Japanese food is my favorite but Viet Namese is great too. Below is the luncheon feast I had at the place up the street referenced in earlier posts. Summer rolls up top and the plate of condiments they give you with your Pho. Thai basil, bean sprouts, lime, and jalapeno peppers. The past few times I have been the broth of the pho has been kinda week but yesterday it was great. Well done. Nice and aromatic and rich but not too thick.



The actual bowl of soup. Unlike every other Viet Namese restaurant I have been to they don't have Sriracha on the table, it's like a local blend or something. Meh, it works either way....


I passed this when I was jogging, I go past Maruichi and there's a Japanese restaurant downstairs and this was a patron. Check out the Kame Kaze plate.



To further the random theme of this blog, somehow I took a snapshot of my iPhone screen. This is what I got.



Wednesday night, despite the fact that I had the most amazing Miles River crabs ever, I had a huge hankering for noodles. See below. There was an annoying add hot water, drain element to preparing them but they hit the spot. I really should have taken a photo of the package, etc. Next time.......



I was in the store the other day and passed down the wine aisle when this incredibly ugly bottle caught my eye. It looks like something you'd market a milkshake in.


Is it me? I find this a really bizarre color for a wine bottle. Pink merlot, huh? No thanks.

An ecclectic evening.......

Last week I had a little bit of everything. Started off with Viet Namese summer rolls. I usually make these myself but there's a great restaurant right up the street that sells them so I cheated. I was almost through with them when I remembered to take a photo. I could eat about 4 billion of these.


Then the final crabs from the most awesome bushel of Miles River crabs I've had in, I'm gonna say it, years.... Every last one was full, sweet, and perfectly steamed. At $100 a bushel they were worth every penny.


Two round out the evening's feasting, two rockfish filets from a fish I caught out on the island last weekend. I got the recipe from http://tec-tsuji.com/ a cooking academy in Osaka, Japan (as opposed to Osaka, Tennesee). Dust with flour, salt and pepper, a little butter in a sautee pan, and at the last minute a thimble of soy sauce cooked just long enough to get it to carmelize a little.... This was the best non-fish and chips fish I have ever made. It was exquisite.....

Broiled Eel: Unagi!

In the earlier post, I showed me purchasing eel, called unagi in Japanese. It is really, really good. I know that isn't very articulate but it'll have to do. To start the evening I need to boil up some rice. Below you'll see the Maruichi-purchased rice. Grown in California, I believe. Hold on, let me just dash over to the kitchen and check......yeah, California.



Below is the rice in the cooker, rinsed once and then two parts water to one part rice. Actually, I have found that a little extra water makes a slightly better rice for donburi.



Here's my rice cooker's passport photo. My sister Katy bought this for me about 10 years ago. It has worked awesomely ever since. Thanks Katy! Oh, she also bought me a bento box that I have sorely under-used. I'll change that.


Small, very recession-minded portion of rice for my eel dinner.



A little mirin, sweet Japanese rice vinegar, helps flavor the rice. Just a splash. Oh yeah, and the iPhone camera was blurry again. I know it's operator error but it does seem to be kind of arbitrary on whether the photos are blurry or not...



Below, the eel from the previous post.


The eel sauce is drizzled across the freshly heated eel filet. It has a sweet, soy sauce, bbq sort of taste to it.



Below, my lovely eel filets portioned and presented.


Five nanoseconds later. The sauce from the unagi flavors the rice. The slight bitterness from the skin of the unagi is the perfect accent and all and all makes this dish very, very addictive. Luvit.

Hodgepodge

I have a bunch of random photos from the past year that don't quite fit a theme. For instance, Greek Easter at my friend Stevie T's. They do this proper, go choose the lamb at a farm in the country, bring it back home, season it up (this is a whole extended family affair) and on the spit it goes. This was my second year at their celebration and I actually had a bit of the brains. Not bad....

Yet another shabu shabu from a couple weeks ago. The usual plus some shumai (Japanese dumplings) on the right side of the photo.

Below you will the most expertly presented and photographed dish I've ever made. Crab Imperial with asparagus. America's Test Kitchen has an awesome asparagus recipe. Comes out awesomely every time. Awesome.


And here they are from a distance. One for pop, one for my brother, and one for me.


This is the miniature bowling alley you'll find inside an Airstream trailer in the bar of the Bass Pro Shop themed Casino in Las Vegas. I think it's called the Silverton. Fun place...



