Cherry Limeade Icebox Pie

I'm late with this one. I made it back in March, but I haven't gotten around to posting it until now. This was easy, sinful, and delicious. It's something I'd probably make once a year, no more than that. Too many calories!



I followed the original recipe from LiveJournal, here. I've adapted it below in a more traditional recipe form.

The pie is creamy, sweet, a bit tart, and generally addictive. My favorite part of pies has always been the crust, so in future for my own personal preference I'll probably make half the amount of filling and it'll be perfect. I found myself leaving a lot of it on my plate. That's not the case for many people though, so make it to your own taste! The recipe provided below is the original unaltered recipe that makes the full pie.



Cherry Limeade Icebox Pie

Ingredients

• 1 large graham cracker crust (such as Kebler Extra Portions piecrust)
• 1 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 16oz container whipping cream, chilled
• 1 5.1oz box of instant vanilla pudding
• 1 bag of frozen sweetened cherries or strawberries, thawed (I used a jar of sour Morello cherries, which has plenty of juice)
• 1/2 cup fruit nectar (from the thawed fruit, you may need to crush some to get this yield, or obtain it by some other means)
• 1/2 cup lime juice

Method

1. Take the clear cover off the pie crust and strip out the paper insert and remove the hardened glue. Wash with warm water and soap and set aside (you'll need to cover the pie once it's been formed).
2. In a medium bowl, mix the lime juice, cherry juice, condensed milk and pudding mix. The mixture will be thick and sort of purpley-pink. (If you want to make the color more interesting, you can add in a few drops of red coloring for a more vibrant shade.)
3. In a large bowl, pour in the whipping cream and beat it until you get soft peaks, about the same consistency of Cool-Whip.
4. Gently fold the pudding mix into the cream. Don't worry too much about the streaks of mix and pudding. Marbling is fine, and actually adds an interesting texture when you bite into the pie.
5. Scrape out the whipped mixture into the pie plate and smooth it out. (When I had added half the mixture, I plopped in a few cherries then put the rest of the mixture on top. Note, however, that after freezing the cherries will be quite frozen solid and will "interrupt" the otherwise creamy pie, so do this at your own preference!) Then cover and pop it into the freezer to firm up for an hour or so.
6. At this point you can add cherries on top of the pie and let it refreeze, or you can simply serve them on the side or not at all.
7. When firmed up to a soft frozen state, slice and serve.

A couple of yummy photos from the original post:

Chinese Bakery Style Hot Dog Buns

I love hot dogs. I wish I didn't, but I do. My favorite kind are the ones sold in an outdoor setting, whether it be a sporting event or a street cart vendor in D.C. or New York. The polish sausage at Costco is good too. Sanitation and health issues aside (after all, if you're eating a hot dog, you're eating it for the pleasure of eating it and nothing else), it's a wonderful treat. I like my hot dogs grilled, and prepared two ways: served in a fresh bun with regular yellow mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut and/or diced onion; or with chili and cheese. The first way is sour and mouth puckering, while the second way is hearty and rich. The one thing I will not eat on a hot dog is relish. I'm just not a relish girl.



One of my favorite snacks growing up was hot dog buns from Chinese bakeries. That might sound a little strange -- what's so good about a plain bun? Ah, but a "hot dog bun" in a Chinese bakery isn't just a long, cushiony hammock for a sausage, as you might buy in packs of 8 from a grocery store. No, these come with the hot dogs in them, neatly wrapped inside a soft, sweet bread. They're really handy as snacks or a quick meal on the go.



I recently read a couple of posts where people have made their own Chinese bakery-style hot dog buns, and being that it's now warmer and I love working with dough, I had to try it out for myself. I wasn't sure how my first results would turn out, so I lazily did not capture a lot of the in-process dough formation on camera, but next time I definitely will. I tried out two shapes, one that required a bit of braiding, and another in which you looped the dough around the hot dog. For the latter, I find that the shape comes out better when the loops aren't rolled super thin, so that they touch each other even before the rise (a tip for myself for next time). In this batch, I used some shredded cheese in the braided version -- next time I'll use more cheese, as you can barely tell it's there.



