Tojo's in Vancouver

I am in Vancouver and visited Tojo's. I went into the restaurant without a reservation, and ended up sitting at the bar which was fine. The service was by the bartender and he was perhaps too busy serving drinks, so the service was perhaps not the best but I asked for it by going without a reservation. That's fine.

I ordered the $110 Omakase. I enjoyed the meal very much and would definitely go again if I had a chance. Now the food:



Tuna tataki: tuna lightly cooked on the outside, with a citrus sauce. It was quite nice and refreshing, although I prefer tuna completely raw.



Crab salad: a small stack of crab meat on top of julienne cucumber and mung bean noodles. The dressing has citrus in it. The crab meat was very fresh and the citrus dressing brought out the natural sweetness of the crab. Unfortunately my camera was out of focus.



Fried morel stuffed with fish/octopus (?): this is an interesting dish. The morels were stuffed with minced fish (or octopus?) and then deep fried. This was served on top of some leafy greens (looks like Chinese vegetables to me) and bean sprouts. The texture of the stuffing was a little chewy (typical of Japanese minced fish cakes) and gave a nice balance to the morels. Unfortunately, I didn't quite catch what the filling was made of because of the heavy accent of my server.



Deep fried whitefish: one of my favorites of the night. A piece of whitefish was "breaded" with a thin coating of rice and deep fried. The breading ("ricing"?) was more like puffed rice and was very light. This was served on top of sauteed vegetables and mushrooms, and a sauce that was made from dashi and soy sauce. The consistency of the sauce was strange, almost like a half-set jello. I wonder what was used to thicken it.




Smoked sablefish soup: another one of my favorites. The bowl of soup was covered in parchment paper and steamed. Inside was a pretty large piece of smoked sablefish, asparagus, matsutake mushrooms, and a flavorful broth. Sablefish continues to be one of my favorite fish: it has a very delicate texture and the smokiness added to the depth of the broth. This was the first time I have tasted matsutake: it has a woody taste and goes well with the smoked fish.



Lobster hand cone: a hand cone with tempura lobster, asparagus, avocado, and a spicy mayonnaise. It was a little too spicy for my taste, but it was still very good.



Sushi. From top left clockwise, as much as I can remember: scallop, crab, prawn, and salmon wrapped in a very thin egg crepe (Golden Roll), a crab and avocado roll with scallop and herring roes on top (Pacific Northwest Roll), lobster roll with smoked salmon on top (Great Canadian Roll), spicy tuna roll with tuna on top, hamachi nigiri, sweet shrimp nigiri, tuna tataki nigiri. Everything was fresh and tasted very good. My only complaint was the duplication of tuna tataki from the first course.



Dessert: vanilla ice cream and red bean sauce. Typical Japanese flavors, and the vanilla ice cream was very nice and smooth. There were some gold flakes on top but they do not really contribute much to the dish, in my opinion.

Overall, I think this was a very nice meal. The price is perhaps slightly less than other restaurants that offer a tasting menu. I think it's a good deal. I wonder what the $60 and $80 Omakase will get you.

My First Cake

I made my first cake for a very special birthday...it's a chocolate truffle cake. It turned out quite nicely, actually. Except that it was a bit tilted. The individual layers were a little bit "domed" in the centre, and I forgot that stacking layers that are not flat will not result in a completely straight cake. But it was a minor problem.

There were 3 layers of chocolate cake, with a chocolate truffle filling in between. This is topped by a ganache with some more decoration with chocolate truffle mixture. I did not do the decoration...the birthday girl did that herself. But I did the writing. :)

Lots of food experiments

It's a while since another update, but I have done quite a few experiments:

Mole Verde: pumpkin seeds, tomatillo, cilantro, and other spices. It was served with chicken breast and rice. It was my first time making Mexican food and it was actually very good. It's from Rick Bayless' "Authentic Mexican" book.



Eggplant with garlic sauce: a Chinese sweet and sour eggplant dish that has a nice balance between sweet, sour, and spiciness. I did use the restaurant "passing through" technique for the eggplant: briefly deep-frying the eggplant before finishing it with the sauce in a wok. It worked very well.



Salted cod fritters, tomato confit, and fried sage: salted cod was mixed with mashed baked potatoes, a generous amount of olive oil, and paprika. They are made into balls and deep-fried in a beer batter. The tomato confit were dried in a low oven for 6 hours with thyme, salt, pepper, and olive oil. This is topped with a piece of fried sage. Unfortunately the balls were too large and I can only serve two. It would be better to serve three so it doesn't look like certain body parts on the plate...but the fritters were fantastic, especially when paired with the tomatoes. The recipe is from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook.




Braised beef ribs in a red wine sauce, parsnip puree: pretty classic recipe, apart from the fact that I decided to try pureeing the mirepox instead of keeping that whole (chopped). I think that adds more flavor to the sauce. The sauce is strained, reduced, and thickened with cornstarch. The parnsip puree provided a nice sweetness to cut the acidity of the sauce.



Lemongrass creme brulee: despite some initial skepticisms, this actually turned out quite well. The fresh lemongrass somehow did not provide enough flavor, so I added some preserved lemongrass that comes in the "toothpaste tubes" that you can get in grocery stores. It worked out pretty well: the lemongrass flavor actually makes the creme brulee feel "lighter" even if it is quite a high calories dessert.

Lake Tung Ting Shrimps

It's been a long time since the last update...here is an experiment in Chinese cooking. I tried to make Lake Tung Ting Shrimps:

Overall the flavor was very good, though the presentation is, as usual, lacking. The main issue was that the egg white was overcooked. It's more like fried egg whites instead of a smoother silken texture. This has to be tried again.

Dinner party

No pictures this time, but the food was good...

I started with the same curried cauliflower puree, but this time I topped it with shrimps poached in vanilla tarragon butter.

For the main course, I made my "Chinese sweet and sour pork ribs": it is flavored with hoisin, ground bean paste, rice vinegar, and brown sugar. This is served with some carrots that were cooked in the vanilla butter, as well as ginger-green onion risotto cakes.

For the dessert, it was a simple chocolate hazelnut mousse pie with a raspberry coulis. It was not fruitless...

Dinner Party

I had a dinner party last weekend. I am slowly getting back to this and I think my skills are starting to get back to where they used to be. Took me a while.

Anyway, I served three things.

The starter has seared scallops served on a lightly curried cauliflower puree, topped with some lumpfish caviar and a parmasan cracker for some saltiness. I think it worked very well, especially the cauliflower puree. The hint of curry worked quite well with the natural sweetness of the scallops.




For the main course, I made a Chinese flavor sweet and sour beef short ribs (hoisin, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar). I served this with some sauteed carrots and polenta fries. The meat was very tender after 2.5 hours of braising. Overall I am happy with the dish.




The dessert was a warm chocolate pudding cake with vanilla ice cream on top. No pictures...I forgot. Another success.

The taste was great. Again, the presentation probably could have been improved...

An old "update"

I haven't updated my blog for a while now...here is something I experimented with a while back (Canadian Thanksgiving) and turned out quite well. I made green onion cakes (Chinese dim sum item). It was quite successful, though I had to be careful not to flatten the cakes too think or the dough breaks and all the green onions leak out. It was basically the way I thought it should be, so I am pleased.



I also made my own won ton soup, with shrimp, bamboo shoots, dried shiitake mushrooms, and "wood ear" fungus. The broth is made from a home-made chicken stock enhanced with shrimp shells. It worked out great. There is no comparison to the ones you get at Chinese restaurants here.