The Rake Magazine

Tag: Giapponese

  • Hmong Cuisine, Six Buck Hank, and More

    The menu at the new Red Pepper in Saint Paul combines
    Vietnamese, Thai and Hmong dishes, but since the first two cuisines are pretty
    widely available elsewhere, I decided to try one of the Hmong dishes. Number
    27, sweet pork belly with eggs, turned out to be a savory stew with big chunks
    of roast pork, (not nearly as fatty as I had feared), hard-boiled eggs, red
    bell pepper, fresh pineapple green onions and ginger, in a rich brown slightly
    sweet gravy accented with star anise (I think), served with steamed rice.
    Delicious, and served in very generous portion.

    There is a lot more on the menu that I would like to try,
    including the squash curry, made with butternut squash, bamboo shoots, peppers,
    onions and coconut red curry sauce, available with beef or chicken ($7.50),
    shrimp ($8.50), or a combination of shrimp, squid and scallops for $10.50. The
    whole fried tilapia with sweet pepper curry sauce ($10.50) also sounds
    promising. A friend reports that when she ordered the kow poon, a Hmong/
    Laotian dish made with shredded chicken, bamboo shoots, red curry and
    lemongrass, the broth was delicious, but she couldn’t find any actual chicken
    in the dish. Still might be worth a try, but I would ask about the chicken
    first.

    Otherwise, the menu offers a variety of familiar southeast
    Asian dishes – Vietnamese pho (beef noodle soup), plus variations with seafood
    and crispy pork belly ($5.50-$7.95); pad Thai ($7.50-$10.50); green papaya
    salad ($5.95 / $8.50 with beef jerky), and a variety of stir-fried noodle and
    fried rice dishes.

    Red Pepper Cafe, 864 University Ave., St. Paul, 651-292-8800. Closed Sundays.

    Six Buck Hank?

    Henry Chan at Giapponese Sushi in Woodbury is starting a new
    promotion this Sunday: selected wines for $6 a bottle. Here’s the fine print:
    the offer is open to everybody on Sundays, and to people in the hospitality
    industry on Tuesdays. As soon as the outdoor patio is open – Chan says that’ll
    be a couple of weeks – the offer will be good on the patio every day.

    Don’t expect Chateauneuf-du-Pape at these prices – the
    labels are trustworthy old cheapies like Oxford Landing Chardonnay and Shiraz,
    Penascal Sauvignon Blanc, Stella Pinot Grigio; and Shiraz, Riesling, Chardonnay
    and Cabernet Sauvignon from from Banrock Station, an Australian winery that
    donates a share of its proceeds to environmental causes. Still, a great deal.

    What Would Gandhi Do?

    Coming Tuesday to 27th and E. Lake: Gandhi Mahal, a
    new Indian restaurant, next door to Midori’s Floating World. The menu seems to
    be pretty much the standard north Indian repertoire, but owner Rahman Arshad –
    whose family also owns the Little Taj Mahal in Dinkytown, and several Indian
    restaurants in New York City – is promising some unusual touches, including a
    lassi bar, serving several flavors of the traditional yogurt beverage, plus a
    tapas-like assortment of Indian finger foods. A lunch $9.99 lunch buffet will
    be offered daily, and eventually, live music on weekends.

    The restaurant
    will be decorated with images of Mahatma Gandhi, who might not have approved of
    the meat and seafood dishes on the menu – the Indian spiritual leader
    was a strict vegetarian.

  • Sushi: The Naked Truth, part three

    Before we opened in January, I had my whole core team working with me, training at the restaurant in Eau Claire. I knew with all of the bad habits and the lack of outside chefs in the twin cities area it would be best not to hire locally and have to correct bad habits. I’m not saying there are not good chefs in the area, but the top chefs are already employed at good establishments — such as Nami’s, Origami’s, and Fujiya — and out of respect of the owners I would not try to steal their chefs.

    However, as business grows and you need to hire it’s tough to train a chef ground up when you are short handed. I buckled and hired a local chef that had experience and could work under me. I knew it would be tough as bad habits are hard to break, but this experience opened my eyes even more to how bad some places in the area are cutting corners. On the second day I had asked him to cut down and trim a hamachi (yellow tail) for me as I was swamped at my station. I watched his knife skills. He did well, and in no time the hamachi was broken down. All was good until he handed the hamachi to me!

    Shocked, I asked him why he hadn’t trimmed the bloodline completely away? His answer was that most of the places in which he had worked in the area had instructed him not to trim it all away because it’s too expensive! Almost speechless, I trimmed away the remaining bloodline, and told him that we do trim all of it away and discard it. Later in the evening, when it slowed down, I was talking to him about the hamachi, and he told me most places cut up the bloodline and add it to the spicy tuna as a filler so they get a larger yield! NASTY!! The bloodline is a part of some fish that is very strong and fishy and should always be trimmed away and discarded.

