French Restaurant "Montmorency"

Nearby french restaurant
5,000yen~10,000yen

If you have the same course in the center Tokyo, you'd be paying twice...
GOOD TO LIVE IN A PROVINCE TOKYO.

birthday cake-it's a present from the restaurant!

Montmorency

What's it like if a culinary school student throws a home party

I was invited to this lovely home party held by my classmate.
Being a student, she works in publishing and lives a very good life. Her sweet home is just few steps from "Shirogane Takanawa"station, which is known as a district where only elegant people can live;-)

Though my expectations were high, she really went way beyond them. She really can cook:-)
She told me that she loved alcohol so much that she's now making her own liquer. There were over 20 bottles of hand-made umeshu :-)

 I didn't know till she told me that it's prohibited by law to "serve" hand-made alcohol "for profit", or even "move" outside home! I guess this is the most ridiculous law ever but under Japanese law, if you make a liquer at home and bring it to a picnic, you're done ( Until 1962, it was illegal just to "make" own liquer at home ). It's all about tax.

Also I really liked her idea of mixing "chinese cabbage" in curry. You don't feel cabbageness at all but it absolutely enhances sweetness and makes a nice and smooth texture.  So many things to learn.

Cuisine Francaise 2

It was about potatoes again... This dish's called " HACHIS PARMENTIER " with sauted minced beef sandwitched with mashed potatoes and then "gratine" with gruieeere(dunno how to spell it!:-0) cheese on top. Ooooff! how could it be not tasty with such lovely ingredients(though I don't like beef...I'd replace with simmered Sauerkraut for a vegetarian version) ...with this kind of dish, no matter who makes this, the result will be pretty much the same. This is so simple to make.

This is tearcher's sample.

pretty classical presentation..

And this is our group's

looks good eh:^)

Cooking lesson- Cuisine Francaise :-)

It was all about cutting, cutting, and cutting. We learned the basical cutting technique in cuisine francaise, called "chateau". (though I'm not sure if this is really used or a kind of out-of-date technique in France...) After, we learned how to make simple and tasty dishes out of cut and chopped potatoes. Yummy .

Teacher's sample.

Potage Parmentier   Potato soup:-)

this is our group's.

please dont laugh



I practiced till 2am:^0 practice makes perfect?



How to make dried fish in a Japanese style

It's sandfish. One of the most delicious fish, which I belive used to be very pricy but lately is getting cheaper. Maybe it has been a good season:-) And I found a dish of sandfish (like 20 pcs)  just for 200yen(!) in a fish market...why wouldn't I get it:-)


We Japanese like eating fish in a lot of ways;we eat them cooked, raw, grilled, simmered, fried... and DRIED(then we cook).
Dried fish is called"HIMONO" and can be a very good snack for your drink(:-)), as well as a regular meal. Sometimes it's marinated in a soy sauce-based liquid (ex:soy sauce, sake, water, sugar, Mirin)then dried. you can also sprinkle a little bit of sesam or something like that.

When you buy so much fish that it's impossible to consume in a day or 2 while your fridge is overloaded, drying is a good alternative.

After removing gut, marinate for 1-2(or more)hours in salted water.

Wipe well and dry in a cool and preferably airy place. I made up this set out of gabbage:-)

let it hang like this overnight ~ 1&half day. It doesn't stink than it seems.

Marinate version

 

Grill.



SO TASTY :-)

Fish!

And today I tried doing by myself what we learned at our class!
And in order to get the best food for dinner, my family and I spent half the day doing groceries and the other half eating:-)) A good way to spend Sunday.

rice w/peas & boiled shrimp-dumpling-like something japanese

rock fish!!

amber jack-the king of sashimi

crispy-fried mackrel & sandfish

leftover fish... RIP in a pool of marinade

********************
あじ　鯵　mackrel
はたはた　鰰　sandfish
メバル　rock fish
ブリ　鰤　amber jack
*****************

I like fish. But I like scones just as much....:-)

There are plenty of scone shops in Tokyo (and of course you can buy them at any regular bakeries).
Cheese cake, Donut, and Scone--they're Tokyo's big 3 in the sweet snack industry.

Japanese cuisine lesson

Hello there, so every Friday, we have a practical lesson, where we learn how to prepare dishes by first, watching our teacher's demonstration, and then dividing up to groups and doing it again by ourselves.

This is TEACHER's work, and below is...

What we did. It tasted OK, but that's it. No applause to chefs(us)!

Still missing a lot of things to make maney out of this simple bawl of rice and a cup of soup.

Our group. Im the one taking the pic.

Job seeking 2

Uuuuuufff...my job seeking is going not too good. I mean, it's going nowhere. I'm stuck.

It's really easy to get part-time jobs in Tokyo UNLESS you are picky.
So I've never had problem seeking part time jobs while I was a student. (I've worked at over 15 places for different types of jobs and never got rejected in job interviews. I'm good at pretending a good worker at the first sight.:-p)
Back then, I was ok with so-so jobs for a so-so wage.

But this time, it's different. I want to choose the best place for my experience as a cook.
Plus it's also a matter of money. I have to work out ways to make money enough to start my business in a short period of time.
So I'm still deciding how to balance out "experience" and "money". Hopefuly I'll get a job fullfilling the both of my aims.

(the one I applied the other day was not what I expected. so I withdrew again.)

On the other hand, being stuck I start feeling I'm being a bit too picky,
so now I'm appling for a job at this group called " Maison Kayser".
http://www.maisonkayser.co.jp/index.html

This is a famous Japanese boulangerie group (there's some connection with Eric Kaser Paris but I'm not sure how they're related exaxtly), and I've been a big fan of their bread, cakes and evreything.

But!
Experience- not as a cook, but as a boulanger!!!
Money-you don't even wanna know!
(side note-work hour is like from 6 in the morning )

Maison Kayser is the best

Maybe I'm not thinking straight, but why not try....