Miku

A few days before Christmas, my co-workers and I went to a nearby Japanese restaurant on West Hastings called Miku. To those familiar with the area, the space previously housed The Spotted Prawn restaurant, but this new Japanese spot took over earlier in 2009. A few of my co-workers had paid Miku a visit prior to this, and they were very impressed. The restaurant's speciality is 'aburi' style sushi, which is lightly seared (with a blowtorch!) fish with light French sauces.

We had reservations for 12:30 and when we arrived, the place was entirely packed. The restaurant has a very open feel, with high black ceilings and amoeba-like light fixtures floating from it. Lots of light from its large windows, granite, curves, pristine dark stone tables, and sparkling dinnerware.

Three of us got the same thing: the Miku Zen ($20), which is a selection of 4 items from the kitchen, 4 items from the sushi bar, and miso soup. The food was impeccably presented, and oh so beautiful to look at, from the shapely lacquer miso bowl, to the wooden box that cradled the 4 kitchen dishes, to the white, leaf-shaped plate that held the sushi pieces. It was a little hard to dig in because it was so gorgeous.

The kitchen items consisted of: soba noodles in a sauce, Chicken Nanban, Aburi Tuna, and a wakame and green salad. I didn't care for the noodles, as they sat in a strange and bland cornstarch thickened sauce, and while the salad was okay, with nice textures of seaweed and fresh greens, the dressing severely lacked any acid. It was crying for lemon, or ponzu, or vinegar....

However, the Chicken Nanban, a kind of high-end chicken nugget topped with a tartar sauce, was amazing. The cubed chicken breast morsels were moist, tender and very well seasoned. The other highlight was the wonderful aburi tuna. The tuna was slightly warm, with a distinct lightly grilled taste. This was so good.

The sushi selection was equally impressive. This consisted of ebi, tuna, and two pieces of Aburi Salmon Oshi. What's great about each of the sushi pieces is that they came topped with its own sauce, so you don't have to fiddle with any soy sauce. This allows the fish to stand out, I think, instead of possibly being overpowered by soy. The ebi and tuna were both quite good, but the stand out was definitely the aburi salmon. Each piece was topped with a creamy sauce and a slice of jalapeno, and was still warm from the searing. This was delicious. The slight charring brought out the flavour of the fish, while the sauce complemented the salmon's fattiness, and the jalapeno slice cut through the fat and gave the bite a nice warm kick.

The miso soup had chunks of tofu and wavy pieces of seaweed, but it was pretty standard.

One of my co-workers ordered the sushi tart, which consisted of layers of rice (not described on the menu), salmon, avocado, ebi and tobiko. She seemed to enjoy this.

I definitely recommend Miku, for those looking for beautifully presented and tasty Japanese food. I was very impressed by their unique dishes, and would love to taste more aburi-style sushi. Delicious to look at as it is to eat!

Happy New Year!

It's the first shiny, newborn day of 2010, and I wish everyone the most wonderful and peaceful year and decade ahead. Thanks to all of you that read my blog, the very small handful of you!

Meanwhile, here are some pictures of a walk in the fog over the holidays on Cedar, Vancouver Island. We spent the holidays visiting Shane's mom in Cedar, and his dad in Victoria.

over the bridge....

island advertising....

the river....

a fish carcass. In the summer apparently you can see the salmon run from here...

the water was nearly frozen over....

Midam Rice Cake House

After our meal at Bool Chul Pan, Ana and Kay wanted to take us to a Korean dessert place that they had recently discovered. It's located in the same plaza on North Road, but on the lower level, tucked in an obscure corner. To be honest, we wouldn't really know that this place was there if we weren't led to it. Incidentally, you can find some reviews from other bloggers here and here.

As we entered the restaurant, I was surprised at how spacious and large the restaurant was; the place was bright with florescent light and had high ceilings and a number of dark wooden tables and chairs. Off to the side, there is a glass enclosed display of miniatures and various rice cakes that people could order before hand for a special occasion.

As we sat, we were given an extensive dessert menu. Even though we just had a large meal, we still decided on a dessert each. They all ranged from $6-9 dollars, and are HUGE.

Kay got a persimmon slush, and this tasted exactly like the fruit. It was light and refreshing.

I had the green tea ice cream and rice cake. This came with a side of sweet beans and a drizzling of strawberry sauce. I enjoyed this--the ice cream went well with the rice cake. However, I would say that because the rice cake was this huge slab at the bottom, the dessert was a little heavy and hard to get into.

