Cooking with your wife.....

So here's an interesting story. A guy in LA is on trial for cooking his wife for 4 days and then disposing of her remains down the grease pit in his kitchen's restaurant. Click here to read about it.

Ippuku

A while back, Andi and I went out to dinner at a Japanese Izakaya restaurant in Downtown Berkeley called Ippuku. Izakaya's are small drinking establishments that also specialize in small tastings of food kinda like Spanish Tapas. I always wanted to go to one but could never find one in Boston.

The place was quite small, maybe 50 seats if that. You can sit at low tables like the one above or in booths. In the far back there is the kitchen.

We started off with grilled chicken livers in a soy glaze. They were slightly charred and bitter on the outside which went perfectly with the sweet soy flavor.

Grilled jumbo squid with Japanese mayo and ground ginger. A little chewy for my taste but Andi loved it.

Beef tongue with shishito peppers. If you've never heard of or had shishito peppers, I recommend finding some. There delicious little guys that are great for searing or grilling!

Bacon wrapped mochi!! Mochi are little rice cakes that are kinda have the same texture as marshmallows. Mmmmmm....bacon wrapped marshmallows! There's an idea!! You can find mochi in most Asian markets in the freezer section. They also make mochi ice cream in many different flavors that's also great!

Soft tofu in soy broth with scallions and red onion. Yum!

Grilled pork belly with miso paste. A little bit of a let down since I LOVE pork belly and this was quite tough.

Dungeness crab fritters. Again, another let down. No flavor what so ever. :(

Squid ink fried rice!! Best dish out of the entire meal! The rice had amazing flavor, not salty at all.

Seared beef tenderloin in ponzu with shiso leaf and ground garlic. Another hit! The tartness of the ponzu, bitterness of the shiso leaf and spiciness of the ground garlic worked magic with the soft seared tenderloin.

Mini chicken ramen soup with house made noodles. Total comfort food!

We finished our meal with two items. The first was buckwheat tea. A pleasant change from having it as pancakes or noodles(soba).

The second was soft serve ice cream with a soy reduction. The saltiness of the soy want perfect with the sweetness of the ice cream!

For my first experience at a Japanese Izakaya, I was quite impressed. I'll defiantly be back to this one and can't wait to find more!!



Nothing In Life Is Free

So apperently having this blog is not free. I can no longer post photos because I'm out of memory space and have to "buy" more. I'm working on trying to delete some of my past stuff but don't really want to. Stay tuned as I'll either figure a way around it or get another blog!!