    He is a good chef, has good knife skills, makes beautiful sushi, but again it all comes down to the dedication and preparation of the establishment. I won’t go into detail on the places that cuts corners, but I assure you that we do not cut corners and some of the places in town like Nami’s, Origami’s, and Fujiya’s also carry on the strict policy of providing only the best.

  • Tuna Tuna

    Ahi tuna: many people know tuna as ahi tuna. However, there isn’t a species named ahi. Ahi means ”tuna” in the Hawaiian language, so if you ask for Ahi tuna, all you are asking for is "tuna" tuna! Sometimes I like to just mess with people when they ask if I have ahi tuna: I ask what kind of tuna? "Ahi," they reply. "Yellow fin, big eye, or blue fin?" I ask. "No, Ahi!"

    Most sushi bars carry three kinds of tuna; yellowfin, albacore, and big eye. The better sushi bars will also carry a fourth named blue fin. So next time you are dining out and you see ahi tuna on the menu, and you are feeling a little snobbish, ask what kind of ahi it is and see if they know… a good chef should know there is no such thing is Ahi tuna.

  • Sushi Bar Etiquette

    Good thing we are not in old school Japan and that most elder Japanese/Japanese-trained chefs in the U.S. have adopted our ways.

    I could care less how you eat your sushi at the bar or at a table, but with some chefs it could get you kicked out!

    Basic sushi bar etiquette:

    Oshibori (hot towel) sushi is finger food, except sashimi; and the hot towel provided is to clean your hands before you eat. Please don’t blow your nose or take a sponge bath with that nice, hot wash cloth.

    Gari (pickled ginger) is provided to cleanse your palette in between different fishes, rolls, or sashimi, so the flavor does not carry over — and to cleanse your mouth when you are finished. Gari is not a salad.

    Fingers: Yes you all have five, so use them. Since sushi is finger food, use your fingers to eat the nigiri or rolls. Some people complain when the rolls are not packed tight enough and the rice falls apart — same goes for nigiri. Good sushi is supposed to melt in your mouth, and a good chef will not pack the rice into a hard ball. Nothing wrong with using chop sticks, but unless you can use them proficiently, the sushi will most likely fall apart.

    Soy sauce: It’s not to be used like ketchup with fries! If you do need soy sauce, dip the nigiri or maki in lightly. If it’s nigiri, turn it around and dip it in fish side down so that you don’t soak all of the soy with the rice. Same goes for rolls: dip the corner of the roll; don’t give it a bath. Light dipping will allow you to enjoy the wonderful flavors of each fish or roll, and one of the biggest reasons sushi falls apart is from the rice getting logged with soy sauce.

    Do not give dirty/empty plates back to the sushi chef. They are dirty; we work with our hands. Put them to the side for your server to clear.

    One bite: Sushi is meant to be eaten in one bite. Please do not cut the nigiri, sashimi, or rolls. By doing so you will lose the intended flavor combination. Yeah, go ahead and stuff your mouth. It’s not rude. Just like slurping noodles, it’s the Asian culture, and shows the chef you are are enjoying the food.

    Watch this funny video if you have not seen it before.

    Oh, and buy your chef a drink. He/she will appreciate it. And if you get them a bit drunk your slices will get bigger!! We don’t want to cut off our fingers as we start to see blurrs!!

     

  • Sake 101

    Saturday, March 1st at 6:30 p.m. we will be hosting a sake educational tasting, a Sake 101 of sorts. We will have three sakes and possibly a namazaki. The three sakes that will be available have a deep and long history, along with taste. Shichihon yari is Japan’s oldest brewery, founded in 1540 — before Tokyo was even a city! To date, it is still run by the same family members and with only a staff of four producing the sake in small batches.

    Watari Bune is amazing because we shouldn’t even be drinking this sake! The reason for this is that the watari bune rice was grown in 1868-1912 and early showa. Because this rice grows tall it is harvested late, and most of the crops were damaged by typhoons. The war caused it to fall out of use even further due to crop difficulties and food shortages.

    After learning about this extinct rice, Yamauchi-san, the seventh generation director of the Huchu brewery, started his hunt. His hunt for the rice ended when it was discovered that the Ministry of Agriculture had this strand of rice in criovac storage. From there he returned with fourteen grams of rice and went to the old farmers to help him grow the rice. Eventually, the process was perfected and watari bune sake was born!

    Yuki No Bosha was founded in 1903 by Yataro Saito and is now managed by the fifth generation president, Kotaro Saito. Located in the Akita region, rustic and tranquil with harder water than southern Japan, this sake is lively with bold rich aromas balanced by a crisp, white pepper finish.

    Namazake: Nama is a word you should know! Trust me. Nama is just unpasteurized sake. It must be constantly refrigerated, consumed within a day or two of opening and is only available seasonally. The trade off for all this is that nama is known for it’s fresh, young, bombastic taste!! This sake is currently on its way from Japan, and if it makes it here on time we will soon be tasting this rare sake not normally found in the United States.

    This is a free event, so please pass the word!

    Cheers,
    Henry