kamakura ramen in tokyo - japan meals part 1

in march this year christien and i met vicky and edmund for a one week trip to tokyo, japan. i... love... japan. everything about it. from the architecture and technology to the people and culture and oh, the food... japanese cuisine, for those who haven't truly experienced it, is so much more than sushi and chicken teriyaki. while these japanese-american standards are definitely tasty and of course popular, they speak nothing of the mouth watering, delicious foods found in the most glamorous restaurants and dingy-est street stalls that litter the crowded streets and buildings in the tokyo metropolis.

in this series, i'm going to share our food experiences during our awesome trip to japan. here's the first.

kamakura ramen was our first lunch spot in tokyo, located in shibuya district. roaming the streets of this trendy neighborhood, we couldn't settle on a place to enjoy our first meal, so we decided to ask the cops hanging out at a small police box where they usually get lunch. you figure they know where to go right? one of the cops recommended kamakura ramen a couple blocks away.

we walked to the entrance and discovered that we had to order our meals from an outside vending machine first before entering the restaurant to sit down. the menu was huge, and all in japanese. fortunately menu pictures and christien's excellent japanese skills came to the aid.


we made our selections, deposited our coins, and took our meal tickets inside.


after handing our meal tickets to the host, we sat down at the end of a large counter that wraps around a huge steel open kitchen. at each station there were chopsticks, napkins and an assortment of condiments ranging from scallions to garlic, soy sauce and more.


while waiting for our food to arrive, we entertained ourselves by watching the efficiency of the kitchen operations.


and then, our food arrives. huge bowls of perfectly cooked ramen noodles, topped with thin, juicy slices of chashu which is slow roasted pork with intense smoky pork flavor and melt in your mouth ribbons of fat. all this was nestled in an intense and perfectly seasoned pork broth with a soy sauce base and liquid fat that was almost emulsified in the soup. my order came with a heaping bowl of thinly sliced scallions to top the ramen with. a fresh green and oniony compliement to the meat and noodles.


and then there was the egg. soft-boiled. so fresh. so creamy. so sinfully delicious. i have never had an egg like this ever before. the eggs in the u.s. don't come anywhere close in flavor, texture and freshness, except organic, farm fresh eggs.


while kamakura ramen wasn't a famous ramen street tent, this was an amazing example of how good and refined a bowl of ramen can be, even in a vending machine style fast food restaurant. oh tokyo. how i love thy food.

sushi ota in san diego

for lunch on the first day of our san diego trip last month, christien did his search engine magic and found a fantastic sushi bar that had super high marks for being the sushi bar for local japanese nationals. in other words, the real stuff.

sushi oto is owned and operated by japanese people, typically another sign of quality, but surprisingly, we learned that our sushi chef, while japanese, didn't know a lick of the language even though his name tag was in japanese and was muttering all the japanese greetings that sushi chefs yell out when customers first enter the bar.

we had a great time chatting in english, sharing stories from the bay area, where he was also from, and learning about the very choice cuts of fish he was treating us to. here's what we had...

sashimi - aji, sake, hamachi, maguro (spanish mackerel, salmon, yellowtail, tuna)

starting with a sashimi special plate, this was surprisingly high quality and quantity for under $30. and, it actually included the entire aji skeleton as seen above. you know you're getting fresh stuff when you get the whole fish (which wasn't recycled from another plate in the back kitchen).
big cuts, extremely fresh fish. a great start.

mirugai (geoduck or giant clam)

after the sashimi, we started diving into the refridgerated case in front of us. mirugai is one of my favorites so we had to have that. geoduck clam is pretty ugly in its native state. but once you cut away the tough exterior skin, the meat is sweet and briny with a firm, not quite a crunch, bite.

kinmedai (golden eye snapper)

kinmedai is one of our favorites, having eating over a hundred dollars worth at our favorite sf sushi bar, ryoko's, over the past year. slightly seared with a blow torch, ota's version is rare with seared skin and a dusting of fresh grind rock salt. amazingly sweet and tender.

age aji (fried spanish mackerel bone)

in between sushi courses, our aji bones from the sashimi plate returned to us completely deep fried with fresh lemon and ponzu sauce. you can basically eat everything minus the head so we happily munched away on the crunchy bones and washed them down with ice cold sapporo draft.

amaebi (sweet raw shrimp)

i love amaebi so we each had one. delicate, sweet and moist. oh so good.

another species of clam (can't remember what kind)

our sushi chef seemed to have an affinity for clams so he introduced us to a couple more. this one was similar to mirugai but with a slightly softer texture. very good. just can't remember what kind it was though.

nama tako (raw octopus)

having recently discovered takowasa (raw salted octopus with wasabi), we were excited to try this recommendation by our chef. it's not like tako at all, which is boiled first then sliced. this was absolutely raw and slimy with a bit of a chewy texture. not for everyone, but the meat is sweet and just a bit briny. never really had this before so it was a treat.