The recipe for this dough isn't quite as sweet as what I'm used to getting in Chinese bakeries, so I'll play with the amount of sugar next time. I don't like to adjust first-time recipes too much.

Chinese Bakery Style Hot Dog Buns (recipe adapted from here)

Ingredients

• 300g bread flour
• 1 package active dry yeast (about 7.4g)
• 10g sugar
• 6g salt
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten and divided
• 170g milk, at about 90°F (egg + milk should equal about 220g)
• 30g unsalted butter, softened
• 8 hot dogs
• sesame seeds

Method

1. In a stand mixer bowl, stir together the flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Add in 1 of the lightly beaten eggs and the milk, stirring until it starts to come together. Attach the bowl to the stand mixer.
2. Using the dough hook attachment, knead on medium-low speed (#4 on my KitchenAid) for 5 minutes. Add the softened butter and knead another 3 minutes or until the butter has been completely and thoroughly absorbed into the dough. The dough should feel smooth, satiny, and not sticky. If it's sticky, add more flour in tablespoon increments until you reach the right texture. The dough should pass the windowpane test (you can stretch it out very thinly without it breaking). Knead until it does.
3. Spray a good size bowl with cooking spray. Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and form into a ball, pulling the sides down so that it becomes taut. Place the ball of dough in the greased bowl, cover it, and let it rise in a warm area for about 90 minutes, until about doubled in size.
4. Take the dough out of the bowl and divide into 8 equal pieces, about 72g each (deflating the dough is fine).
5. To form the braided rolls, roll out one of the pieces into a rectangle, with the longer side about the length of your hot dogs. Slash both sides of the rectangle into about 7 strips, without actually cutting through to the other side. Spread shredded cheese down the center if you wish, then place the hot dog on top. To seal, fold the strips down in an alternating pattern. (See detailed instructions here.)
   
   To form the poofy rolls, roll out one of the dough pieces between your hands until it's about 2 to 2 1/2 times the length of the hot dog. If you want the center to be bigger than the ends, make sure you roll your dough accordingly, so that the middle of your long piece of dough is bulkier than the ends. Wrap the length of dough around a hot dog; it should be enough to make 3 loops, with the tapered ends at the bottom of the hot dog. (See detailed instructions here.)
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the shaped buns on the paper, leaving enough room in between each for the dough to have a place to go while it's rising.
7. Cover the buns loosely with plastic wrap or a clean cloth (you don't want to ruin the rise by having to peel anything off them). Let the dough rise again for another 90 minutes or so, until it's about doubled in volume and look nicely plump.
8. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400°F.
9. When the buns have risen, gently brush egg wash (the remaining egg) generously onto each, making sure to get the sides as well, and sprinkle sesame seeds on top, if desired.
10. Bake in the preheated oven for 8 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350°F and bake for another 5-8 minutes, until the buns are an attractive golden brown.

Red-Braised Beef

A traditional Chinese dish (one of my favorites) is "red"-cooked beef and tendon. I think the reason it's called "red" is due to the resulting color, which isn't really red as it is rich, shiny, and wonderful. I suppose you could say it has reddish tones.



The flavor is indescribably good. It's flavored with soy sauce, sugar (in the form of rock candy), rice wine, and star anise. That's it. And yet the transformation of the meat once it's been braised for hours is quite incredible.

Most commonly this dish is made with beef brisket, but my mom likes to make it with beef banana shank because it has less fat content. Once it's all been cooked, the beef is so tender and falling apart that the difference between the two is minimal, so I'm good with going with the healthier version.



Just as important as the beef is the tendon, a creamy white substance that connects muscle to bone. The only way to eat it is when it's been cooked for a long time, so that it becomes soft, melty, slightly sticky, and delicious. Both the beef and the tendon need to be pre-boiled, to get rid of some of the surface blood and impurities, and when you do this, they both become very hard and solid. Only hours of cooking will coax them into being as tender as they need to be.

