Salmon, Snapper, and Tuna Sushi

I have recently become inspired after watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi, my new favorite documentary film. I highly recommend this movie to everyone, especially if you are at all interested in food. It is about a 90-something year old sushi chef named Jiro who has been making sushi for 75 years. His restaurant is located in a subway station in Tokyo, Japan and has received three Michelin stars. Experimented with some sushi tonight. I bought salmon, tuna, and snapper at Whole Foods because they are good raw and arrived at Whole Foods this morning, so they were (probably) the freshest. The salmon actually tasted the best. I didn't do much thinking outside the box in terms of filling for the rolls mainly because I have only made sushi once before, and I remember having a frustrating time doing it, so I just stuck to simple stuff. With the help of my family, I used cucumber, carrot, avocado, and fish for the fillings.

It all tasted great and I am real excited to make it again.

Sono vs. Flights: Battle Noodles

The most recent battle in the Fire in the Triangle cooking series "went down" last night in Raleigh. It was my first time at such an event, but having watched numerous cooking battles on TV I had a good idea of what to expect. Although I have never been to Sono nor Flights, I was pleased (in general...) with what they cooked last night. We were served a total of three courses from each side, equalling a total of six dishes. The secret ingredient was noodles. Being forced to use noodles probably was not ideal for these chefs, given that they would probably prefer to make their own from scratch, however the clearly worked around this.

While Chef Michael Lee of Sono was responsible for my personal favorite dish, Soy Braised Pork with Beet Infused Sweet Potato Puree, Crispy Wonton and Iced Green Onion Salad, he was defeated by opposing Chef Dean Wendel of Flights. While Lee's soy braised pork was my highest scoring course, the "pro" judges obviously thought differently as they awarded it a very low score. Their low score was likely due to the use (or lack of proper use) of the secret ingredient, noodles (in this case, a fried wonton wrapper was used as a sort of garnish for the potato puree, see below). Another possible reason why Lee lost was due to his lack of a desert course. Instead of including a desert course, Lee decided to include two starter size courses, leaving Chef Wendel's desert to stand by itself. In fact, Chef Wendel's desert was the best of any of his three courses, giving him a big leg up on his competition.

Regardless of the scoring, both chefs preformed quite well in such a high pressure environment.

Chef Lee's Soy Braised Pork with Beet Infused Sweet Potato Puree, Crispy Wonton and Iced Green Onion Salad (note the use of the wonton wrapper. Creative? not so much)

 Chef Wendel's Wonton Pistachio Crusted Blackberry Cake with White Chocolate, Strawberry Sherbet and Pistachio Wonton Cigarette

Photo Credits: Competition Dining Series

Chirba Chirba Dumpling Truck

 Visited the Chirba Chirba Dumpling food truck in Carrboro this afternoon. They were located in the Cliff's Meat Market parking lot in Carrboro. Though I have seen and heard about them many times before, this was my first time actually trying their food. I give them 10 out of 10 stars. I got five Bayside Chives and five Juicy Buns. They were both awesome. The dough was perfectly chewy and the filling was full of flavor. Additionally, they have about five different sauces to choose from which were all wonderful additions.

I highly recommend this place to everyone, especially if dumplings are your favorite food like me!

See my review of Chirba  Chirba on Yelp.

Jujube of Chapel Hill

Hands down one of the best restaurants I have been to in a while. I will admit, I am a huge fan of asian cuisine, and an upscale, though unpretentious, asian fusion restaurant such as Jujube is an ideal restaurant for me. Everything that we ordered was bold, had good-sized portions, and full of flavor, and it seemed like the other menu options were no different.

We started out with fried calamari and pork belly dumplings. Fried calamari is a staple on many menus, probably because it is hard to mess-up, however at the same time it is not usually a dish that is outstanding. Well, this calamari was outstanding. One of the things that made it so good was the "roasted ginger aioli and scallion oil" that came on the side. We ordered the pork belly dumplings because 1) dumplings are arguably my favorite food and 2) because nearly everyone else on Yelp raved about them. They were very good, but nothing extraordinary as they seemed slightly one-dimensional in flavor.

For the main course I ordered the Fried Chicken with XO sauce, garlic studded grits, and pea shoots. Ridiculously good. Fried chicken is not something you typically see on an upscale asian menu, however it was amazing. The XO sauce that was drizzled over the chicken is actually the "sauce", or broth, from their "Angry Seafood" soup which added a nice kick (the "Angry Seafood" soup/stew was very spicy) to the chicken. The creamy garlic grits were so amazing they melted in your mouth.

I had been to Jujube many years ago and do not remember it being anywhere near as good as it was this time. I think they have improved tremendously recently and it is definitely worth going if you haven't been in a while or if you have never been at all!

Jujube of Chapel Hill