The family descends in town!!!

Well, not the whole family, thank goodness. My sweet cousin and aunt visited me for a weekend recently. We had a ball just doing girly stuff around town and went to a few restaurants that I normally don't go to, whether it's due to price or distance/convenience issues.

We went to NoMi, a Japanese fusion-ish place at the Park Hyatt in the heart of Chicago's Magnificent Mile. I've been here a few times previously, always with visiting family. Not only is their food delicious, the view is simply to die for. We went during Saturday's lunch hour and got a seat by the window easily. The ambience of the dining room and bar was very sophisticated and clean. Service was impeccable and the wine list and cellar looked very impressive. They even had a few different kinds of salts and peppers to choose from, to season your own food! How pretty!


We started off with a very generous assortment of warm breads and butter. Even though the breads were warm, the butter was rock hard. I must say that warm bread always earns brownie points from me, but rock hard butter doesn't. I know that it'll violate some health code if restaurants were to keep butters warm, but it will definitely help if customers didn't have to struggle to spread it on their breads.


We proceeded to a very clean, delicious citrus beet salad that was topped with the most refreshing citrus vinaigrette. Isn't the plating simply elegant?


I was fascinated by the Saffron Bouillabaisse and opted for that despite a hot, summery day out. Not only was it absolutely scrumptious, the scallops and calamari were cooked to perfection: just enough for a bite and flavor. The plating was clean, yet warm. A half of the sourdough crouton was soft from the bouillabaisse, and the other half retains its crunch, which made for a fun mix of textures and flavors.


My aunt also chose something light: the Ikebana sushi platter consisting of a tuna roll, some fresh salmon sashimi and an assortment of cooked and raw sushi. The dish was very fresh, but I don't know if it was worth the hefty $25 price tag!


My cousin, ever the sweet tooth she is, ordered the French Raisin Toast with fresh cream and fig coulis. It was surprisingly light for a French toast: a tad dry and a bit too crunchy. I think French toasts should be rich, creamy and heavy. It might be due to the fact that NoMi kind of places itself as a "spa" restaurant, which is why their light dishes are way superior than their "enlightened" heavy dishes. I could be wrong, but that's my impression of it. The fig coulis, though, was pretty intensely fig-gy (if there's such a word). It would've been perfect with an assortment of cheeses.


The meal was satiating in terms of the range flavors we enjoyed, but the portions weren't uber generous. Fortunately, we had a complimentary dessert platter. The waitress came out with a silvery cylinder with 3 layers. After placing it on the table, she unfurled each layer to reveal the mini treats in them. The presentation was beautiful, very much like a surprise gift. As you can see, each layer has about 3 mini, bite-sized sweet treats. The most memorable items I tried were the fruit tart (I'm such a sucker for fruit tarts!) and a super intense chocolatey truffle.


Overall, it was a beautiful, light meal. I definitely won't recommend this place if you're famished, but it's perfect for a special occasion or if you want something light at a breathtaking locale.

Another place I wouldn't normally patronize is this Korean restaurant on Lawrence Avenue that I stumbled upon by accident when I was really looking for good ol' San Soo Gap San. The restaurant name is San Chae Dolsot. Everything (well, most of it) was written in Korean at the restaurant; I was half expecting them to not have English menus :)

Located in a mini strip mall along Chicago's Korean town on Lawrence Avenue, it looked like the kind of neighbourhood restaurant that Korean families come to for Sunday dinner. But anyway, my aunt, my cousin and I just stuck to good Korean classics such as kal bee, chap jae and a kim chee tofu soup. The traditional banchan (otherwise known as those delicious starters served on small mini plates) served was deliciously tongue-tingling as usual. We thought the kal bee was not that great, probably due to the quality of the meat. However, the marinade was yummy.


The kim chee tofu soup was simply to die for. I'm sure the chill of the evening helped make it taste even better, but the spice was just right and there's so much silky tofu in it! Just add some bean rice and you get a filling, warm stew.


We all really enjoyed their chap jae, which was cooked very nicely. The glass noddle still had a bite to it and the sweet and salty interplayed perfectly. I love that they added so much sesame seeds on top!


Overall, it was a pretty decent restaurant. All of the other patrons were Korean families. Of course, in true Indonesian form, my aunt didn't find the Korean food spicy enough. My family has this practice bringing around a special bottle of Indonesian chili sauce when we go out to eat. I know, I know, it's really weird. But I must say that it really does help bring out the flavor of most Asian foods. Now, my aunt has officially graduted to bringing around fresh chili in a Ziploc bag! And you can bet on her bringing it out for our Korean food adventure!


It was an awesome weekend, catching up with them and trying out some new restaurants. I can't wait to see them again soon!

NoMi
800 N. Michigan Ave., #7
(312)239-4030

San Chae Dolsot
3737 W. Lawrence Ave.
(773)588-5223

Gawd, I'm so Asian!

It's been a rough week. Not only has my experiments tanked (as usual), it is frigid here in Chicago. I walked home from the lab earlier this evening and by the time I got home, my cheeks and thighs were frozen solid! But there's nothing a bowl of homemade soup can't warm up immediately, so I made miso soup.

Miso soup equates comfort to me. I grew up eating Japanese food pretty regularly because my parents love Japanese food. So, what is miso anyway? Miso is basically fermented soy bean paste. There are a few types of miso; namely, white, red and black miso. Miso soup is a Japanese culinary staple but miso itself is increasingly used in many other contexts, such as glaze on fish and in sauces. A few factors that determine the flavor of miso include the length of fermentation and the other raw materials added to it. Other grains that have been used include barley, quinoa and adzuki. Unfortunately, the miso I happen to have in my possesion isn't that exciting. It's just plain reduced sodium misoshiru, but it'll have to do! Don't you just love that the Japanese always uses cute cartoon characters on everything? Even miso! :)


I started off by boiling a quart of water in a saucepan before putting a dashi bag in the boiling water for 5 minutes. Dashi is another uniquely Japanese ingredient that is analogous to bouillon but is flavored with kombu (edible kelp). The dashi bags I have happen to also have bonito flavor. The term "bonito" refers to a species of predatory fish that belongs in the mackerel family. Again, it gives dishes a distinctly Japanese flavor.