Shane ordered the coffee and red bean slush. This arrived in a huge pile in a really big bowl. Quite impressive. First there is the huge pile of shaved ice and coffee, then the sweet red bean, then the ice cream. Around this mountain were small pieces of plain rice cake. I'd never seen anything like it. Taste-wise, this was interesting. The rice cake pieces were soft and chewy, the coffee-soaked ice crunchy, bitter and cold, the red bean sweet and yielding, and the ice cream cold, sweet and creamy. It was an unusual and exciting experience.

Ana had a similar dessert, the red bean slush. It was pretty similar to the one above, except that her rice cakes were coated with a peanut powder, which gave the rice cake a subtly sweet, nutty flavour. Of all the desserts, I liked this one the best.

We were also given complementary little rice cakes with a sweet filling. We all thought that was a nice touch.

I can honestly say that this was one of the most unusual desserts I've ever tried. It was fun and really eye-opening. We would definitely come back for more of the chewy, tender, rice cakes!

Bool Chul Pan Korean Hot Grill

On our morning walks, we often pass by the complex on North Road, which houses a big Korean supermarket and a generous handful of Korean restaurants. The supermarket has always been our destination for seasoned nori, delicious kimbap, and Korean/Japanese goods. A few months ago, we noticed this new Korean restaurant with a large yellow sign, but we always passed it by (out of respect for the dear departed Thai Son location, maybe).

A couple of months ago, I ran across this first review from Chow Times and another rave review from 604 Foodtography, and I have been curious ever since.

Two weeks ago we went with a couple of friends, Ana and Kay. It's always a little daunting to go to a new place, but thankfully, our friends are Korean and knew what they were doing, so we left everything up to them.

We arrived at around 6pm on a weekday, so there weren’t too many customers yet. The restaurant itself is large and dimly lit, simply decorated, and filled with solid wooden tables and chairs.

Incidentally, our friends had been to the restaurant before and weren't impressed. One of the reasons was the really poor banchan. There was the usual stewed potato, blanched and seasoned sprouts, kimchi, pickled turnips and pickled veggies. The dishes were not too tasty, I'll admit.

We decided to share the combination dinner ($39.99) which came with tofu soup, seafood pancake, and a panfried item. There was a choice of which kind of item we wanted, and we decided on the squid and pork belly.

First arrived the tofu soup. It was pretty good--the broth had a nice spicy saltiness and the tofu was soft and delicate. We all liked this, except for Kay who detected that the tofu might have been slightly off. The rest of us were oblivious to this, however.

The seafood pancake, though quite large, was a big disappointment. The pancake was flat, soggy, and barely cooked in the middle. The taste was very bland, and wasn't even helped by the accompanying sauce.

Next came the main item, which arrived on a burner in a huge rectangular metal pan, which was loaded with cabbage, onion, squid, pork, and spicy chili sauce. The server started frying up the food in front of us, which was really interesting. However, after about a minute of this, she left us to our own devices. We asked our friends about this type of restaurant and they said it was pretty common in Korea, except that it's more of a dish that you have when you're out drinking.

This was good, though none of us loved it. Basically, it's not really a dish that you can screw up. The pork didn't have much taste, and the cabbage included the core. Hmmm. The great thing was there was a lot of food. It really boggles the eye to see this huge amount of food at your table, you know?

We knew there was supposed to be fried rice after we ate most of the stuff, but we had to wait a real long time. This was weird because we were about the only people eating at the restaurant at the time. Anyway, we called them, and the rice was fried in the same metal pan, and it soaked up most of the left over sauce. The rice just tasted okay.

We had another long wait for our bill. At the end of the meal, we all were very full, but none of us had that happy feeling that accompanies a really good meal. But at least the company was good!

A Message from Pique

Merry Christmas...

...and Happy Holidays!

Little Brown Bear

This is a new bear that I finished crocheting yesterday, just in time for gift giving. He's a little smaller than Mr. Blue Bear, but he's made of really nice 100% Peruvian wool and a small batch of Noro Silk Garden.

He is a gift for Shane's grandmother, to add to her stuffed menagerie.

This is what he looked like before he was sewed together.

Christmas Knitting!

The pre-Christmas time hasn't been too stressful for me, partly because I started knitting my presents over the summer! It seemed a little absurd to be knitting in August, but it sure has paid off. It's brilliant--we haven't fought crowds at shopping malls or stressed about what to get everybody.

This is a little peak at the scarves I knitted as presents. I hope people like them!