Posts Tagged 'japanese'

This is the first in a series of short restaurant reviews for some of my favourite (and least favourite?) restaurants. Generally they’ll be around the Toronto area, but expect some eats in Japan, San Francisco and elsewhere, from street food to fine dining! 

I was skeptical when we were invited to Gal’s Sushi. The sushi boom in North America has put a sushi place in every small town and two on every street corner. We literally have two downstairs of our building and a dozen within short walking distance. Toronto sushi is generally the same as most North American sushi (a focus on maki over nigiri as well as a focus on complexity instead of minimalism) with worse quality fish than west coasters like Vancouver or San Francisco get. There are fewer than half a dozen places in the Toronto area that actually fly in fish and they’re all expectably pricey. The rest, like Gal’s Sushi, all source frozen fish.

Gal’s Sushi is in a strip mall plaza under a condo building in Markham, right on Highway 7. We arrived at 7:45 and the place was absolutely packed with a dozen people waiting out the door. Since we were starving I was worried we wouldn’t get a table, but amazingly we were seated within 10 minutes. Tables moved fast. As I said earlier I’m typically skeptical of retail plaza sushi, its generally mediocre and prices vary more based on area than quality. Gal’s is Korean run and there are some subtle Korean touches in the restaurant. The chopsticks are the typical solid metal round variety, tables feature a ‘call’ button to summon the waitresses and you are greeted at your table with some typical Korean side dishes including glass noodles and sweet/sour potatoes. Both were delicious.

The appetizer menu had an extreme amount of variety, so our party of 4 went with some less common choices. We had takoyaki (becoming more common lately it seems), deep fried soft shell crab and galbi (Korean short ribs). The galbi was excellent, tender and nicely charred. The soft shell crab was very good (crispy and meaty) and featured a nice sour soy dipping sauce. Takoyaki was fairly average (it probably came from frozen), but I’m such a fan that it was good enough to quench my craving. The tea served was a mild genmaicha. Either a fairly light brew or a second wash, but it tasted good and complemented the sushi excellently.

Excellent and not overly mayonnaised!

We ended up ordering a bunch of fancy maki a la carte along with a platter of mostly nigiri and sashimi. Eva tends to prefer maki and the the rest of us are sorta indifferent, so we ended up with a nice assortment. Spicy tuna was excellent, as was the spicy scallop and spicy salmon. The dynamite (tenpura shrimp and avocado) was good, and as with the spicy tuna rolls none of them were over mayonnaised. I find most North American sushi places tend to abuse mayonnaise and worse, they often use western instead of Japanese ‘mayonnaise’. The flavours just aren’t compatible. The salmon skin maki was truly a delight. It’s generally one of my favourites, but is often the biggest disappointment at other restaurants. The skin was crispy and delicious, no chew texture or fishy taste at all. None of that stuff was particularly authentic, but it wasn’t supposed to be. All delicious.

Onto the nigiri, this was Gal’s big win. Nigiri and sashimi always reveal inferior fish and inferior knife skills. Gal’s salmon was their real stand out. The fish was fresh, no fishy taste at all, extremely buttery texture. It was also cut excellently, with no tough or rough areas. Thankfully our platter had four salmon nigiri and some really healthy chunks of sashimi. Tuna was fairly standard, but again an excellent source and cut. The white fish was surprisingly good, it’s often one of the worse common fishes in the North American sushi assortment.

Excellent fish and even a real flower!

Overall we were exceedingly impressed with the quality and quantity of food we got. Dinner for four with no drinks was $100 before tip. Absolutely incredible for the quality, Gal’s is definitely one of those little neighbourhood gems. The place came highly recommended and draws a major crowd well deservedly. As we only just went last night I can’t comment on the long-term consistency, but I’m told it has always been this good. They also have a small Korean menu towards the back of the menu, I definitely have to try that next time. We’re looking forward to going back!

Bunapi mushrooms wrapped with sirloin, delicious!