I'll round this out with a photo of me with a nice rockfish from this past May. Me and my pals John and Luther took Luther's boat down to Hoopers Island for a change of scenery. It's on the south side of Blackwater Wildlife Refuge down in Dorchester County and, I'm ashamed to say, the first time I've been down there....

Maruichi Market

This is a real treasure, the Maruichi Japanese grocery store. Run by my pal Tetsu, it has everything an expat Japanese needs and its all of 200 yards from my front door. They used to run a travel agency from the store as well, thus the vestigal lettering on the door. Lets take a little tour....


There's a nice case where they sell perishables, and occasionally they'll have tidbits like salmon eggs or roe sacs. They usually have some fresh vegetables and eggs as well. Once I came across a nice set of sea urchin roe (uni) and snapped that up. It was indulgent but, you know, I only did it that one time. I'm proud to say I exercised a great deal of self restraint and those 12 gorgeous little uni survived a full 120 minutes in my fridge before I ate them.



Here's the fridge where you can grab your miso paste, four different types. He keeps this place spotless. He and his wife I should say.


Curry is hugely popular in Japan. It's a variation on the traditional Indian curry and, I'm sorry to say, I've never had it. I'll make a point of trying it soon.


Below is one of my very favorites. Unagi: freshwater eel. I started ordering unagi as sushi but one day saw a lady at the counter next to me order a full bowl of eel: unagi donburi. Now I make it at home. The package below goes for $9 and makes a single, generous serving. You simply heat it up in the oven, add some special unagi sauce and serve over rice (next post).



Have not graduated to whole frozen squid but how 'bout it! Food? Technically. Art? Definitely.


Drinks cooler. Pocari Sweat, the infamous Calpis, etc. Lots of canned coffees and green teas as well.


Conbini in Rockville. Loads and loads of cup noodles, udon, etc. I get these for lunch but, to be honest, they're loaded with calories. They fry the noodles before drying them and that's where the great, savory flavor comes from. Even the small bowls have almost 500 calories.


This place is proper. Could not get a good pic without the annoying glare from the camera flash. They sell the gigantic Asahi oil cans: 32 oz. for $4. Good deal and you're set for the night.


And finally, cosmetics straight from Tokyo. Tetsu told me he sells out this entire section almost every week. Loads of Japanese from the embassies and high tech firms in the area make the pilgrimage. I even bumped into Senator Inoue from Hawaii once. I'm not the type to be star struck but he's a war hero and I'm a big fan. Was pretty nervous.


Here is a link to the Tsuji Cooking Academy in Osaka. They have fantastic recipes. While it's a fascinating site on it's own, they also have some dynamite recipes. Despite Tokyo getting most of the attention internationally for it's cuisine, in Japan it's actually Osaka where many of the food trends emerge. Also, Osaka residents are supposed to be friendlier and funnier than Tokyoites. Many of the top comedians in Japan come from Osaka. That's just word on the street. I'm just sayin'........

Summer in October......

At work we were discussing the inanity of the practice, here in Maryland at least, of closing all public pools and those associated with apartment buildings, on Labor Day Weekend, the first weekend of September. I guess the argument is that all the lifeguards have to go back to school but I'm not buyin' it. Not only does summer officially continue, meteorologically speaking, until the autumnal equinox (the end of September), but the average daily high temperature around here is in the 80's and stays in the 70's well into October. Anyway, that's an aside. Spent the past weekend on the island and, yeah, went swimming.

Baltimore has, of late, become a very popular departure for cruise ships. You can see the profile of one such liner against the sunset. This one departs Baltimore on Saturday evening and heads to Bermuda. I believe they return on Thursday.....



The first night out on the island I'm usually too worn out to cook anything proper so the tradition of red beans and rice has a six year history. I usually use Zataran's but used Vigo this weekend instead. I understand why my vision was a little blurry at this point, don't understand why the camera phone was too...



Below, browning the kielbasa to render the fat. Once that's done you simply add the packet, 3 cups of water, bring to a boil and let simmer for 20 minutes. Fool proof and extremely satisfying.

Tori.

The weather was spectacular and I was thinking how awesome it would have been to have a wide-angle high definition camera with me for the below photo. The string of clouds out over the Bay were the perfect accent to this shot of the island.



