japanese noodle dipping sauce

I've told people that my favorite way (or one of the easiest way) to eat mochi is to heat the mochi, wrap it up in nori (seaweed), and dip it in bonito soy sauce. The "bonito soy sauce" was not its official name, but what I call it. It's like soy sauce with bonito in it, and is usually marketed as a Japanese noodle dipping sauce.

I usually buy a basic version of the sauce, and most of the time I use Kikkoman's Memmi.

The Memmi sauce is concentrated and needs to be diluted with water when you use it. On the packaging label the ratio of the sauce and water for making different bases/sauces such as udon soup base, somen/soba or tempura dipping sauce, and many other uses. When I use it as a mochi dipping sauce, I don't dilute it at all. It's yummy.


Gotta have a bottle in my fridge at all times!


I found this somen (Japanese thin and white noodles) the other day.


The somen noodles cook in 3 minutes! After the noodles are cooked, run them under cold water and strain completely before serving. A lot of times people would put a small bamboo mat underneath the strained noodles to make sure no water "stays" with the water. Use the Memmi (1:4 ratio) as a dipping sauce. Some people like to add grated ginger or chopped green onions to it.

new golden dragon

John and I went to the New Golden Dragon for dim sum yesterday. It was not our first time there, but we did try some things that we had been waiting for to try in the past.


I love dim sum in all its forms!


Broiled BBQ pork. I first tried this when Jenny took me there. These are of limited quantities each day, so you've got to get to the restaurant early enough (before 1:30pm) to try it. It's really good!


Fried fish filled with fish roe. OK it tastes way better than it sounds. It's yummy!


The fish was FILLED with roe!


Watch out for the really spicy hot peppers!


Sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves... I have to post this one, because I had actually seen someone eat it with the lotus leaves still wrapped around it. You eat the yummy rice inside WITHOUT the leaves.


The family sitting next to us had piles of buns on their table... Someone REALLY likes those buns!


These were the buns the family next to us really liked. They're called "chicken tail" buns because they are shaped like a chicken tail. There was sweet coconut filling inside.

We had a couple more dishes that I didn't take pictures of. I was just enjoying my food too much at the time.

If you like dim sum, you'd love New Golden Dragon!

New Golden Dragon
1518 South Main Street
Salt Lake City, Utah
(801) 487-9888

blackberry cheesecake

My friend Joanne brought me a couple slices of the blackberry cheesecake she made. This cheesecake is in between the Japanese (lighter) style cheesecake and the traditional (heavier) style cheesecake. Its texture is amazingly wonderful, and the slightly shiny glaze (melted sugar and gelatin mixture) on the top and the blackberry (jam?) with whole blackverries were awesome!


Thanks Joanne!

naicha is thinking about something...

Sometimes Naicha likes to sit in the front room and look outside the window. I was making lunch yesterday, and noticed that Naicha had not made any noise for a while (she walks loud, plays loud, and breathe loud sometimes) so I went to find her in the house.

She was sitting by the front room window and looking at something. I didn't see birds or people or other dogs, but she was just sitting there and staring out of the window... for a while. She looked really relaxed and calm (which doesn't happen often with her), and as if she was thinking about something.


Then she saw me and wagged her tail, stood up, and walked toward me. It was just cute.

yay!

I'm feeling happy and accomplished today, because I've finally figured out how to group my blogs together on blogger.

I lost my "identity" when blogger started to require all users to have a google account. This blog became one of the caffe d'bolla team member and I could not leave comments on people's blogs as myself easily.

Anyhow, this Blogger help hint was really helpful and I finally got my identity back after all the switching and tweaking. Yay!


I even found a fun photo from our recent Japan trip as my profile pic!

cute garbage cans

We've got quite some snow this season, and there was a bit more yesterday. When I was pulling into our driveway I saw our two garbage cans standing in front of the garage door with snow on the tops and icicles on the rims. For some odd reason I thought they were really cute... and looked like they were 'just hanging out' in the snow.


The black one is for regular garbage, and the green one is for recyclables.

waitress the movie and the pie song

I know I'm behind on this, but we just watched Waitress this past weekend. I've long heard people talk about how wonderful and fun the movie was, but never got a chance to see it quite yet until a couple days ago.

The movie premiered at Sundance last January (2007) and in limited theaters in May. You can read more about it here.

If you've watched the movie you'd know of the cute little pie song, and if you haven't seen the movie you should just run out and rent/buy the DVD and watch it. The thing is that the pie song is now stuck in my head... The full version of the song is called "Baby Don't You Cry" by Quincy Coleman. Love it!



Baby Don't You Cry (The Pie Song) - Quincy Coleman

When the world is gray and bleak
Baby don't you cry
I will give you every bit of love that is in my heart
I will bake it up into a simple little pie

Baby don't you cry gonna make a pie
Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle
Baby don’t be blue
Gonna make for you
Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle
Gonna be a pie from the heaven above
Gonna be filled with strawberry love

Baby don’t you cry
Gonna make a pie
Hold you forever in the middle of my heart.

Baby here's the sun
Baby here's the sky
Baby I’m the light and I’m your shelter
Baby you are mine
I could freeze the time
Keep you in my kitchen with me forever

Gonna be a pie from the heaven above
Gonna be filled with strawberry love

Baby don’t you cry
Gonna make a pie
Hold you forever in the middle of my heart.

Gonna bake a pie from the heaven above
Gonna be filled with butterscotch love

Gonna be a pie from the heaven above
Gonna be filled with banana cream love

Baby don’t you cry
Gonna make a pie
Hold you forever x 2
Hold you forever in the middle of my heart

doors and windows

Our new roasting room at the caffe is pretty much all done! The big glass door was installed right after we got back from Japan, and the two large glass windows were put in a couple days ago.

The room is looking good, the new roaster is working great, and we're loving it!

IKEA dubbla chokladflarn

I bought these Dubbla Chokladflarn cookies last time I went to IKEA. I don't know Swedish, but I figured "Dubbla Chokladflarn" should be, or close to "Double Chocolate," and double chocolate is always good.


The pink box is an added bonus.


They are two thin and crispy oatmeal cookies dipped in dark chocolate and stuck together (almost like a sandwich cookie, but not quite). The cookie's texture and taste remind me of chocolate-covered corn flakes. Nuki is really interested in the noise caused by the their crispiness.

IKEA either wants you to share all the cookies with others, finish them very quickly, or find your own container for the cookies, because the box is wide open after you ripped open the outside plastic wrapper.


I'm glad I found this vintage Rubbermaid because it's perfect for cookies!

sundance

The annual Sundance Film Festival started yesterday, and a lot of people and stars are in town and in Park City. It's always busy up in Park City around this time, so we usually try to avoid the crowd, because you can see the films later on anyhow... but apparently Colin Farrell is in Park City for In Bruges, and Colin Farrel always makes me say, "uhm!" so I was tempted to go up there and check things out. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get to see him in person! *shifty eyes*

Colin Farrell, UHM!