say your p's and q's

attempt at mitarashi dango. we used the tofu dango recipe from cookingwithdog but i think it was a bit too chewy, so next time will use a better recipe which calls for joushinko to give it a more ricey flavour and softer texture.

procrastination is the devil. finally, here are pictures from melbourne, aka snapshots of charlotte. internet kept cutting out while i uploaded pictures and i was a little cbf’d to keep restarting the upload. anyway! here are about half the pictures. don’t think the other half are ever going to appear, so don’t hold your breath.

thanks so much to charwong who kicked her boyfriend out for me, fed and amused me endlessly, and showered me with much love! love you x10!

i love to eat luk chup. they’re so small and pretty and taste like ang ku kuay without the gooey stuff. it’s really hard to find good luk chup. these were from a thai convenience store and the shapes were rather indelicate and the jelly a bit too thick.

LOOKING FOR MY MENTAL BALLS

for a while i forgot that i have a blog. will be more dilligent because next week is the easter break.

and i realised that my legs are really gross and unshapely therefore i will try and sculpt my calves more this year. like every year before.

sigh.

overkill: using a steak knife to open a pack of raisins

result: pointy end of steak knife in finger. but also an opened packet of raisins :)

if you have time to load up on eyeliner, you have time to pencil in your brows.

Japanese language classes were a he’ll lot more fun when I had bucketloads of difficult med study stuff to do, plus it was a get source of procrastination.

Now it’s the only thing restricting my timetable, the homework is getting harder and somehow it’s not so fun anymore.

to celebrate me not failing my exams (yeah i’m that hopeless), my parents took me to yoshii, which is supposedly famous for kaiseki. except that my friends are probably among the top 1% of food-crazy people in sydney and no one had heard of it before.

when calling to make a reservation, i was warned that there would only be kaiseki courses available, and no ala carte. which was fine because i love, LOVE kaiseki, and so far have had trouble finding decent ones out of japan. i had even given up hope of ever finding decent japanese food in sydney, besides ramen and conveyor belt sushi bars.

sea urchin egg cup three-layered dish consisting of a bottom layer of one whole soft-cooked egg yolk, followed by a middle layer of fresh uni and finished off with a layer of bonito stock topped with a strip of seaweed and a flake of gold

from the top and moving clockwise:

tasmanian smoked salmon with passionfruit kimizu sauce
kingfish sashimi marinated in wasabi oil
duck foie gras and kelp “tsukudani”
deep fried crystal bay prawn mince in potato strips

beef carpaccio served with japanese mushrooms warm dressing

toothfish tempura citrus pepper flavour, served with pickled palette cleanser

spinach egg custard in bonito stock served with seasonal vegetables

lemongrass granita

sushi moriwase sake, maguro, crystal bay prawn, hamachi, hotate, some random fish, hamachi aburi, unagi

misoshiru

soybean milk sorbet but i ate it all before i remembered to take a photo. so here is a picture of the bowl it came in instead.

yoshii is currently at the top of my restaurant rankings for good service, great food + presentation, good ambience and even at a hefty $140, worth every darn cent. it was pretty empty, with only a few japanese businessmen at adjacent tables. no noisy, raucous crowds so that’s a bonus. the teacups were changed with every course to ensure a good supply of hot tea. and there were about 5 different cup designs. all the food came in petite little portions and beautifully decorated with edible things. very pretty and very japanese :)