Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi, Neutral Bay

My brother & I have a lot of trouble deciding on where to go out for dinner. Especially for special occasions. When he finally decided on visiting Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi for his birthday dinner, I was surprised and very excited. I'd been wanting to go here for so long, after hearing so many good things about it on Here Comes the Food. The main thing keeping me away was the price, it's a little bit on the expensive side of Japanese restaurants in Sydney, and I had been saving most of my splurges for Ju-Rin. But you know what, I think this might be even better than Ju-Rin.

I was a little confused when we walked past the door that looked like the entrance to the restaurant, until my brother explained to me that it's is actually split into two sections - Ju Ge Mu is the okonomiyaki & teppanyaki restaurant and Shimbashi is the buckwheat noodle house. We were going to Shimbashi tonight, which has a more traditional decor, including regular tables and also the low tables where you remove your shoes. They were nearly full so we were only able to book a low table, but it was impressive watching the waitresses throughout the night, their balancing skills while pouring tea and serving dishes was awesome!

Soba Dips [Special] ($6.00) - Soba chips served with sashimi dip

We get some of the soba chips to start off with, and are surprised when they aren't actually noodle shaped like we expected. They taste SO GOOD though. Like an extremely fancy Dorito but with a much more interesting flavour. The sashimi dip that it comes with is absolutely delicious, a mash of salmon sashimi with mayo and lots of other tasty things. We seriously contemplate getting another serve of this, but hold off since we ordered quite a lot of food.

Oh my god, I want more!

As another starter, we order the fish tartare salad from the starter menu and are gleeful to realise that the tartare is very similar to the sashimi dip above, and comes with more soba chips! The tartare is slightly chunkier, less creamy than the dip, but just as moreish.

Fish Tartare Salad - Fish tartare & seaweed salad with Yuzu miso dressing ($18.00)

The seaweed salad is nice, tons of different types of seaweed, way better than the deceiving seaweed salad at Ju-Rin (which is basically just a green leaf salad with nori). It comes with a refreshing yuzu miso dressing and a teeny tiny smear of Japanese mustard on the lip of the plate.

Aburi Sushi ($28.00) - Today's selection of lightly seared 9pcs sushi

We couldn't pass up the aburi sushi, I love my sushi when it is lightly seared. This is one expensive, sparse plate of sushi though. Like I mentioned before, Shimbashi isn't cheap. But it was worth it I think, each piece of was lovingly crafted, with it's own matching condiment on top, some were wasabi, mustard or mayo, or daikon radish. Everything was beautiful quality and a delicious morsel that fit in your mouth in one bite. It was hard to share this plate between 4 people though, we couldn't decide who should have what, especially when there was only 1 piece of a certain fish. My brother got the cuttlefish to himself but he said it was one of the best he had ever had.

Bonito flakes & seaweed

There is an entirely separate menu just for the okonomiyaki, so we know that we have to order one. They warn us that it takes a bit longer for them to make this, I think it was something like half an hour, but trust me it is TOTALLY worth the wait. It is so freakin' good. And make sure you get the extra cheese for $2.00. We waited with anticipation, playing with the tin of bonito flakes and seaweed that they give you to add on top of your okonomiyaki.

Country Mix Special ($18.00) - Okonomiyaki with calimari, sliced potatoes, Mochi & crispy potatoes (with added Cheese $2.00)

It was really hard to pick which one to get, but we decided to go with the Country Mix Special, enticed by the sound of the potatoes and calimari. The mochi is the only thing I'm not too certain about, and truthfully it probably didn't need it. As expected it was quite sticky and very heavy when you got a big glob of mochi, but otherwise it was heavenly. The layers of potatoes, with gooey bits of cheese oozing between it...it was sexy. And of course all that sauce and mayo on top in it's pretty patterns, it was utter food porn on a plate.

As you can imagine, this is a very filling dish. And it's a hard dish to follow, so we are all rather disappointed by the grilled beef tongue skewers that come out next. I think I prefer my tongue sliced a little thinner, since this one is quite thick and tough, so you can really feel that tongue texture as you chew into it. However, there is some nice charring on the outside and the marinade is tasty.

Grilled beef tongue ($10.00) - 2 skewes of grilled beef tongue marinated in white miso

As well as having a huge selection of okonomiyaki, they also have a large range of soba/udon selections. They are a buckwheat noodle house after all. We were hoping to get the one on the specials menu which cake with half plain buckwheat and half lemon flavoured soba, but unfortunately they were all sold out. Instead our whole table decided to try the cold soba noodles with the warm duck & Japanese mushroom broth. I would recommend sharing a large serve of the soba between two people, since they conveniently split the serving into two separate trays, avoiding the hassle of two people bending over the same bowl. Below shows you how big a half of a large serving is.