While boiling the dashi bag, I diced some tofu and some green onion. Miso is an incredibly versatile ingredient. Besides tofu and seaweed, which are the most popular "fillings" of miso soup, you can many other things such as shellfish, mushrooms and noodles. I love love love tofu so I added a whole block of tofu to my soup. I'm so Asian sometimes, haha!


After boiling the tofu for about another 5 minutes, I turned off the heat and removed the pan from the stove. After letting it cool for a few minutes, I stirred in two tablespoons of the delicious miso. It can take a few minutes for the miso to dissolve, especially if it is cold. It's crucial to never EVER boil miso and to add the miso paste only after you removed the soup from the heat. Boiling miso will create a bitter flavor and destroy the beneficial cultures.


I topped my miso soup with sliced green onions and I had to have two whole servings! Other toppings include fried scallions (which is such an Indonesian thing to do) and seaweed. Homemade miso soup is the perfect remedy to a frigid Chicago winter day.


Recipe for Miso Soup

Ingredients:
1 quart water
1 dashi stock bag
1/2 of a 16-oz block of your favorite tofu (you can use the whole block if you love tofu, like me), diced
2 Tbsp. miso paste
Sliced green onion

Bring the water to a roiling boil in a saucepan. Put the dashi bag in the boiling water and let it continue to boil for 5 minutes.

Take the dashi bag out and add the diced tofu. Boil another 5 minutes.

Remove from heat. Add dashi and stir until it dissolves.

Ladle into bowl, top with sliced green onions and itadakimasu!

Tofu snack bites

Living by myself is both enjoyable and somewhat precarious at the same time. I love that I answer to no one at all and that I can play any kind of music or watch any kind of TV program that I want without anyone piping in. Now, in theory, this also translates to my ability to cook/make/eat whatever I want. This is true, but it hasn't really happened to me. As a matter of fact, I used to cook/bake/eat a lot better when I had roommates! I feel that when I actually had other people to feed, I applied myself to actually planning a wholesome menu and making a nice meal. Now that I'm living solo, I feel like I don't have to make a special effort to make something nice to eat when it's just for me alone (especially after a hard day's work). The other contributing factor is the reality that food just doesn't taste or smell or look that good when it's enjoyed alone as opposed to when it's enjoyed with loved ones.

So anyway, a girl still has to eat, right? Thesedays, I've resorted to eating more conveniently. And no! I haven't been living off frozen TV dinners or disgusting canned veggies, thank the Lord! Instead, I have been eating convenient fresh things, like baby carrots and celery dipped in store-bought hummus (which seems to always be on sale when I'm shopping, yay!). Other indulgences include crunchy peanut butter and nutella, both of which I just eat by themselves, on a spoon. Indulgent, I know. Eating mostly veggies and chocolate spread is fine for the most part but my body needs more than that, especially since I started running on a regular basis.

I find meat to be a chore, what with living alone and stuff, so I've started eating a lot of tofu! Yep, yep, that good ol' delicious soybean curd. Prior to recent times, I haven't prepared tofu too much because it is rather unfamiliar grounds for me and I've never particularly found Asian-style tofu dishes too healthy. My recent trip to Japan changed that misperception. In Tokyo, there are many many types of tofu available, ranging from silky smooth to chunky and chewy. They also come in many flavors, my favorite being a sesame-infused chewy tofu served in a shallow pool of scrumptious soy sauce that we had at a shabu-shabu restaurant.


I also bought a little basket of fresh, plain, silky tofu from a merchant at Matsuzakaya in Ginza. Enjoyed only with soy sauce, it was a simple, clean and healthy treat. The packaging might have been a little elaborate, what with the leaf wrapping and basket nest, but the flavor is simple and unadorned, the way good tofu should be eaten.



The types of tofu one can get in the US is rather subpar compared to the delicacies in Japan (which is to be expected, as after all, Japan is like, the tofu capital of the world, in my opinion). I don't think the tofus found here can be enjoyed plain by itself. So anyway, I've been hunting for easy, delicious tofu recipes and to my surprise, even a generic recipe website such as Allrecipes has a few wonderful-looking options. So this past week, I tried the recipe for Baked Tofu Bites. I was immediately sold when I saw that one of the ingredients is sesame seeds *haha* Some components of the recipe sounds a bit weird, such as the addition of liquid smoke. Ew! In accordance with some of the other reviewers suggestions, I left that part out. I also did a lot of improvisation because I didn't have some of the main ingredients, such as ketchup, maple syrup and vinegar. Instead, I used the same amount of jarred pasta sauce, sugar and left out the tangy/sour component of the vinegar.


Despite the multiple, rather un-kosher substitutions, the tofu bites turned out great! I expected them to be a bit crunchy but that might be because I piled the tofu cubes onto the baking sheet instead of spreading them out in a single, neat layer. I will definitely try to do this next time. They were delicious and flavorful and great as leftovers! Some future changes I might make to this recipe include using black sesame seeds in addition (or maybe, instead of) the white ones, adding a dash of sesame oil. Yeah, yeah, I'm a total sesame nut! Anyhoo, if you're delving into the adventurous world of tofu, this recipe is a perfect start: simple and delicious!