I was out taking my mom grocery shopping at her favourite local organic market (Organic Garage) one Saturday aftertoon, and we came upon this cute package of mushrooms labeled as ‘bunapi’ mushrooms. They looked to be similar to enokis but a bit bigger, and a brief iPhone googling lead me to believe they would be delicious, so into the shopping cart they went. They grow in clusters and like enokis you discard the tough flavourless base and eat the stocks and heads.

One of my favourite recipes is enoki mushrooms wrapped in beef, so I set out to replicate this using these slightly larger, more flavoursome mushrooms. I hit up the supermarket in the morning and perused the beef section. There are lots of different types of thinly sliced beef readily available, but I chose sirloin for its extremely tender texture instead of a more flavoursome but potentially tougher cut.  I also picked up purple asparagus and fresh yellow potatoes. Had I not had fresh baby garlic and chives (optional) from the garden I would have picked these up too. Regular garlic would work too, but don’t go overboard, you don’t want to overpower the rather delicate mushrooms.

An epic combination in the making

I began by boiling my quartered potatoes, and steaming my purple asparagus in the same pot. This is a technique I like mostly to save stove space, and thankfully unlike many purple vegetables, purple asparagus is color-fast and doesn’t stain the potatoes below it. Purple asparagus does not need as much cooking time as regular asparagus as it is already more tender to begin with, and excessive cooking will remove the purple color. As an aside, white asparagus requires special preparation and almost 2x the cooking of green asparagus, where as purple is the exact opposite. Definitely the best asparagus if you can get it when it’s in season! The asparagus will be done before the potatoes, just test it with a fork, but both will be done before everything else.

Sautéing our bunapis

We begin by cutting away the base of the mushroom cluster off and throwing it away. Separate all the little mushrooms and put them in our pan. Next we can start sautéing our bunapis in a bit of cooking oil like canola or sunflower, nothing too flavoursome though. Medium-high heat (6/10) but not too long, just a couple minutes. We don’t want to over cook them, they should wilt a bit without destroying their texture. Add in your garlic and chives and continue to sauté for another couple minutes. Again you want the mushrooms soft but not overcooked, eat one and test :) Take them off the heat and put them in a bowl to cool for later.

Fryin' steaks... many steaks...

Next I fried my sirloins on the stove, and I think that this is the weak point of this recipe. Had I had access to a barbecue, or better yet a hibachi grill, I think the crispy texture of the meat would have aided the overall dish. (That’s high rise living for ya) Either way you cook them, high heat (8/10 on the stove) and just a minute on each side, you don’t want to dry the meat out. I rubbed them down with paper towel when they were done to remove any excess oil, the sirloin is a pretty lean meat on its own. It wont be pleasant to eat (since it is finger food!) if the outside is too greasy after all… I didn’t season the meat at all, again we don’t want to overpower our delicate filling.

Roll one up homie!

Once our steaks are cook enough to touch, we can begin rolling our wraps. Put a decent amount of the filling inside, and arrange some mushroom heads to point out at least one (if not both) of the sides. Roll the meat tightly and then tooth pick them closed and you’re done! Put a couple on a plate with some potatoes and asparagus and serve while its all still warm.

It’s delicious, easy and quick! The bunapis are sweet and delicate, you don’t want to over season them. I would definitely recommend using a grill instead of a frying pan, but either way it was a hit. Roll some up today, you’ll love ‘em!

Epic win!

Mmmm! Delicious pork noodle soup!

Pork stock is a staple of many delicious asian soups, and in the case of ramen noodles in Toronto, it seems to be the thing that every restaurant gets wrong. I haven’t tried my hand at a truly authentic ramen yet: I’ll have to get some pork leg bones from my butcher as well as some skin to break collagen down from. Not to mention authentic fresh ramen noodles aren’t locally available to cook. However I decided I wanted to make a versatile pork stock with the resources at hand, and work on the flavours from there. By keeping my soup fairly generic, I was able to produce both Koreany and Japanesey noodle soup dishes, pork stock is really awesome.