The recipe I got from my mother is imprecise ... she's a wonderful cook, and as is the case with most wonderful cooks, does no actual measuring. Grrr. So I had the ingredients and the general method down, but actually making it turned out to be more challenging. I made this about 3 times (always too salty) before I finally perfected it this last time. The key is not to use too much soy sauce. It'll seem like it's not enough, just a small amount sitting at the bottom of the pot, with huge hunks of beef and tendon on top -- what chance does the soy sauce have of seasoning it all? Don't worry, it will.

Speaking of soy sauce, the absolute key to red braising is using dark soy sauce. If you don't, it won't get that deep, dark, 'red' color, which is what makes a red-braised dish so appealing. However, you also don't want to use only dark soy sauce, which contains molasses, as it hasn't got the same flavor as regular soy sauce. You want to use a mix of both. Dark soy sauce is available at Asian markets like 99 Ranch, but in this day and age your local Safeway may carry it also.

If you find that you have star anise but it's in bits and pieces, use a cheesecloth and some kitchen twine to make a pouch for it. It's important not to let a bunch of stray pieces of star anise get lost in the pot, because at some point you'll need to fish them out (if you leave them in for the entire duration of cooking, your dish will end up bitter -- at least according to my mom). As for the rock candy, it's traditional to use it (and very common in Chinese grocery stores, so if you're there for the star anise, might as well pick up a box), but ultimately it's really just sugar, so if you don't want to bother, substitute with plain sugar and I'm sure it'll be fine. Here's the rock candy that's popular in our household:



Finally, you can cook this in a pot on the stove (as my mother does), but that requires a little more attention as you don't want the sauce to burn. If you're more like me and want to use something you can turn on and pretty much not have to worry about, use a slow cooker.

Red-Braised Beef and Tendon

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lb beef tendon
• 1.5 lb beef banana shank (whole)
• 1/4 cup dark soy sauce
• 1/4 cup regular soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tbsp rice wine (I like Shaoxing)
• 2-3 slices of ginger (about 2 inches in length)
• 1 medium-sized chunk of rock candy or 1 scant tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 whole star anise (phonetically called "bak gok" in Cantonese)

Method:

1. Boil a large pot of water. Add tendon and shank and boil for a few minutes, to let the blood and other impurities out -- there will be foamy gunk. Remove tendon and shank from water and put them into a clean slow cooker or pot, arranging the pieces so that you get maximum surface area.
2. Pour the soy sauces directly over the meat, doing your best to splash a bit on every surface of the meat and tendon. Tuck the ginger in between the pieces of beef. Add the star anise, making sure that it's in the soy sauce (same thing if you're using a pouch). Add the water and rice wine. It will seem like there's very little liquid in the pot; resist the temptation to add more.
3. Set your slow cooker to 'high' (or simmer this on the stove using low heat) and cook for a few hours. Periodically, about once an hour, check on it and turn the pieces, as well as skim off any fatty oil that accumulates on the surface.
4. After about 3 hours, remove the star anise and add the chunk of rock candy. Cook for another 2-3 hours, again turning the pieces every so often and skimming off fat.
5. After 5-6 hours, the beef will be soft enough to cut. Remove the meat and the tendon from the pot and cut into smaller pieces (the meat may be so tender at this point that you can just use tongs to pull it apart). Add the meat back into the sauce, stir everything to coat, and cook an additional 30 minutes to an hour.
6. Serve with rice and some veggies (like garlic stir-fried spinach)!

Red Hot and Blue's Potato Salad

One of my favorite places in the country is Washington, D.C. I lived there for about two years, and in that time I grew to love it (and its surrounding areas). I moved back to the west coast because it ultimately proved too hard to be in a whole other timezone from my family and friends (and I didn't enjoy the job I had there), but I always think of D.C. fondly and wish it were located on the west coast, because then I'd move there like that. Of course, if it were on the west coast, it wouldn't be what it is.

