Udon Madness!

Most people's relationship with udon noodles is relegated to a refrigerated instant noodle package along with a boring season packet and if it's fancy, a small sachet of sesame oil. Nick and I were excited to go to Japan and explore a world of delicious and varied ramen but had no idea we would be enamored of the seemingly humble udon noodle while we were in Kyoto.

WHY ISN'T THIS PLACE IN 'MERICA?

We had our first taste at a self-service chain called Marugame Seimen which makes a variety of slurptastic and fresh udon noodles at a very affordable price. They even have a window where a guy makes noodles so you can see that the noodles are made fresh every day, instead of those shipped in from China.

Steamy noodles and broth ready for slurping

Fatty like!

Marugame has a wealth of udon options - both hot and cold with a plethora of styles including those in broth and some made to be dipped. I opted for the hot torotama udon which is topped with an egg and a swath of thick, sticky yam topping on it. Once you order your udon, you progress down to a little buffet line with a multitude of tempura - which you pay for by the piece. Like the fatty I am, rather than adding the tempura to the top of my noodles and allowing the tempura to get soggy, I piled on the tempura on top of a separate plate. I am fairly certain the lady ringing me up thought I was a super overeater, compared to Nick whose bowl was only adorned with a couple of pieces of tempura. You can also pick additional sides and appetizers after the tempura line including inari or omosubi or other udon toppings. Once we paid for the meal, we stopped by the condiment station to heap a generous sprinkling of scallions, ginger and sauce.

The udon was fantastic; the noodles were perfectly al dente and in a richly seasoned broth. Even better was the amazing tempura which remained crunchy and warm despite having sat under some heating lamps. I had prawn, kabocha squash, fish stick tempura and this giant onion and vegetable tempura basket which is dare-I-say tastier and crisper than Outback Steakhouse's unhealthy blooming onion.

Heaps of tempura and a bowl of udon. Heavenly.

Torotama udon with scallions and ginger

Nick and I pretty much needed to be rolled out of this joint in a wheel barrel and were glad to have a long walk back through ponto-cho to the hotel because we needed to burn some extra calories after that gut bomb. Apparently Marugame has extended to Hawaii but I have no idea why these outlets aren't studded all over the 50 states. It's fresh and can be as healthy or fatty as an American would like; chewy noodles that come in three portion sizes served with a lot of vegetables or heaped with as much freshly fried tempura as one can dump on a plate. I recall that my udon and tempura combo was priced around 800 yen, or around $10 which is incredibly reasonable for a gut bomb dinner of a gazillion calories.

Tempura options - as awesome as it looks.

Fancy Kaiseki Udon

Our second udon foray was at a spot right outside of the historic ponto-cho: Omen Nippon. Nick and I opted for different set menus which ended with a bowl of dipping udon. The meal was in a comfortable setting but the food reflected a sophisticated kaiseki sensibility. We enjoyed delicate and exactingly arranged courses including crudo, delicate fried tempura, tofu in a soy milk broth, a daikon and crab soup and other dishes.

Our meal was completed with a bowl of the most delicious udon noodles sprinkled with sesame seeds, served with a dark shoyu broth to its side with little veggies and accoutrement. You only added as many noodles to the broth or dip the noodles as you go, rather than sink the noodles in the broth. This was definitely all about the noodle and the meal was memorable and delicious. Enjoy a photographic journey of some Japanese food porn!

A delicate crudo

Crispy fish topped with roe in a dashi

Vegetables in a creamy tofu dressing

Tempura

Tofu and soymilk soup

Gorgeous food!

Daikon and crab soup

Fried vegetables and mushrooms

Vegetables, pickles and udon toppings

Broth and noodles

This makes me want to slurp my laptop screen

The front door - go look for it!

Sushi Dai - Greatest Sushi, Longest Wait

I promised you sushi porn and I'm delivering. Here is our story:

Nick and I scoured the internets for the best sushi in Tsukiji market for our Tokyo adventure. We all knew that Jiro's in the Ginza subway stop (exit C6) was the best sushi in Japan, bar none and with three Michelin stars to prove it. However, Jiro's requires a reservation several months in advance and a few hundred dollars; we were looking for something a little more reasonably priced and without a reservation requirement.