Coming back from the dock after chasing after some rockfish in the Boston Whaler. A cozy and welcoming site.



Tranquil afternoon. Light breezes, 78 degrees...you can see the parallel rows from the lawn mower in the grass.



A snapshot of the cupboard. It's vital to remember everything you might potentially need while you're at the grocery store. If not, it's two miles back to land and a 20 minute drive into town. I make sure I'm very redundant about the coffee, condiments less so. Left to right, top to bottom: bread crumbs for fish, salt (natch), cooking spray, Starbucks coffee, Worcestershire, mustard, soy sauce, tempura batter mix, green peppercorns (?), sugar, more coffee, red pepper flakes, pepper, olive oil and Old Bay. The other cupboards are stocked with cans of soup, corn, tomatoes, etc.



Crab meat was on sale. Normally $18.95 for a pound of backfin, on sale for $10.99. There are usually three kinds of crab meat sold in the region. Lump, the most expensive,which is only the largest chunks of meat from the back chamber of the crab. Backfin, a mixture of lump and smaller, more broken-up pieces. Backfin tends to have a little more flavor as some of the "mustard" from the crab gets mixed in. This is the most popular grade and good for any kind of crab dish. Claw is the lowest grade and usually used to make soup. It's not very common.

Sadly, I wasn't really paying attention (was watching Brett Favre playing AGAINST Green Bay, that was weird) when I was making crab cakes and added too much salt. Won't happen again.

Harris Teeter

Oh, for the record, I take these images with the camera on my iPhone. Periodically I have a digital camera with me and no doubt it'll be apparent when I post a photo from that. Anyway, my love affair with Harris Teeter continues. This is the store in Bethesda, Maryland on Old Georgetown Road. The store opened this past Spring and is brand spanking new top to bottom. The standard grocery store sections are on the first floor with a specialty bakery, cheese section, sushi bar, dining area upstairs. I rarely get up top unless I need something like Gruyere cheese or prosciutto. The image below is the first third of their extremely expansive and well stocked produce section. This greets you as soon as you walk in.

The meat counter.....

Below are the boneless premium ribeye from the meat counter. It's hard to tell from the images but those already cut steaks were abuout 2 1/2" thick and were calling softly to me. I was strong.....


Below, the middle section of the fish counter. From left to right: tuna medallions from the Phillipines; mahi fillets from Panama; Tilapia from...who am I kiddin, I don't care where it comes from; farm raised Chilean salmon; American caught Dover sole, yellow fin tuna from Mexico; wild caught U.S. flounder; organic salmon from Ireland, rock fish (striped bass) fillets from the U.S., prepared salmon fillets. All the way to the left in this photo you can just see the cod....


It's almost always around $5 a pound which seems pretty reasonable to me. I went looking for some cod this past Spring at Bloom (Food Lion-owned) and it was $12.99 a pound! To the left of the cod is pollock which was going for $6.99. I was doing a little reading on cod and cod-like fishes (pollock, hake, etc.) and it was my understanding that these other fisheries developed as cod stocks dropped. Now, it seems, the cod stocks have recovered, the prices have dropped, but people who switched in the past to the then cheaper species have not come back. That artfully placed bit of greenery (lettuce?) really sells classy right off the bat.



At any rate, I skipped the meat counter and went to the already wrapped meats and grabbed two bone-in rib steaks. The store's premium line of steaks is referred to as "Reserve Angus" and are served from the aforementioned counter, while their standard line is mere "Rancher" and is cut and wrapped in advance. The price is usually $1 more for the premium but since I didn't notice any great difference in marbling between the two I opted for the cheaper grade. Here they are coming to room temperature on my cutting board.


I prepped them with a little olive oil and then rubbed them with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. Pan seared on a very hot dry pan for two minutes a side and then into a 450 degree oven to finish them off.



Neglected to take a photo of the finished steak. Things were late, smokey, smudgy and I was pretty hungry....

Had several ears of corn I picked up at a roadside stand I pass on the way home from work. $4 a dozen and oh so sweet. Harris Teeter, strangely, was selling two ears for $2.


It's Friday! Back off to the island tomorrow. The fishing is red hot right now and I'm hoping to get a few rockfish. If they prove elusive, and they shouldn't, I'll fall back on the trusty white perch. Depedning on the wind I may hack my way over to Tilghman Point and drift for flounder. Whatever I pull in I'm thinking tempura.....