smile. Good food make people happy!


Pate Moi
Wild mushroom pate. Wow! It blow me up. Very strong in good way. This mushroom pate made from hand picked 5-7 different kind of mushrooms depend on season. Made with family secret recipe. It's like you find a treasure! You could find it from Borough market too! Try!! It is good to eat just as it is with some cracker but I also exciting to make some dish with this pate this week.

Brett dennen

There were so many things i could up-date this week but it was too many things going on, so i couldn't. Sorry this is my excuse... Well, where i can start with? Okey, one of most important one was Brett dennen. One of my favourite musician. I went to see his gig on Thursday and i went to say Thank you to him after his gig. I wanted to tell him how his music helped me so many days and nights and how much I appreciate his music. He hagged me so many times! I guess he wanted give me power. I never stop admire those artists could give power to people with their songs. Such a gift he have. You can find him from http://www.myspace.com/brettdennen

Dumplings

I made Boiled dumplings today. I used to buy dough for dumplings but this time i made it from dough. Making dough is fun, much nicer and fresh. I didn't know how it works so i made gigantic dumplings with minced pork and shrimp. I guess so much more to improve but i was quite happy to know how to make it.
It went really well with sauce made from sesami oil, soya sauce, black vinegar, spring onion and ginger!

Crab chawder

Mersea Island is located south-east of Colchester.
They are famous for it's oyster and seafood.
This west mersea oyster bar is good for fish and chips(it's huge!)
but i tried crab chowder today. It's not clam chowder but this is with crab.
Actually, I was thankful for my tommy said no for fish and chips today otherwise i didn't order just soup...It turned up very nice lunch for me. Very rich and taste full of crab. Yummmmm.



Restaurant next door called company shed also serve very good seafood platter and various seafood. Here you can bring your own wine and bread. I like to go there summer time, bring good white wine and eat plenty of seafood in very reasonable price.

The eight club

The eight is private member's club in Bank.
Why all those private club has almost same entrance, black door without any sign?
Anyway, I was very hungry, so i ordered a cheese burger.


When I looked at menu, I found one Japanese dish, Chiken skewer called Yakitori but they spell it as Yakotori.
So I told bartender that is miss spelling. After that, our table received very interesting shot made from cucumber, Wasabi, Lemon and etc... He made it with Japanese theme. It was really fresh and nice. I never thought to have wasabi (horse radish) in shot but work really well!!