According to the world wide web, and a colleague of mine named Osamu, the best sushi can be found at Sushi Dai. Finding Sushi Dai was another matter, when Lonely Planet's Tsukiji market map put it at the wrong location in the entire market. So ignore Lonely Planet's woefully incorrect map and follow the Tsukiji information station's careful instructions and see where the line is... 

Front line for Sushi Dai

Three hours - enough time to see The Hobbit

We (finally) arrived at the line at 9:48am and found what appeared to be three lines. There were two massive lines huddled around two tiny sushi shops next to each other and then a straight line around the corner; the Sushi Dai line actually had two distinct lines with one group of twenty or so people huddled out in front of the shop and then a separate line around that corner on the sidewalk facing the large, private part of the fish market. The other line in front of a shop with orange banners was for Sushi Daiwa, apparently the second best sushi joint in the area. The line was quite orderly and there was a restaurant hosted who served as line guard and kept records of people in line, their party's size and prevented people from cutting in line or jumping in the line by the door, instead of waiting at the true end of the line around the corner. We waited for three (that's right, three) hours before getting to go inside of the restaurant and sit down. We were about to give up when we spent most of the time waiting in the line on the sidewalk barely moving and needing to get snacks just to make it but were ecstatic as soon as we were promoted to the closer line. Waiting in line was painful but we had a lot of time to get to know a couple from L.A. we really liked during those three hours: Colt and Christina with whom we got to share a painful wait and a memorable meal.

Happy sushi chefs

Inside, the restaurant only serves 14 people huddled tightly at the counter in front of three jovial sushi chefs. These guys were absolutely delightful; they spoke English to us and even a little Mandarin to the girls from Taiwan seated to my left and constantly cracked jokes, thanked everyone profusely for waiting in the long line and were generally incredibly welcoming and informative. Above all, they took joy in their craft and their results were delicious. This was the most wonderful, simple and memorable sushi experience I've ever had in my life.

So fresh, it's still moving

Otoro

It was very apparent that the fish came from the market and had all been caught earlier that morning. We opted for the omakase option because what else would you freaking eat there? The fatty tuna, otoro was displayed right in front of me in the case and had tons of visible marbling. It was soft, rich, buttery and delicious with plenty of flavor and zero fishiness which was a contrast to a lot of tuna in the US which actually a lot leaner and lacks a lot of flavor. Our second piece was a simple piece of balanced tamago.

Borderline illegal-looking uni

The flounder had a swarth of lime juice over it which gave it a lovely bright taste and the yellowtail was sumptuous; our chef told us that the fish was from Hokkaido, a northern island of Japan with icy waters famous for the best fish. Then came the uni, which was unlike any uni I'd ever tasted. It was unctuous, smooth and almost bright tasting with a hint of sweet acidity instead of pungency usually found in uni. It melted in your mouth sweetly. We had a lovely, savory horse mackerel that was dotted with marinated green onions.

A row of red clam

Then, the chefs grabbed large red clams out of a bucket and we could see that the clams were still alive! As the chefs deftly cut them apart, they joked, "See? It's still alive! Be careful or it will bite your face." And they served that piece of nigiri to us on the wooden sushi board, still twitching. I've never eaten sushi that was still moving before or red clam like that before; clam is typically tougher and chewier than what we had.We had tasty red snapper that was redder and smoother than any I'd ever had and then salmon roe. Our chef said roe was usually frozen and is only fresh a few months out of the year but ours was fresh! The roe was softer than what I was used to but still burst and tickle as you bite into them - only juicier and smoother tasting. Nick's favorite was our next piece: Spanish mackerel with green onion which was a complex balance of sweet and savory. We finished the first round with a sauced piece of delicate and rich anago. We got to pick our final piece of nigiri: Nick chose to do a repeat of the Spanish mackerel while I completed my nigiri with fresh and crunchy abalone.

Everything we ate was carefully made and presented to us with a delicious mouthful of perfectly balanced rice and fish. Even the miso soup had bits of fish in it in a broth which hinted of the sea. Japanese people have a pursuit for perfection and craftsmanship that speaks volume to the food they make - part art, part architecture and completely wonderful.

