Putting the sea back in Seattle

One of the sad things about living in Ontario is that its difficult to get good seafood. That's why, on a recent trip to Seattle, having dinner at Elliott's Oyster House was such a treat. I had fallen in love with oysters in Kanazawa last semester, so I was excited to see how North American oysters compared.

When you first walk in to the restaurant, you are greeted by a wall of oysters. We came somewhat late on a Sunday so the pails were a bit picked over, but it still got me excited for the meal ahead.





First up was the apps. I had the crab cakes and a friend had the pan fried oysters. Both were awesome.





Next up was the pis de resistance: the American west coast oyster sampler. It came with a topping of salt, lemon, and champagne.







I almost skipped on dessert because I wanted the oyster aftertaste to last, but in the end the sea salt ice cream with pistachio waffle cookies and salted caramel topping was too tempting. It was the perfect end to a great meal.



My verdict: look up Elliott's if you are ever in Seattle and bring a big oyster appetite!

Gourmet in Kingston

Christmas is all about home food, but the new year is a time for more fancy fare. This holiday we did an at-home gourmet dinner and tried out a new restaurant downtown.

I had my eye on Atomica, a pizza and wine bar in Kingston, for some time. We had it on our to-do list this holiday, but bought a pizza stone and decided to do it ourselves instead.



I made a simple dough by combining:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons olive oil

The dough was on the dry side and next time I would probably make a yeast version. We made up for the lackluster dough with our ingredients (clockwise from top left: homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella, prosciutto, bbq sauce, pineapple, pear, caramelized onions, brie, chicken, garlic sausage).



Our first pizza had pineapple, chicken, onions, and bbq sauce (on Evan's half) and prosciutto, brie, pear, and bbq sauce (on my half). We also added some mozzarella after we took the picture.



Our second pizza had pretty much every ingredient and had tomato sauce instead of bbq.



Evan manned the stone.



And for some extra at-home gourmet flare, we had some leftover champagne from New Years Eve.



With Atomic bumped off the list, we decided to eat at Harpers, Kingston's newest burger place (which also happens to be owned by the proprietors of Atomica).



The place had good atmosphere and some interesting drinks. I tried their beer float, which was oatmeal stout and vanilla ice cream.



I'm not much of a stout gal so I found it a bit hard to finish it, but it was interesting to try.

I had the slider sampler for dinner (I'm a sucker for a sampler). The three sliders I tried were the classic (secret sauce, lettuce, tomato, pickles & red onion), the umami (brie, balsamic candied onions, soya glazed shrooms, white truffle aioli), and the greek (feta, sauteed spinach, green olive- sundried tomato pesto). The umami was my favourite. The brie and aioli made it really creamy and the onions and mushrooms had a nice punch. The greek was good, but the texture of the spinach on the burger was a bit hard to get used to.



Evan had the delicious (gouda, avocado spread, onion rings, south carolina BBQ sauce) mainly because he likes to have onion rings on his burger. He seemed to like it a lot.



Sometimes its nice to have a meal that has a little something extra to it. Special ingredients, a nice atmosphere and good company is what gourmet is all about.

Japan Street Art

If you are looking for some colour in Japan, just look down! Many cities have transformed their much overlooked manhole covers into unique artwork.

When in Kobe...

On a trip to LA a couple of years ago, Evan and I went to a swanky hotel for lunch and split an appetizer of Kobe beef sliders. Trying to ignore our waiters disdain for people who come in wearing hoodies and jeans and split the cheapest thing on the menu, we savoured those burgers. They were good...really good. So when I started to look up things to do around Osaka and saw that Kobe was just a short train ride away, an idea started to hatch. We could eat not just a slider, but a whole steak of this delicious beef.

We went to Kobe for lunch (instead of dinner) and even then we could barely afford the price of the meal, but I have to say I think it was worth it.

First we were presented with The Steak. It was all marbled and gleaming and sitting on its own wooden pedestal.



Then the fixings were brought out: tofu, green peppers, potatoes, zucchini, gelantinized fish, and bean sprouts. Some of these things are pretty suspect on their own, but it turns out everything tastes good when cooked with Kobe steak fat.



The chef then started to cook garlic chips on the grill. Evan and I agreed that smelling bad in enclosed spaces for the rest of the week would be worth it.



To start off, we had a creamy corn soup and a garden salad. They were pretty good, but it was hard to think straight with that steak in front of me.





Here's where the fun began. The chef sectioned off the steak into the centre piece, the fat, and the heavily marbled piece.





The fat was cooked with the veggies.



Then the centre part of the steak was cooked with the veggies.



The centre part was served with the garlic chips, mustard, rock salt, and cracked pepper.



The veggies and tofu that were cooked in beef fat were delicious.



The fat was cut into small pieces and added to the bean sprouts for a beef fat stir fry.



We love beef.





The meal ended with lemon sorbet and coffee/tea. I almost didn't eat it because I wanted the beefy flavour to last.



What else is there to do in Kobe? Who knows. But they sure do make a mean steak.

Monkey Business

Canadian Thanksgiving coincided with Japan's "sports day", so I got a long weekend even though I am far from home. Thinking that it was a good opportunity for some solo travel, I headed to Nagano for the weekend to get some fresh air and mountain scenery. I consulted my trusty Lonely Planet and found that just outside of Nagano, in Yudanaka, there is an onsen...FOR MONKEYS!



Yes, that's right. Its not just humans that enjoy relaxing in the hot springs.



My goal was to touch, hug, and maybe kidnap one. But since the pamphlet I got said I couldn't do any of those things, I resorted to taking lots of pictures. Below are some of my favs.

Mange la Monja (pardon my french)

This weekend we had dinner in nearby Kamioka with a group of locals that we've met here. On the menu was "monja" which is a pancake batter that is cooked on a hotplate at the table.

The hotplate

Batter being poured on the hotplate

The batter is then divided and toppings are added.

Italian and curry!

Soy sauce and kimchi!

Once the batter is semi-cooked, you use your little spatula to separate out small sections. You push the small sections of batter into the hotplate to speed up the cooking.



We also had some delicious takoyaki (fried balls of octopus). Yum!

Onsen Love

Since it was a pretty busy week at work, a low key weekend was just what the doctor ordered. Satoko and I escaped the dorm and headed to a diner in town for a filling lunch of shrimp and fries. Then we headed to an onsen.

An onsen is a hot spring where people go to communally bathe and generally relax. Onsens are kept at a hot temperature and contain minerals. The onsen we went to had a bubbly pool, a still pool, and an outdoor pool. All of the pools had a great view of the mountains and river. There was also a cold water pool and a a sauna. After we were finished bathing, we drank chocolate milk and sat in massage chairs. There were also rooms to watch TV and to nap.

I didn't take any pictures of the onsen since I thought I might cause a bit of a stir bringing a camera into a room full of naked people, but it looked something like the picture below (courtesy of Wikipedia).



I have to admire the Japanese people's attitude of working hard and playing hard. It seems that in general people put in a lot of long, hard hours at work but then there are places like this that exist purely for relaxation. I think I will definitely be a returning customer.