akagai (red clam)

another type of clam that was again similar to mirugai but more tender. very good.

uni (sea urchin roe)

now this, was amazing. our chef told us their uni is sourced locally in san diego, which has very limited availability and is one of the most desirable in the US. fresh and clean tasting, firm textured but creamy on the mouth, and briny, nutty and sweet all at once, this uni was probably the best i've ever tasted. wow. just wow.

age ebi atama (deep fried shrimp heads)

by the time that orgasm had settled in our mouths, our chef brought out the fried shrimp heads from our amaebi sushi. crunchy and full of explosive shrimp flavor, this was a perfect and satisfying end to our culinary journey at sushi ota.

on the way out, the sushi chefs were busy preparing for dinner service and on chef was patiently focused on fileting what i believe were sardines. he had beautifully plated the filets on a plate under perfect lighting so i had to snap this gorgeous photo.


overall, sushi ota is definitely everything everyone says it is. extremely fresh fish, a wide selection of special fish, generous cuts and expert chefs, this is no place for sauce-laden sushi roll lovers, but a haven for foodies and chowhounds who know how to savor raw seafood in its purest, freshest form.

gourmet veggie meal #3

each time my friend jenny is in town, she requests a gourmet vegetarian meal from me. jenny is a friend i met at ucla over a decade ago and is now living in beijing doing good things for the environment in red china. being vegetarian, her entree selections can be a bit more limited when patronizing a fine establishment. so over the years, i've tried to do my part and treat her to a gourmet veggie meal prepared especially for her. the last two gourmet veggie meals were big hits so i wanted to make sure i didn't disappoint.

but as a carnivore, it takes some creativity to come up with a delicious meatless menu but still be hearty enough for the 4 other meat eaters at the table. i decided the best compromise was to stick with a themed cuisine and combine fresh vegetables with heavier starches and dairy. i pulled out one of my favorite cookbooks, jamie oliver's "jamie's italy," and penned this menu.

1st course: ricotta fritta con piccola insalata di pomodori
(fried ricotta with a little tomato salad)


the ricotta is a mixture of fresh ricotta, parmesan, flour, egg to bind, and salt and pepper, pan fried with a little olive oil. the pan-frying part was a little stressful as the delicate cakes fell apart as i tried to flip them after browning one side. half of mine looked more like scrambled messes. so the tomato salad did a great job of hiding the flaws. farmer's market fresh and organic heirloom tomatoes are tossed with chopped basil stems, a red chili, and evoo and red wine vinegar. the result was a perfect blend of creaminess, char, green and acidity.

2nd course: insalata di radicchio e rughetta
(radicchio and arugula salad)


i wanted a way to contrast the creaminess of the 1st course with the richness of the main course with something acidic and fresh, so this salad was a great choice. the bitterness of radicchio and peppery bite of the arugula worked surprisingly well against the licorice-y shaved fennel, salty parmesan, sweet balsamic vinegar and grassy extra virgin olive oil. the key to this salad is the ingredient ratio, especially the radicchio and the arugula. too much radicchio lends an overpowering bitter note so be careful.

3rd course: tagliatelle alla trapanese
(fresh tagliatelle pasta trapani style)


for the main course, i picked up some super fresh tagliatelle pasta from a.g. ferrari foods, an italian delicatessen, and tossed it with a made from scratch pesto sauce. apparently this is the Trapanese way of making pesto sauce and instead of pine nuts, it uses almonds and adds ripe, crushed tomatoes to the mixture. i first chopped raw almonds in the food processor and then add a couple cloves of garlic, fresh grated pecorino and handfuls of fresh basil. that was then processed with a lot of extra virgin olive oil and some salt and pepper to taste. i then crushed some grape tomatoes by hand into the pesto and tossed the pasta and sauce in a large bowl. the result was a very unique green flavor, especially with the almonds. many pestos can be overpowering and while this was definitely rich, the tomatoes provided a nice acidic contrast. oh and fresh pasta is the only way to go. yum.

judging by the clean plates, it looked like jenny and company thoroughly enjoyed their gourmet veggie meal #3. amazing how vegetables can actually make one full. maybe i could actually try vegetarianism... well, maybe not. until the next one!

wine country chicken salad on foccacia with sharp cheddar, rocket and hearts of palm

made a great, fresh sandwich for dinner tonite, courtesy of tasty ingredients from trader joe's. it's been a while since i've been to tj's, let alone cook dinner at home. things have been so busy i haven't had the time to. christien and i have been eating out almost exclusively for the past 6 months or so. and yes, it's showing around our waists.