The ingredients!

I started with a big pork shoulder that was onsale, a little bit of pork belly (for added richness, more on this later), fresh garlic (was far more potent than I’d have gathered by the bulb size), a cooking onion and a giant head of napa cabbage (which was the smallest I could get :D). I began by braising my pork shoulder, just to seal the outside a bit. This was just done by using a stainless steel pan, maximum heat for literally just 30-60 seconds per side to get a nice brown. Tossed that bad boy into the crock pot. Next, I sliced the pork belly into some thick strips, and then braised it also. I then filled the crock pot with enough water to cover those guys and watched the delicious oils seep out into the water. I didn’t keep any of the pan drippings, as they contained a bit of char from the outside of the meat.

Crock pot locked and loaded!

Next up I sliced the lower half (maybe slightly less than half) of the napa, washed it and chucked it into the crock pot on top of the meat. I chose the lower half, which is the thicker half to make my stock from, and saved the leafier half for later. I peeled and quartered the onion, tossed it into the pot. I began peeling the gigantic garlic and tossed it in as well. After the first two bulbs, I tried a tiny slice and realized it was a lot more potent than I had imagined (very impressive for such large bulbs), and kept the third bulb for another day. I filled the crock pot the rest of the way up with water, covered it, and turned it on low for 10 hours, and went to work…

The richness is absurd

When I returned home from work I was greeted by a delicious smelling house and a rich full pot of pork stock. Upon tasting the stock I was shocked by the richness. The shoulder itself was a very rich cut, I probably *didn’t* need to add the belly, but no complaints from me. I added a few healthy shakes of MSG and tasted again, and refrained from adding salt as I wanted some versatility later. We boiled our fresh wonton noodles (the closest thing I could find to ramen noodles, fresh, at Longos) for a minute, drained, rinsed and left them to chill a bit. We took the other half of the napa cabbage and sliced off a bunch of leaves, washed and halved them, then blanched them for about 30 seconds in salted water and drained/rinsed them as well. By doing this we’ll have two textures of cabbage in the soup: both the stewed white parts in the stock and some crispier leaves.

Beginning to stage a bowl of our Korean noodle soup

With the cabbage and noodles ready, we can begin putting a dish together. I took a few leaves of the blanched napa and a handful of noodles and threw them in a bowl. Next I took some ladles of the soup broth, along with the stewed napa, garlic and onion and poured them over top of the noodles. I then hand picked some leaner meat from the pot and put them in the bowl. The shoulder has some very fatty parts, and the belly itself is exceedingly rich when boiled. While I did eat one of the belly slices on its own, it certainly isn’t a texture everyone wants, and definitely not in noodle soup. For the initial recipe, I added a half teaspoon of gochujang to each bowl, which is a sweet/sour spicy fermented pepper/soy/rice paste, stirring it in until it dissolved giving the soup a red tint.

Koreany pork noodle soup

It was a deliciously rich soup, maybe even too rich, but the little bit of spice kick and sweetness from the gochujang balanced it out. I wasn’t 100% happy with the dish, but I was pleased with the stock itself. After the crock pot was cooled, I skimmed off the fat, removed the larger bone pieces, and tossed out the fat cap that had become separated. It chilled in the fridge over night, and I skimmed off the rest of the fat that had congealed at the surface in the morning.

For todays lunch, I packed some more of the leftover blanched napa and noodles to some of the meat and broth in a tupperware. I then added a bit of water, a bit more MSG, and a bit of light soy (not low sodium). Upon a reheat at work I was delighted that I had a very Japanesey, dare I say, shoyu-esque soup! Delicious and definitely even better the second day :)

Shoyu-style ramen-esque noodle soup for lunch!

Pork soup is wonderful, and it’s definitely something I’m going to keep iterating. I will eventually get some bones and skin and do a traditional ramen, but until then I’ll be happily eating these left overs for weeks!