When you live in a place, you find restaurants that you come to know and love, and that you miss once you don't live there anymore. (Even though I don't think the Pacific Northwest is for me in a forever way, there are restaurants here that I'll miss once I leave, whenever that might be.) This includes one-of-a-kind restaurants like Bistrot Lepic in Georgetown (D.C.), or Umi Sake House in Belltown (Seattle). But it also includes chain restaurants that are particular to the area. I miss In-N-Out Burgers like crazy, as well as Mimi's Cafe, both of which are very common in California (in fact, it looks like Mimi's just doesn't like the north of the country, for some reason).



The chain I miss from D.C. is Red Hot and Blue. It's a barbecue joint. The barbecue itself is good, nothing I'd turn my nose up at, but it doesn't especially stand out. What does stand out? Their potato salad. It is AMAZING. It's the best potato salad I've ever had, and with something as ubiquitous as potato salad, you better believe I've had my fair share of it. Red Hot and Blue serves it at room temperature, and it is definitely best that way. It's fairly simple, and a bit unusual, as far as potato salads go. I say this because of the presence of green onions, which I've generally found is not a common ingredient in this dish.

This copycat recipe is one that I created on my own -- not that it took rocket science or anything. It's not difficult to discern the red potatoes (since Red Hot and Blue leaves the skin on), eggs, and green onions when you're eating it. And of course, there's the mayo, a necessary component of potato salad. I do have to say that the final ingredient is somewhat of a 'secret' ingredient (though not really), because it's not immediately obvious. Something made this potato salad taste especially good, but what? I tried making it once, using just the four ingredients I named, and it just didn't taste right, it wasn't as good. So the next time I was at Red Hot and Blue (ironically, not until I had moved away and was visiting -- dragging my companion to the restaurant just so I could have their potato salad again), I took a chance and asked my waitress what made their potato salad taste the way it did -- was there some special seasoning? And bless her heart, she actually went and asked the kitchen, and the answer was: celery salt. I still wish that my financial situation at that time had more closely resembled what it does today, so that I could have left her a bigger tip. Because thanks to her, now I can have Red Hot and Blue's delicious potato salad any time I want, without having to fly across the country for it.



To make it more like Red Hot and Blue's version, you'll want to cook the potatoes to a point where they are just soft enough to sink your teeth into, but before they start to get really mushy. I went a little too far this time and so it ended up being half mashed. It's no less delicious that way, and in fact has its own charms, but I want to make sure I'm conveying the true, authentic Red Hot and Blue experience. I've used different kinds of mayo and they all seem to work (unlike for Hodge Podge Salad, which absolutely requires Miracle Whip) -- this time I used one from Trader Joe's. It may be easier to achieve a firmer consistency with the potatoes if you boil them whole; I tend to be lazy and pre-chop them into medium-sized pieces before boiling so I don't have to deal with hot potatoes. The eggs can be boiled right in with the potatoes or separately; up to you. The components for this potato salad are so few and simple that you just can't leave anything out, or the flavor simply won't be the same. You've been warned.

Even though this isn't an official version of their recipe, every time I've made it I've been happy with the results. It tastes like Red Hot and Blue's version, which is what I'm looking for. When searching for copycat recipes for this potato salad online, I found one that sounded similar (but had no measurements), though it included celery. I don't remember celery being in Red Hot and Blue's potato salad, but it's been awhile, maybe my memory's wrong. Or maybe it's something they've added recently. I don't think it'd detract from it, so perhaps one day I'll try it. For now, I'm sticking with my version!



Red Hot and Blue's Potato Salad (copycat recipe by yours truly)

Ingredients

• 2-2 1/2 lbs red-skinned potatoes, skin on
• 6 eggs
• 1 bunch green onions, just the green parts, diced finely
• generous 1/2 cup real mayonnaise
• 3/4 tsp celery salt

Method

1. Place potatoes and eggs in a large pot of cold water and bring to a boil. Cook for 10-15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender but not mushy. You can pre-cut the potatoes if you wish, though this will probably make for mushier results unless you're super diligent about checking them. The eggs can be boiled separately if you wish; they just need to be hard boiled.
2. When potatoes are done, drain them into a colander. Run cold water over the eggs to make them easier to handle. If you boiled the potatoes whole, chop them into bite-sized pieces when cool enough to do so. Shell the eggs and dice them. If you're watching your cholesterol intake like me, set aside half of the yolks to throw away or use for another purpose -- like giving them to the dog for a nice treat.
3. In a large bowl, gently mix all the ingredients together (you don't want to end up with mashed potatoes if you're too rough with this step!). Serve at room temperature for best flavor.

