We had a diverse range of good food this weekend, mainly homemade. Every weekend we eat well, but for some reason this past weekend stood out as especially good.
Saturday morning we went into Kobe to visit “The Cheese Guy” – John Davis, who came out from Okinawa to promote his cheeses at a weekend cheese exhibition along the Motomachi shopping street.
It was our first time to meet John face to face, after having ordered cheeses from him so many times over the years. We let us taste a few cheeses that we didn’t recognize, including a sort of fermented 2 year old cheese paste that was fruity and intense.
John was clearly passionate about cheese and it was nice to borrow him a little bit and peruse his wares. Apparently it was his first time to Kobe, and we hoped that he’d do well. Even early in the morning there were crowds in the shopping street so I’m guessing he’ll be busy. Although Kuniko pointed out that mostly people were lining up for samples rather than purchasing cheese.
Something else that Kuniko said was interesting – two years ago while traveling in Okinawa we sort of stumbled on John’s cheese being sold in a department store and we bought a chunk to take back to our hotel for immediate consumption. After that we got in touch with him and he’s been keeping us in cheese these past couple of years. Interesting to think how things would be different if we didn’t notice his cheese on the shelf of that department store that night.
After bothering John for a while and buying some cheeses to take home we went out to get some lunch. We were aiming for soup dumplings, but found a new Northern Chinese restaurant open in Motomachi that caught our eye. Inside we ordered some boiled dumplings, but unfortunately the pork buns listed on the menu weren’t ready yet. While we waited for the soup dumplings the owner was aggressively touting the quality of his food, speaking flawless Japanese and also Chinese to his wife, who was putting together the dumplings. He was a bit too talkative for us but the dumplings turned out to be tasty enough.
Next stop was Shorondayo – our current favorite soup dumpling place. We know exactly what we want when we go there, soup dumplings and beer. We ordered two baskets of dumplings and a bottle of beer to share. The dumplings there are homemade and really tasty – just the right amount of soup and great texture of the wrappers.
There was a group of three customers next to us eating through a whole course, and when they got to the end of their meal the wife running the place sent out three plates of free almond tofu for dessert. In the tiny restaurant of only three tables the older lady loudly proclaimed that she likes customers that spend money – she hates stingy people, and so the desserts were on the house. I wasn’t sure if she was referring to us with the “stingy” comment but it was a funny moment. Even a grouchy owner isn’t going to stop us from soup dumpling nirvana.
Back in Okubo we did a little grocery shopping, and I bought a freshly caught squid from the fish market. We were planning on doing a wine tasting of Italian wines from the Liguria region, which is known for the friggitorie that serve up fried seafood in shops under Cinque Terre. I was hoping to try to clean and cut up a squid for the first time, and then fry it up as calamari.
The process was a little tricky, but having done it once I think it’ll be easier to do in the future. One surprise for me was that I didn’t know squids have a backbone. It was strange to pull an oblong bone out of the back of the squid – for some reason I guess I was picturing jellyfish more than anything. There was also a virtually endless amount of squid ink which I was careful to keep off my clothes. Finally I chopped up the edible parts of the squid and then dredged them in corn grits and flour, and gave them a quick fry in olive oil and neutral sesame oil. They turned out pretty good, although it took far longer to process and cook the squid than it took to eat it. Combined with a tomato and basil salad it went perfectly with the three wines that we tasted, and I hope someday we have the chance to visit that area and eat and drink more.
On Sunday Kuniko was working, so I was in the kitchen making more Indian food. I marinated and grilled some chicken for my second attempt at tandoori chicken tikka, and then I converted some leftover mashed potatoes into a turmeric and onion laced filling for dosas. The dosa batter had taken a long time to grind up and ferment, and to be honest the batter was not very delicious before cooking, but once I heated it on a crepe pan and got it crispy it was really, really good. We had dosas for the first time at Vishnu Moola’s house in Bangalore, and this was a pretty close approximation. I have enough batter for an army, so we’ll give it another go tonight.
So lots of new experiences this weekend. Kuniko has no more days off until we fly out on December 23rd to Kuala Lumpur, so I think we’ll be slightly less ambitious in the kitchen for a while.
