Cha Ya Vegetarian Japanese

It was one of those it's too beautiful to stay indoors and let's go spend it outdoors day. So I decided to spent the afternoon in the Mission district, exploring the fun boutiques and quaint little shops. I walked passed this restaurant and was really intrigued by it, Cha Ya vegetarian Japanese? How wonderful, now vegetarian would not be deprived of Japanese food! After spending the afternoon in the strong wind, I'm dying for some hot soup so we ordered the sukiyaki, Cha Ya roll and stuffed eggplant. The flavor is really good but most of it are rather sweet and a lot of the items are deep fried. Nonetheless it's really good and I would love to go again to try other stuff, there are way too many options to choose from. Also, it's really packed, so if you plan to go, go earlier and bring cash (because it's cash only).

Barracuda!

All work and no play makes Sunshine a plain Jane. Thanks to Groupon, we got a $30 voucher for half the price. So on a beautiful Saturday evening I went to have dinner with C at Barracuda Sushi. I have been craving for sushi for a while, but seriously, with only the 2 of us we cannot really order a lot. So we only ordered our usual favourites, agedashi tofu and spinach salad. But since it was a new opening, we decided to try out the Fried Suzuki drizzled with garlic oil and Baraccuda sushi.

Now, what is Suzuki? It is a type of Japanese Seabass. Woah, this was really good. The thinly sliced Suzuki was lightly pan fried and drizzled in garlic oil garnished with coriander leaves. The fish was slightly raw but because of the richness and the freshness of the meat, it was very satisfying. It has been a while since I have had such a satisfying sushi. As for the Baraccuda (soft shell crab, avocado, mangoes and salmon) was also very good. It has everything that I love in one dish, what can you not love about it? Good thing is we bought 2 $30 vouchers, which means we would be coming back soon for second round! *grin*

As the song goes...BARACCUDA! *burp*

Yahoooooo! Kahoo....

There's 2 things I've been trying to avoid - meat & spicy food.

Ya right. Been saying that for years and I still couldn't stop.

So over the weekend, we went to visit Datuk and Datin - The Ramen Connoisseur.

They took us to their favourite ramen spot in San Jose - Kahoo.

Like any other good ramen place, this place is small, and serves only ramen, there's not much non ramen choices but they do have some mini rice bowl set.

I'm usually very finicky when I try out a new place, but this time, somehow, when I looked at the menu, that particular ramen was calling out to me. I see nothing but that line on the menu :

"Spicy ramen comes with mince pork, egg, bean sprouts, leeks and menma". (Note : menma = bamboo shoots). 

Datuk and Datin also highly recommend the "fresh wasabi, bamboo shoots, egg" mini rice bowl set. Within 5 minutes the food came. 

Tada!

This is my spicy ramen, I love the flavour of the minced meat and to my pleasant surprise - the ramen! It's thin ramen, it's the first time I've ever had thin ramen and it's so much nicer slurping this ramen instead of slurping the normal ramen. Spicy? Quite. Datuk gave me a piece tissue before the noodle came and he said I'll be needing it, he was right. But the spicy ramen tastes really really good. Best ever if you eat it during winter. *Aaaah....*


Shio Ramen : Salt based soup with chasu pork.

Kotteri Miso Ramen. Really good fatty pork with a slight spicy miso soup.

And this? This is the fresh wasabi, bamboo shoots, egg mini rice bowl set. It's not as 'spicy' as the usual wasabi and the combination  of rice, fresh wasabi sauce and sesame oil makes the flavour very refreshing and I'd probably order this instead of a bowl of ramen when I go again the next round. Frankly speaking, the bowl of ramen is way too big for me, why don't they serve kids' size?

And what's after a full full meal? Wii TIME!

I love this Rayman Raving Crazy Rabbit!!! The games are so hilarious! Kudos to the creator. Hahaha....

What a great way to spend the Saturday afternoon.... :)

Oshima - Brooklyn, NY

The day before my birthday.

Getting hungry at 9pm in Brooklyn on a Friday night. Looked up Yelp. Hmm...what shall we have today? Japanese or Thai? Both have equally good reviews and just around the corner... *thinking*

Japanese it is - Oshima.

We ordered the Seaweed Salad, Shitake Mushroom, Age Tofu, Ginger Squid, Wasabi Conch, Winter Roll and King Crab Tempura Roll - OISHI Neh..... 

And the clock struck 12 and we had bubbles and fizzed up my brain.. *Hiccup*

Hehehee....

Ukkokei Ramen Ron

My Japanese friend, told us that there's a really good ramen place in Manila. Ooh...then it is definitely a must try!

So after the tiring scuba weekend, we went to have ramen before heading home. This place is apparently, one of the best ramen place in town!

I had the Ukkokei Shoyu Koumi - Ramen with Shoyu Sauce. The distinctive flavour is from the deep fried minced shallots and it can be quite bitter towards the end. But the ramen is so chewy and the soup is so 'comforting' it's a great meal after a tired day. :)

My friend had the cold ramen in sesame sauce.

From the looks of it, you know it's good isn't it? *grin*

Well, it is. I was very happy, I must say, this is definitely the best weekend I've had.

And it's March already, I hope March is as eventful as February has. :)

Around Manila and All About Food!

On the first day  we arrived in Manila, we went to Senju for a 'light meal', wah...the Japanese meal is so amazingly good and for the meal set it's so worth it. As usual, I was too busy eating and forgot to take all the photos. My bad.

So what is interesting in Manila is the public transportation.

Jeepneys are so common here and each of them is uniquely designed. Of course, there's also the taxis, the lrts, the buses and etc. But jeepneys seem to be the most popular transportation ever.

And in Manila, there's nothing much you can do, it's mostly mall hopping. This is Greenbelt, a high end shopping mall with 5 buildings surrounding a garden with a chapel in the middle.

These lampshades are made of sea shells, something uniquely Philippine.

Eating at Greenbelt can be quite expensive but the food is REALLY good. Haha... sorry. It's all about food, I know, I can't help it. :) We went to a Thai restaurant called People's Palace.

This is a Thai salad with Roast Pork! 

Wah....Philipine is a pork nation I must say! 

Yumm.. it sure is good!

Fish in red curry sauce.

Chicken in green curry sauce.

Pineapple mint yogurt and lemon grass ginger juice.

Then of course, there's always my comfort food! 

KOREAN! KIMCHI!

The Crowne Plaza bakery has a discount of 50% off on all pastries at 7pm, how can I miss this delightful deal right?

Muahahahahaaa.....

So we have J-co Donuts, Big Apple Donuts, Missy Donuts, Dunkin Donuts, but we don't have Krispy Kreme! These are the few Krispy Kreme Valentine's Day special donuts. Extremely sweet but I couldn't resist and still wanna try it. 

So what's your plan for Valentine's Day? :)