"Perfect" Mac and Cheese

Some would say that I'm picky about my mac and cheese. Some would say that I'm very not picky about it. How can both be true? Well, it might be clearer after I make this confession: My favorite kind of mac and cheese is from Stouffer's, the kind you buy frozen then bake.



Maybe it's a childhood thing. It's what I had as a kid and so I associate it with being the right mac and cheese. I've had the Kraft stuff out of the box. It's crap. I've had the stuff they serve at Souplanation. It too, is crap. I've had mac and cheese at fancy joints and not-so-fancy joints, and sometimes it's been OK. But none of them have ever held a candle to Stouffer's.

Well, I take that back. This last December, I finally had a mac and cheese that I thought was absolutely delicious (as opposed to a waste of my time/appetite, as all the previous experiences had been). It's the side dish they have at Wood Ranch. It's not like Stouffer's; it tastes of real cheese and doesn't have any sauce (Stouffer's is a creamy cheese sauce), but is delicious nonetheless. About a week ago I also had the mac and cheese at Hugo's, and that was pretty good. Worth the calories to eat, at least. Maybe it's a coincidence that after so many years I've found two good mac and cheeses in succession, or maybe I'm getting less picky. I think it's the former, though.

By now many of you are probably thinking, just make your own! Oh I have. I've tried a number of homemade mac and cheese recipes, but they were all disappointing. They used a tremendous amount of cheese, but they all ended up being fairly tasteless. Considering that cheese is getting more and more expensive (and in any case, mac and cheese isn't the healthiest of meal options), I opted not to attempt it over and over again until it was perfected. I figured if I had a craving for mac and cheese, my grocery store's freezer section had the best kind readily available.

Then I came across a mac and cheese recipe that wasn't much of a recipe, more of a guideline. It breezily talked of making a white sauce out of a roux, then adding some seasoning, liberal amounts of cheese, and pasta. Little to no measurements were given. Specifics about the type of cheese were omitted. It didn't mention baking the mac and cheese at all, which in my book is necessary in order to get the crusty bits that I love so much (it also makes the creamy sauce in the end result). And yet, it sounded right. I finally had the chance to make it this weekend, and by golly if it isn't the best mac and cheese I've ever made at home! It's not perfect -- but it has the makings to be so. The method is sound; what needs to be perfected is the blend of cheeses I use.



Don't get me wrong ... it was perfectly good the way I made it. But the cheese I used, while good cheese, may not have been the right blend for perfect mac and cheese. From the depths of my refrigerator I unearthed several wedges of cheese, some that had never been opened, but getting a bit moldy. I went to work slicing off every surface of every wedge of cheese to get to the clean, unmoldy, perfectly good cheese underneath. I then proceeded to use my food processor (bless it) and the shredder attachment to shred much of the cheese, which was a combination of: medium orange cheddar, sharp New Zealand white cheddar, 2 kinds of gruyere, and parmesan. Once it was all shredded I mixed it up. The orange cheddar was just a generic grocery brand -- in future I'll definitely be getting the good stuff, as this was fairly tasteless. However, an orange cheese in the mix is necessary to give the final product that familiar orangey color (if you don't care about that, it's not required, of course). Gruyere is good to use because it melts in a non-stringy way, which is good for a mac and cheese cream sauce. I'll be experimenting with the kinds of cheese I use the next time for sure. Another thing I meant to add but didn't this time was just a bit of white wine. I think that'll make some of the flavor bloom, like a fondue.

The most important part about the cheese is that you shred it yourself. The pre-shredded kind has cornstarch in it, and is also generally not as flavorful as the cheese you buy in wedges and have to shred yourself.

