Did you ever watch the real Iron Chef? If you did, you would remember Iron Chef Chinese, Chen Kenichi, my own personal favorite. Turns out that he was born in Japan, to ethnically Chinese parents. He also runs a bunch of Sichuan restaurants in Tokyo. Dan is lucky enough to work in the building that houses one of his restaurants. Of course, we couldn't pass up this opportunity!
We had a lot of trouble deciphering all the different set menus, but the lunches definitely range in price.
Dan's appetizer: some sort of 'sashimi of the day' salad
My appetizer: 3 types of steamed dim sum, a spinach dumpling (yum), a meatball with sticky rice (so-so), and I forget what the purplish bao-zi is, but it was good!
This was my main course: a seafood noodle soup. Terrific! Full of lobster and scallops and real chunks of seafood. The flavor was also very strong without being overpowering.
Dan's set menu came with my favorite, fried mantou.
Wonton soup
First of Dan's main dishes: chili shrimp. Quite good, with very succulent and large shrimp, but it tasted much like my mom's version of the dish. More expensive, though. ;) Well, to be fair, this was a bit better than my mom's version, but I bet my mom could make this too.
Dish #2: Ma-po tofu. I tried to talk Dan out of getting this, as I tend to think that mapo tofu is kind of boring. However, this one was very good, and very very spicy. Chef Chen Kenichi knows how to use his spices! I also liked the fact that it was presented on this black tray, so that the inevitable splattering of the red oil doesn't get all over the white tablecloth.
Dessert: sakura ice cream with tapioca and coconut milk
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Very nice post.
ReplyDeleteJapanese people are surprisingly good at making Chinese food. My family and I stayed at this hotel (for free) in Japan once because an airplane delay caused us to miss our connection to HK, and the only restaurant that was open was a Chinese restaurant run by Japanese people. The food was better than most of the Chinese restaurants in the States!
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