Rich, savoury, a bit spicy: truly delicious!

Whether its a home cooked meal in India, pub fare in England, currywurst from a cafe in Germany or small restaurant in Thailand: everyone in the world loves curry, and everyone has their own take on it. Japan is no exception, in fact I’d say second only to ramen, curry is the fast food of choice in Tokyo. Its rather incredible really, every corner has a little shop that will make a rich curry, and it’ll only set you back 300-500 yen (3-5 bucks). The meat of choice is anything from beef to chicken to a fried pork cutlet and it usually features nothing more than potatoes, carrots and onions. Japanese curry has a unique richness, usually fairly mild spice and a special flavour that is unique from any of the other regional curries.

The ingredients! (I didn't use all the cooking onions)

There are many packaged curry sauces on the market exported from Japan. My curry of choice is Glico’s “Hot” curry, which is certainly not hot despite selling a Mild and Medium as well. Glico is one of Japans largest food conglomerates, famous in the west for Pocky among other snacks. I have used it many times with great success, though never rivalling even the cheapest Tokyo street fare. Finally however, I succeeded.

I decided to put the new crock pot to use, and slow cook the curry to richen the sauce. The meat I chose was veal, and not just any veal but white veal. It’s important to use a rich meat, lean beef or a lean steak just won’t do. We bought about a pound of stewing white veal, and a half pound of white veal shank. My goal there was that the bone and marrow would really richen the curry. I’ve used a rib-eye before with good results, but this surpassed it in every way.

The meat, the cooking onion and Glico curry cubes

I began by filling the Crock Pot with 6 cups of water. Note my recipe differs than what the boxes say. Next we take two of the 110 gram boxes of Glico hot and breaking them into their 1/10th cubes and add them. Dump all the meat in too, I put the shank right in the center. Next I chopped up a cooking onion (not very finely) and added it in. I followed that with a giant white onion, but this could easily be two cooking onions instead. White onions are painful to cut apart anyway. Finally I peeled and halved four fresh yukon gold potatoes and tossed them in. I followed that with the other two packages of Glico hot, cubed up again. Thats four packages total. Now just put the lid on the pot and set it to low for eight hours, you can goto work or something like that.

When I returned home, some 8 and a half hours of cooking later, the curry was thick and rich. I gave it a quick stir and discovered the shank had completely fallen off its bone and fallen into chunks all on its own. I removed the bone and tossed it away, sadly we lack a dog to gift it to but it would certainly make a good treat. I did some tasting and added one teaspoon of the secret ingredient of all Japanese food, MSG. Some (most) Japanese curry bases include MSG, but at least the Glico they export does not. A teaspoon is really not much, but its just there to add a bit of a pop and authenticity.

I put a pot of calrose rice on the stove and began to boil it. Next I peeled and sliced up two large carrots, and quickly sauteed them with a tiny bit of cooking oil and a reasonably high heat (6/8). When the carrots were soft but still reasonably firm, I tossed them into the curry pot and mixed it all up. All thats left is to glob some rice onto a plate, smother it with the thick curry and consume.

Ready to eat!

The end product is very thick and rich. Their own recipe suggests adding an extra 2 cups of water, but I’ve found the directions never result in a curry as thick as what you’d get in a restaurant in Japan.  The richness exceeds what you’d get in Japan, certainly due to the rather decadent beef used. We also tend to get (and use) better potatoes here than they do in Japan as well.

Really, its a pretty simple recipe since the curry base eliminates the need to blend spices and thickener together, prep time was less than an hour. The Crock-Pot once again proves itself an indispensable tool for the meat lover who wants to cook while they work, and once again I have bested previous similar endeavours. It’s surely not healthy if you eat a lot in a sitting, both high in fat and salt, but hey, good food is good food. All together,  we were very pleased. (and it made a weeks worth of lunches!)

Eating time!