The hardest part of the whole thing was finding elbow macaroni. I was very surprised by this, and maybe it's just my local selection. Maybe people always eat the Kraft stuff and rarely make their own, so stores don't carry macaroni anymore. Who knows?

I didn't do any measuring, but the recipe below is a good general guideline that I've approximated.



"Perfect" Mac and Cheese

Ingredients

• 8oz uncooked elbow macaroni pasta
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3-4 cups shredded cheese, your choice (recommendations above)
• 4 tbsp butter
• 4 tbsp flour
• 1 1/2-2 cups milk, cream, or half and half
• 2 dashes garlic powder
• pinch of nutmeg
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Make the pasta as directed on the package. Cook to al dente, and if you don't like your pasta softer than that, run cold water over the pasta once it's done to stop the cooking. Otherwise just drain the water and let it sit while you finish making the sauce.
2. Preheat the oven to 500°F and put a rack at the highest point it will go and still allow you to fit your baking dish. (Alternatively, broiling would probably work also.)
3. In a large pot (or right in the casserole dish, if you have one you can use on the stovetop like I do), melt the butter. Add the flour and mix thoroughly to create a roux. Cook until dark blonde.
4. Add the onion and blend well into the roux. Cook a few minutes. The roux will darken a bit more.
5. Start slowly adding the milk. Add as much as you need to create a thick creamy mixture.
6. Season the cream sauce with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and garlic powder. (At this point, I'd probably also add the white wine, if using.) Stir well.
7. Turn the heat to low and start adding the cheese a handful at a time. You don't want the mixture to boil at this point, as it will separate. Keep doing this until all the cheese is incorporated. The mixture will be very thick and may look kind of stringy due to the cheese. Taste it and adjust the seasoning as needed, or add more cheese if you think it needs more.
8. Add in the cooked pasta and mix gently but thoroughly. Use your spatula or spoon to press the pasta down into the dish and smooth the surface.
9. Bake for 10 minutes in the oven, or until the top is bubbly and brown in spots. Serve hot.

Hot Cross Buns

So apparently, hot cross buns are an Easter tradition. Who knew? Certainly not I, heathen than I am. ;) All I knew of hot cross buns were from the nursery rhyme. I might have eaten one at some point some years back, but if I did, it was obviously forgettable. But I've seen several recipes for them lately -- probably because it was just Easter -- and it made me want to eat them. Which meant I'd have to make them. But before I could do that, I had to decide if I was going to try to make a sourdough version from my starter ... which I decided against, both because it was going to be more trouble than it was worth (in my humble opinion), and because the sourdough might flavor it in a way that would detract from the final product.

I ended up using two recipes to make these, one for the dough and another for the crosses. I also went my own way when it came to the fruit used in the dough. For the dough, I used this recipe from Wild Yeast. I used active dry yeast rather than instant yeast, but it worked just fine (from what I understand of the difference in the two, instant should work faster, but at all the specified times my dough expanded exactly the amount it should have), possibly because I used my proofing box. For the fruit I used golden raisins and chopped dried mango from Trader Joe's. For the crosses, I used the one from this recipe, which uses a sourdough starter for its dough. The reason I did this was because I liked how the crosses looked in their final product, and because I wanted them to be a bit sweet (which the powdered sugar provided). I also used the method of having the buns touch one another in a baking pan, rather than be spread apart individually. The buns came out beautifully!

When they first came out of the oven, I wanted to wait until they were cool to pull them apart, as I wanted them to be aesthetically pleasing ... but then I thought, "Wait a minute! These are supposed to be hot cross buns." I wanted to eat them as you're "supposed" to, so I pulled them apart while hot, which did make them pull apart a bit messily, and they were so soft that some of them got smooshed, but all in all it didn't go too badly. And they were delicious eaten hot, so there's that.

And now for the pictorial...

Here the final dough has gone through its first rise with folds at 30 minutes.