Komo & Kinoki Seiro Soba ($23.00) - Cold noodles served with warm duck & Japanese mushrooms dipping broth

The soba is nothing like the packet soba I've had in the past. It has such an amazing, rough texture, which is perfect for picking up the deliciously rich dipping broth. I don't think I can ever go back to eating regular packet soba again. I am quite happy to slurp this up very loudly.

Dipping broth

The broth is intense, concentrated with the flavour from the duck meat and all the different types of mushrooms. I absolutely adore mushrooms, especially all the Japanese varieties, and have gobbled them up straight away. When we have finished all our noodles and chunky bits from the broth, they bring us a little jug of soba water, which you add to the leftover broth until it is light enough that you can sip at it, as a cleansing hot soup. It's the perfect way to finish of the meal.

Soba-ya (Soba water)

All of us are supremely satisfied with our meal, and I am quite happy to fork over the $50 or so a head that we ended up spending. In the end we spent about the same as what I would spend at Ju-Rin, and had quite a lot of food. Of course the bill would have blown out to a lot more if we had gotten more of the sushi and sashimi, they seem to be a bit over-priced here. But the okonomiyaki, soba chips and the soba were so worth it, I am already dying to go back.

Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi
246 Military Rd
Neutral Bay NSW 2089
(02) 9904 3011
Lunch: Tue-Sat: noon - 2pm
Dinner: Tue-Sun: 6 - 9.30pm

Bloggers Birthday & Tupper Parties!

Part One

What to you call a pack of food bloggers? This was something that was asked the other night. A feast of bloggers? A degustation of bloggers? A flog of bloggers?! Whatever you might want to call it, there were a lot of bloggers packed into a room at Wagaya next to Chinatown for Chocolatesuze's birthday dinner. Suze declared it to be masquerade themed so everyone brought a mask along for the night. Mine was a piece of crap, but the funniest would have to be the Masterchef judge masks that the boys brought along!

It was a fantastic night but I will spare you the details, because there are others who have covered it much better than I could and with much better pictures. To be honest I was too busy enjoying myself so I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to the food. The novelty (and convenience) of ordering by touch screen and the sushi roulette are the cute standouts at Wagaya:

Who's going to get the wasabi bomb?

I managed to escape the wasabi hit, but Trina who was sitting next to me did not :) Here's the other food that wandered its way down to the far corner where I was perched, I managed to hog an entire plate of lotus root chips to myself, the were my favourite of the dishes. The chicken cartilage was interesting but I still prefer chicken softbone!

Chicken cartilage

Scallop

Wafu pizza

Lotus root chips

Tempura prawn

Assorted sushi and sashi

The pizza was intriguing, I didn't expect to like it but the crisped mochi on top added some interesting texture. I did manage to get it stuck to the roof of my mouth though! It's hard to get that stuff off your gums while trying to keep up a conversation. Whoever was in charge of the touch screen gets a big thumbs up, I was very well fed!

Masterchef!

Happy Birthday Chocolatesuze! Hope you had an awesome night, I know that I did! And thanks so much for the invite :) Oh, and the lollipop ring haha! Finally, a big hug goes to Trisha for the sweetest idea ever; she made personalised cupcake pops for all of us. So cute! (And yummy too!)

Here's everyone who came that night, please check out their blogs for a much better version of the story :P

The birthday girl, Chocolatesuze http://www.chocolatesuze.com
Helen: http://www.grabyourfork.blogspot.com
Billy: http://www.atablefortwo.com.au
Howard & Minh: http://www.eatshowandtell.com
Shez: http://www.onebitemore.blogspot.com
Richard: http://www.herecomesthefood.com.au
Karen: http://www.citrusandcandy.com
Simon: http://www.theheartoffood.blogspot.com
Lorraine: http://www.notquitenigella.com
Reem: http://tummyrumble.net
Leona: http://pigged-out.com
Mel: http://www.fooderati.blogspot.com
Jen: http://www.jenius.com.au
Belle: http://ooh-look.blogspot.com
Jenny: http://www.panda-n-cakes.blogspot.com
Lili: http://www.pikeletandpie.com
Betty: http://betty-thehungrygirl.blogspot.com
Betty & Richard: http://bettysbites.blogspot.com
Ellie: http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com
Chris & Tim: http://blogs.thewayitcrumbles.com
Trina: http://foragingotaku.blogspot.com
Trisha: http://sugarlace.fragiled.net
Tina: http://foodboozeshoes.blogspot.com
Pete: http://kitchendecanted.com/
Eden: http://nutsaboutmynuts.wordpress.com
Grace: http://www.foodchaser.me

It was great to catch up with everyone and to meet some of you for the first time. I'm sad that I didn't get to chat to everyone but I'm sure we will get to meet up again in the future!