but we're getting back on track and after hip hop class tonite at the gym, i picked up a few ingredients at tj's and made this scrumptious sandwich:


what we have here is tj's amazing wine country chicken salad with cranberries and walnuts, layered with thick wedges of sharp cheddar cheese, quartered hearts of palm and fresh, peppery rocket (arugula), on thickly sliced herbed foccacia drizzled with kalamata olive oil and balsamic vinegar with a few cranks of freshly cracked pepper. all accompanied by some crisp and sweet sugar snap peas and a glass of pomegranate lemonade. all from tj's. except for kalamata olive oil which i got while olive oil tasting at pasolivo olive oil farm in paso robles, california.


the foccacia was a perfect choice of bread, soaking up the wonderful sweet, savory and creamy flavors of the chicken salad and olive oil and balsamic. the cheddar provides a nice sharp tang while the rocket provides a nice peppery crunch. mm mm mm... head over to tj's tonite and make this tasty sandwich!

oh, and doesn't this creation look amazing on the shiny white plate from crate and barrel that christien got me for birthday last year? the clean lines and bright white color really help set off the colors of the ingredients. great for food porn by the way, for those of you who are trying to figure out how to take better pictures of food.

lunch from the sentinel sf

lunch at work is always a big decision. what should i have for lunch today? should i go healthy and get a salad? or should i get something rich and filling? today camela, hwasu and i decided to go for all the above. walking a block over from our office down stevenson street, we hit up the sentinel sf on new montgomery, a great "sandwich stand" serving excellent, fresh and tasty sandwiches for about $8 each. here's what we had today:

the sentinel's website displays its seasonal menu and daily specials. a little rough on the wallet but oh so good.

spinach and ricotta-stuffed shells with meat sauce

when i make a pasta dish i usually go for some kind of noodle and ladle a thick, rich sauce over it. but after the mac n cheese success, i decided to do a baked pasta dish this time. when i think "baked pasta," images of piping hot, oozing, cheesy lasagna and manticotti come to mind. i've made lots of successful lasagnas in the past so this time, i wanted to try a new technique: stuffing pasta.

for this recipe i wanted to develop a rich meat sauce that would coat and flavor a creamy, herb-laden filling in large pasta shells. let's see how it turned out.

i browned 1 lb of ground sirloin and defrosted and drained 1 small package of frozen chopped spinach. make sure not to overcook the beef or it'll become rubbery and grainy.

in the same pan, i poured off the excess grease from the ground beef and added 2 chopped onions and a few cloves of chopped garlic. this would then brown over low heat to caramelize the onions, creating a rich, sweet, oniony base for the pasta sauce.

once the onions were brown i added a few tablespoons of tomato paste to brown for a minute in the pan.

then a large can of crushed tomatoes was added to the pan, along with chopped fresh basil and thyme.

the sauce simmered for about 20 minutes to thicken it and develop and concentrate the flavors. the ground beef was then added to the pan to finish off the sauce.

while the sauce was simmering, i made a filling for the pasta shells by combining 2 cups of ricotta, the spinach, some chopped basil and thyme, salt, pepper, and an egg to help bind the ingredients together.

i then filled each cooked pasta shell with the mixture and arranged them in a large baking dish on a layer of meat sauce. the pasta shells were cooked to just barely "al dente" to keep the shells from going soggy in the baking process.

once the shells were filled and arranged, i covered the entire thing with the remaining meat sauce and grated parmesan cheese all over. this then went into a 400* oven for about 20-30 minutes.

as dinner was baking away, i popped open a bottle of cheap tj's chianti, a bold, fruity italian red wine that would go well with the hearty tomato sauce in this dish. decanting the wine in the new wine decanter that christien got me for my birthday helped mellow out the acidity a little bit and made it much more drinkable.

and voila! the pasta is ready and dinner is served!

the pasta filling was hot all the way through and the parmesan had melted over everything. i thought the presentation was pretty striking.

hearty meat and tomatoes dousing big pasta with creamy, colorful fillings. great visual appeal here.

and it also looked great plated on a deep white plate.

the sauce was rich from all the caramelization action from the ground beef, tomato paste, and soft, melty onions. this was a perfect foil for the creamy, cheesy ricotta filling, balanced out by the delicate flavors of thyme and basil. and being baked in the oven for a while ensured the dish stayed piping hot throughout dinner.

did this pass the test? a thumbs up from christien should do the trick.

baked pasta dishes can be very rewarding, both visually and gastronimically. but, i must admit, they're a pain to assemble from scratch. not only are you cooking everything from scratch, but you're also stuffing and arranging. but is it worth it? you betcha.

spanish tapas cookbook and dinner

jen and dan picked out a great little spanish cookbook for my birthday present a couple months ago titled "classic spanish cooking: recipes for mastering the spanish kitchen" by elisabeth luard.