We might have waited in line for an extraordinarily long time but we had a perfect meal, and a fun experience with the two new friends we had made, made better by the congenial and warm sushi chefs.

Best. Sushi. Ever. 

Excited to finally get to sit down for our sushi!

Below are more photographs of our memorable meal:

Tamago

Our chef hard at work

Miso soup

Flounder

Details

Red snapper

Horse mackerel art

Red clam - still moving

Yellowtail from Hokkaido

Salmon roe - little surprises

Spanish mackerel

Anago/sea eel

Extra piece of Spanish mackerel

Abalone

I hope you enjoyed our sushi adventures and here's to hoping you get to experience this sort of careful craftsmanship soon! We'll have ramen and udon blogs to follow.

Revel Dumpling Making (and eating)

Enjoying the sunshine before the class

If you read our blog, you know we are a little obsessed with Revel and have done two of their wonderful cooking classes.

Then, in a strike of good luck, two spots opening up in their most coveted dumpling making class so Nick and I got bumped up the list. Cooking class regulars. Boo yeah.

This class covered making different dumpling wrappers, fillings and different ways of preparing the dumplings. We split up into groups of four and tackled three dumplings:
an Indian-inspired chick pea and cumin ricotta dumpling that was pan-seared, a boiled shrimp dumpling with flavors or a Vietnamese summer roll and a fried pork dumpling with Korean gochujang sauce. Dumplings are surprisingly easy to make; making the homemade wrapper is just like rolling out pasta or noodle dough.

Recipes are below. Here is a photo journey of our amazing and delicious class:

Chef Rachel & the crew instructing us

Our mise, complete with recipe. BYO knife.

Our teammates portioning out little ricotta dumplings

Chef Rachel checks on our dumplings

Nick and I wrap dumplings

I mixed pork with the gochujang

Add chives and garlic

And there is some porky filling

Seared ricotta dumplings - I would have preferred more sear

We got hungry

Wrapped up pork dumplings - aren't they pretty?

Fried pork dumplings. The giant ones were ones Nick had made

Recipes! Courtesy of Revel & their cooking class awesomeness.

Note: roll out the dough into long sheets with a pasta maker. Then you can cut it up in any way you'd like - add little lumps of filling, cover it with the top of the pasta sheet or cut your own little squares and then add the filling. 

Chick Pea Ricotta Dumpling

Filling:

• 1 pt ricotta (strained, should be dry and crumbly)
• 1 pt chick peas, chopped in food processor
• 3 tbsp roasted lemon pulp
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tbsp parsley, chopped
• salt & pepper

Mix all ingredients together

Dough:

• 2 qt AP flour
• 3 cups hot water
• 1 tbsp salt
• 3 tbsp cumin, toasted and ground

Mix all dry ingredients together first, then add water.
Knead until the dough is smooth.

Spicy Pork Dumpling

Filling:

• 3 cups ground pork
• 1 cup garlic chives, chopped
• 3 tbsp Korean sweet chili paste: gochujang
• 3 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp garlic, chopped fine
• 1 tbsp ginger, chopped fine
• 1 tbsp Korean chili powder

Mix all ingredients together

Dough:

• 2 qt AP flour
• 1/2 cup garlic chive puree
• 2 1/2 cup hot water
• 1 tbsp salt

Mix all dry ingredients together first, then add water.
Knead until the dough is smooth.

Shrimp and rice noodle dumpling
Filling:

• 1 pt shrimp, chopped in food processor
• 1 pt rice noodles, soaked in water, then chopped
• 1 tbsp ginger, chopped fine
• 3 tbsp cilantro
• 3 tbsp Vietnamese fish sauce
• 1 tsp coriander, ground

Mix ingredients together

Dough:

• 2 qt AP flour
• 3 cups hot water
• 1 cup ginger
• 1 tbsp ginger powder
• 1 tbsp salt

Blend the ginger with hot water and strain. Mix all dry ingredients together, first, then add the wet ingredients. Knead dough until the dough becomes smooth.

Again, we prepared each dumpling differently - we made round pan-fried dumplings with the chickpea dumplings, pinched wonton boiled dumplings with the shrimp ones and deep-fried triangular dumplings with the pork dumplings.