Most of us, minus a few (Thanks to Karen for the photo!)

Part Two
Not long after Wagaya, the awesome Shez invited me along to a tupperware party at her place. Tupperware and afternoon tea? My inner granny was jumping up and down with glee! Asian Gaga looked aghast when I told her about it and said, "How old are you?!" Haha bugger that! We arrived to the most enormous spread of yummies...

So many cute goodies...

Look at the purple plates and napkins!

Chef Simon expertly making his own katsusando from scratch

Katsusando

Chocolatesuze's t-shirt: "I'm blogging this."

I was very glad I decided to skip lunch because Shez was an awesome host and made so many tasty things including sandwiches, profiteroles, lemon ricotta cupcakes, biscuits and tarts. Simon had me a little bit in awe with his katsu sandwiches, and I could not stop eating Suze's amazing peach slice. Yeah...I may have stuffed my face a little bit.

Profiteroles

Raspberry and custard tarts

Lemon ricotta cupcakes

Chocolatesuze's peach slice

IKEA candy

After tucking into the food, we settled down for a little presentation from our tuppexpert Michelle. Much oohing and ahhing followed. It was definitely one of those moments when you want to spend on money on things you never knew you needed! I got a very nifty squeezy thingamajig that acts as a very neat piping bag but looked a lot like a boob.

Now that I've been to the tupperware party I'm horribly frustrated with my huge pile of shitty cracked Asian takeaway containers. Damn you, superior quality tupperware for showing me the greener grass!! We also made scones with a whole bunch of tupperware equipment, including the milkshaker, which did a rather impressive job of whipping up the cream for our scones.

Making scones

Scones!

Goodies plate

After a very fun, relaxing afternoon, I headed home with a purple plate (and a belly) full of sweets and an order for some tupperware. Big, big thanks to Shez for inviting me and for being such a great tupperhost :)

Wagaya
Level 1, 78-86 Harbour St
Haymarket NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9212 6068

Simple Dinners - Soba with Chinese Mushrooms

I am weird when it comes to cooking vs. baking. I will put any amount of time, effort and money into whatever recipe I am following for baking, but I get incredibly lazy when I cook my dinner. Which seems ridiculous when I think about it, they should provide the same amount of satisfaction really. I blame my sweet tooth.

So easy dinners really appeal to me, especially ones that I can throw together with whatever I have in my fridge. I like to make my dinners healthy and full of veges, it gives me an excuse to squeeze in a yummy dessert afterwards every now and then ;) I looove chinese mushrooms, and cooking them this way makes them really versatile, we even layer these mushrooms into a sushi rice box with finely sliced cucumber, radish, egg, salmon and seaweed.

Soba with Chinese Mushrooms
5 large dried Chinese Mushrooms
1 carrot, sliced
Mirin
Soy sauce with dashi (the pre-mixed stuff they use for soba sauce, but regular soy sauce will also do)
Sugar

Soak dried mushrooms in cold water for several hours until they are plump and moist. Drain mushrooms. Add equal parts mirin and soy sauce in a small saucepan (I think I put about 1/4 cup of each) with the soaked mushrooms. Add water to saucepan so mushrooms are covered by the liquid. Boil on medium high heat for about half an hour, stirring regularly. Remove mushrooms from sauce with a fork and carefully cut off the woody stems. Thinly slice mushrooms and return to the sauce. Add carrots and also add sugar to taste, you should not need much sugar. Simmer on medium heat until carrots are tender and sauce is slightly thicker.

Cook soba in rapidly boiling water for 4 minutes. Rinse under cold running water and drain. Serve with mushrooms, carrots and sauce.

This was a pretty light meal and A demanded some sort of meat, so I dragged some good old faithful pork mince out of the freezer. I get more like my Mum every day, she always has smalls portions of pork mince in freezer bags. I defrosted it and marinated it in Xiao-Shing wine, a bit of light soy, white pepper and sesame oil. Then I placed it on top of some chopped silken tofu and bok choy and steamed it all together. So easy and not too naughty! As a result, our dinner was a confused mix of Japanese and Chinese, but it was tasty and not bad for something thrown together from the remnants of my fridge.