the cookbook is full of interesting recipes ranging from tapas to dessert and shellfish to legumes, covering pretty much the entire pantry. luard's writing style is unique; she describes cooking techniques that rely on common sense and observation versus measurements of capacity or time. for example, in preparing meat for skewers, she writes, "all the pieces should be neatly trimmed and no bigger than a baby's mouthful." or, when broiling shrimp in the shell, "the heat should be fierce enough to blacken the shells a little."

luard's cookbook reads much like a memoir of a spanish grandmother's cooking lessons, full of short stories and history but ever-focused on the good of the dish and whatever was in season and locally available. i found her recipes offer a sort of freedom, free of precise measurements and rigid structure you find in today's cookbooks, a sort of refreshing reminder that cooking is an art where you taste as you go and season by hand, not simply a scientific process to be followed.

there were many great-sounding recipes in here and i wanted to share them with a willing guinea crowd. so what better way than to invite jen and dan to our house for an evening of spanish tapas, featuring recipes from the cookbook they gave me!

dinner started a little later than i had anticipated. although i was only cooking for 5, i sorta miscalculated the time i needed to prepare the 6 tapas recipes i had picked out. that's 6 whole dishes made from scratch. that's a lot of cooking.

no matter. i sent out a small dish of setas a la parilla, or mushrooms grilled with garlic and parsley. i didn't have access to the type of mushrooms specified in the recipe (orange tear or saffron milk cap) and made do with small portabellos, grilled cap-side up on a grill pan until juices formed in the cap. garlic and parsley were added at the end just long enough to soften the flavors a little. i then chopped these up to top slices of baguette. along with some slices of manchego cheese and salted marcona almonds, it provided a nice first tapas. unfortunately i was too busy getting the other 5 tapas ready to take a picture.

a couple of wine glasses later, dinner was ready and we all sat down and started passing round the dishes.

a steaming-hot pot of almejas en vino de jerez, or clams in sherry, announced the beginning of our spanish tapas meal. the recipe was very simple and the flavors of garlic and fresh parsley blended beautifully with the dry sherry. i originally wanted to use black mussels here but the market was out of them. the manila clams were great though, with a slight hint of sweetness to their meat.

next was pisto de berejenas, or braised eggplants. this, while a little time intensive to make, was a hit, especially spread on crusty baguette swith warm slices of manchego cheese. another simple dish, i pan-fried diced eggplant with caramelized onions and a bit of cumin seed and salt and pepper. that's it. it takes time to caramelize the onions and fry the eggplant to a soft consistency. but when it's done... oh so good.

for this tapa, albondigas en salsa, or meatballs in tomato sauce, i recruited jen and dan's help to form the meatballs, a sort of pre-dinner entertainment. i've always read it's best to have something for guests to help with so they feel immediately at home and part of the action. so before jen and dan arrived, i had started the tomato sauce which was flavored with red peppers, sherry, bay leaf and cinnamon stick and let that simmer while i combined the meatball mixture which consisted of half ground beef, half ground pork, bread crumbs and egg, flavored mainly with onion, cumin, coriander, and parsley. after the meatballs were formed, they were then browned and finished off with a simmer in the tomato sauce. this was my favorite. the cumin and coriander in the meatballs coupled with the cinnamon and bay leaf in the sauce lent an exotic taste to the tender, moist meatballs. mmm.

the favorite of the nite, which surprised me, was a homey and hearty dish, arroz a la cubana, or cuban rice. this consisted of cooked risotta rice layered with a basic tomato sauce flavored with chile powder and allspice, caramelized plaintains, and 4 fried eggs. so simple, yet so good together.

about halfway through dinner, i got up from the table and fired up the stove one more time to quickly prepare this dish, gambas pilpil, or shrimp with garlic and chili. i wanted to keep it as hot as possible for serving, per luard's notes, hence waiting to cook until we were fully ready to eat it. i heated a good amount of olive oil and tossed in sliced garlic and whole, dried red chilies to season the oil with garlic essense and a huge amount of firey heat. the shelled shrimp took just a minute or two tossed in the hot oil to cook and that went quickly onto the table. everyone's first reaction? "whoa, that's got some bite!" indeed it did. the chili peppers had added a piquant zing to the shrimp that was quite memorable, but not hot enough to burn the tastebuds. fantastic. they disappeared in a couple minutes.

with all that salty savory-ness, we needed a contrast for dessert. jen and dan had brought a couple pints of excellent ice cream from bi-rite creamery, including roasted banana and the oh-so-tasty salted caramel.

and as if that wasn't enough, we enjoyed some baked treats from tartine bakery as well.

they also brought a fabulous spanish wine to wash everything down, a 2003 legaris reserva tinta fina (100% tempranillo) from the ribera del duero wine region in spain. smooth, ruby fruit and an elegant finish. highly recommended with the dishes prepared here.

thank you jen and dan for the thoughtful gift and a great nite of spanish tapas, wine, and friendship! we need to do it again soon...