These have been individually shaped into balls then flattened, and placed in a parchment-lined glass baking pan, evenly spaced apart:

After an hour, they've poofed out nicely and are now snuggling next to one another comfortably, like old buddies:

Here they are with the crosses piped on top (using a plastic baggie with a small hole cut in one corner):

Right out of the oven, after the glaze has been applied on top. Since I used a glass baking dish I lowered the temperatures suggested in the recipe by 25°F:

Close up of the crosses:

A lone hot cross bun, awaiting its fate:

A shot of the interior -- so soft and warm and filled with light spices and hints of sugar (but not too sweet):

Submitted to YeastSpotting.

Umi Sake House

A couple of days ago, I met up with an old friend, J. (and I mean, we go all the way back to our high school days, but didn't realize we were in the same area until last week, due to Facebook) and went to Umi Sake House in Belltown. It was just a couple of blocks down from Wasabi Bistro.

The food and the service were both great. It's a little pricey but not outrageously so. Their $25 omakase was decent in selection and wonderful in freshness (Wasabi Bistro's low-end omakase may be just a bit better, but is also a little more costly). Umi has a huge selection of rolls -- they even have a "fresh" menu of the day for these -- and some may sound familiar while others are a little more out there. For a "trendy" sushi place I was pretty impressed (I must admit to a bias for smaller mom & pop type restaurants). Many times it's all style and no substance, but that wasn't the case with Umi. I'd happily go back.

And now onto the pictures (again, apologies for the blurriness and discoloration on some of these -- the restaurant is dimly lit)...

Their regular menu is on the left; it's long and oversized, and attached on a clipboard. It's two pages. The second page is filled with all their different kinds of rolls and nigiri options. The "fresh" menu is on the left. I'm not sure if that changes daily or weekly or how it works.


I got to the restaurant a bit early, due to overestimating how much traffic would delay me. Our waitress, who was super nice, started me off with some edamame and offered to get some hot ones when J. arrived.


J. ordered a lychee sake (they have many other flavored sakes), which is apparently more like a cocktail than traditional sake. I stuck with water since my body has an intolerance for alcohol. I ate J.'s lychee when he was done with his drink though, and it was really delicious.


We got agedashi tofu as an appetizer ("fried tofu in house ankake sauce") and it was reaaaalllly good. Each tofu was topped with something a bit different: ginger, daikon, green onion, seaweed, and a kind of shaved fish. The sauce was so light and wonderfully tasty that if I'd had a large bowl of white rice I'm not ashamed to say I probably would have doused the whole thing in it.


I also ordered a panda roll from their "fresh" menu. I was trying to decide between that or the caterpillar roll, which is always a favorite of mine. However, I can get a caterpillar roll just about anywhere, and the panda roll really intrigued me. It was made of salmon skin and avocado, with seared albacore tuna wrapped around it, topped with green onions and black bean sauce.


It had a wonderful smoky flavor from the salmon skin, creaminess from the avocado, and heft from the tuna. I'd definitely get it again the next time I go back.


Normally the trendy, unique rolls in restaurants like these don't appeal to me much (I avoid anything with spicy fish, cream cheese, and if I can help it, mayo), but this one sounded really good. It had many things that I liked (and none of the things I don't like). The only thing iffy about it was the black bean sauce, which I thought might be a little too overwhelming. I needn't have feared. It was very light -- not overpowering at all. And I'll give this to Umi also -- their rolls are huge. Other places' rolls are often half this size!


For his main course J. got the chirashi bowl:


And I got the aforementioned omakase. If you ask me, though, our meals looked practically identical, except the chirashi bowl also comes with rice and a bowl of miso soup, for $3 less. If I did it again, I'd definitely get the chirashi over the omakase (at least, the $25 one). However, the next time I go back I'll probably do something a little different -- they had hamachi kama on the menu, which I love and almost ordered, and a little sashimi sampler, both for $10. Then I could also perhaps try another roll or two. This is one of the few restaurants that I can see myself ordering something different each time (normally I'm a creature of habit and stick to one or two items that I know I like).


Hugely enjoyable experience, not the least of which was because of getting back in touch with an old friend. I'm looking forward to our next meal together! :-)