Make Your Own Sushi Night
Yesterday, I started off by waking up early to help my dad move out of his office. It didn’t take nearly as much time as we thought, so we headed to the South Austin Trailer Park and Eatery to eat lunch at Torchy’s Tacos, even though it was pretty insanely hot outside. I decided to try the Brush Fire, which is Jamaican jerk chicken, grilled jalapenos, mango, sour cream, and cilantro with Diablo sauce. The taco and the guacamole that we shared were both absolutely amazing. This was my first time there, and I will definitely be going back.
When we got back to my parent’s house my mom and I headed off to the MT Supermarket to get some things for our make your own sushi night. I think we spent a few hours there, going up and down all the isles. We ended up getting a lot of stuff, including pickled daikon, all the ingredients to make the sushi rice, roasted seaweed, and some stuff to go in the fresh spring rolls we were going to make for appetizers. We picked up a couple shrimp, a fresh lobster, and some yellowfin tuna at HEB before heading back to the house. On the way back from HEB, we noticed that there is a new Torchy’s Tacos going in at Anderson Mill Rd and 620. Isn’t that convenient?
We made the spring rolls pretty fast, since all we had to do for those was cook the shrimp and dip the rice paper sheets in warm water. They ended up being delicious, even though I would have rather had peanut sauce instead of hoisin sauce. It took a bit to get everything ready for the sushi, especially the rice, but once the lobster was done and the tuna was seared we were ready to make it. Everyone did pretty well rolling their own sushi. They didn’t look as pretty as you’d find in a restaurant, but since we were able to put exactly what we wanted in them, I think we all enjoyed it. For a few people it was fun, but doing this at a large party might get a little complicated. If someone didn’t like fish, we could have easily grilled some chicken or steak to put in there.
Anyways, today I spent most of my day playing World of Warcraft, playing with Bella (my dachshund), and sleeping. It was a nice relaxing day, but nothing eventful happened.
26th Birthday!
I started off my day by cooking 100 pounds of chicken fajitas, and 50 pounds of beef fajitas. Once it cooled off, I started to slice them into strips. After I did about two foil pans worth of the chicken, my knife slipped and took out a good chunk of my fingernail. I was finally able to get it to stop bleeding after 10 minutes or so, put on a bandage and a glove and kept going. Of course, it took me more time because I couldn’t put any pressure on my index finger. After I was done with all of that, they let me go home early because it was my birthday. If it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have made it to my parent’s house on time.
We headed to Uchi, and of course we hit traffic. The reservation was at 5:45 PM but we didn’t get there until 6:05 PM, but there wasn’t really much we could have done to be there any earlier. We got sat right away, which surprised me. The restaurant was full but our table was still there waiting for us.
Luckily, we were there during happy hour, so we tried a few different things from there, along with a couple of the tastings. Everything was amazing, and the flavors all went so well together. My favorite was the Tako Natsu, which is baby flower octopus that were fried in a perfectly seasoned breading with silver leaf sorrel, seabean, almond, and lime. I didn’t get a picture of it, but you can see in the posts below some of the other food we ordered. I couldn’t leave without getting a cookbook. I may not be able to recreate most of the dishes, but it is very good inspiration for coming up with my own ideas.
I just wanted to thank everyone for an awesome birthday and for the awesome gifts I received. I can’t wait to use most of them, including my gallon of Tabasco sauce. Hahaha.
Bacon Steakie
Uchi. Pork belly, watermelon radish, citrus, and Thai basil.
Toro
Uchi. Bluefin belly sashimi.
Machi Cure
Uchi. Smoked baby yellowtail, yucca crisp, marcona almond, Asian pear, and garlic brittle.
Shun No Kaki
Uchi. Shibumi oyster, yellow watermelon, lime, and Thai chili.
Bánh Mì For Lunch, Fion Wine Pub for Dinner
It was really nice not having to be at work until noon. I was finally able to get the extra sleep I’ve been needing, since I wasn’t able to rest any last night. I did decide to wake up a bit early though, and pickup some lunch for the girls at work. I stopped by the Baguette House in the Chinatown Center on North Lamar and got some sandwiches, which are absolutely delicious. If you’ve never had one, it is a French baguette with grilled meat topped with pickled daikon and carrots, onion, cilantro, jalapeno, mayonnaise, and soy sauce. The Vietnamese name for it is “Bánh Mì”.
When I got to work I finished making the King Ranch Chicken Casseroles for tomorrow, and headed off to Restaurant Depot. The first thing I noticed were the shopping carts that are available. One of the choices is something that looks like what they use in hotels to bring your luggage up to your room, and the other was a large flatbed cart that looked incredibly hard to navigate around the isles. I was right. Once we started adding the boxes to that flatbed, it became almost impossible to maneuver. Luckily there weren’t many people in there, otherwise I probably would have ran into a few of them. I wish we had more time to look around, because I totally would have gone through each isle. If you didn’t have to own a restaurant to shop there, I would totally use them to buy all of my groceries for home.
After work, I decided to meet my parents since they just arrived in town. I wanted to pick up the fresh Kingfish that my brother and dad caught yesterday, and since everyone was hungry we decided to go to the Fion Wine Pub for dinner. We had an appetizer of calamari that were tossed in buffalo sauce, which were amazing. I would like to do something similar but with a sweet chili sauce, or maybe even Teriyaki sauce with lemongrass and sesame seeds. For my entree I had the “Austin’s Best Patty Melt”, which as far as I am concerned lived up to the name. The Texas toast was perfectly buttered and toasted, and the bacon was in nice thick strips instead of the cheap thin sliced bacon like most restaurants serve. I would have liked some mayonnaise on it, or some mustard, but that is more of a personal preference.
Overall, I had a pretty good day today. It was a good way to finish up my year as being 25 years old. Tomorrow I turn 26!
Shepherd’s Pie and Chicken Parmesan
Alright, so the flank steak turned out a little tough, but the marinades were good. I needed to let them absorb the flavor for longer. I only gave them about an hour, instead of overnight like I usually do. The Borscht was okay, but since all I had were beets to put in there it was a little plain.
I tried two different variations of the potatoes, the only issue is that the one I think tastes better discolors it. Would you eat mashed potatoes if they were a slight pinkish orange? I may have to figure out a way to make them taste similar without affecting their appearance too much. Also, do you prefer skins in your potatoes or no skins? Personally, I love potato skins and feel kind of cheated when I don’t get any. There is also a lot of waste involved when everything is totally edible…and delicious.
At work, I spent most of the day making Shepherd’s Pie. I ended up with one bus tub full of mashed potatoes and another full of nothing but ground beef, onions, and mixed veggies. I am hoping it was enough to feed all 100+ people. Before that though I made some fried chicken for Chicken Parmesan and used the garlic croutons I made last week for the breading. Best idea ever! I just had to add a little more salt and they were already perfectly seasoned. I don’t think any of it was left by the time we picked up everything.
Tomorrow I should finally get to go to Restaurant Depot. Next week is super busy, so we need to get most of our food while we can. There won’t be time to get anything after this coming Sunday. I am probably going to be like a kid in a candy store. I could probably spend all day in a store like Restaurant Depot. A Sysco warehouse? An entire week…easily.
Welcome!
Welcome! Thank you for visiting. My birthday is on Thursday, July 28th and I will be going to dinner at Uchi with my parents. I will definitely be taking some pictures to share with you all. Currently, I am working on some ideas for my catering company. I have two halves of a flank steak, each with different marinades I am trying out, and some Asian inspired mashed potatoes. I also have a Borscht going with some beets that I purchased at the Cedar Park Farmer’s Market last Saturday. Yummy!