Eventful weekend...Kamado-san x Anson Mills Hand-picked herloom rice

I returned from a 8-day business trip to NYC Friday night, then the next day started in full swing. I went shopping for ingredients in the morning and got ready for a donabe event in the afternoon.

On Saturday, I hosted a cooking demonstration with double-lid donabe rice cooker, KAMADO-SAN, at Cookbook in Echo Park. Cookbook is a very popular gourmet store with strong focus on top-quality products. In their exhibition space, more than 50 kinds of imported rice from Japan were displayed as part of projects by Common Grains.

I made 2 kinds of rice dishes (tori soboro gohan, and orange butter brown rice) and so many people came to see the action and taste these dishes. It was a lot of fun!

On Sunday, I was part of charity luncheon in conjunction with Common Grains' charity panel discussion. I got to make inari sushi with Anson Mills' hand-picked new crop herloom long grain rice (Carolina Gold Rice).

I made two batches of sushi rice with Anson Mills rice with jumbo-size Kamado-san! The rice was seasoned with the mixture of brown rice vinegar, raw brown sugar, sea salt, fresh yuzu juice and ginger juice. The aroma was superb! Then, it was mixed with amazu-pickled lotus root (I marinated overnight) and edamame. It came out really great. Because the rice was cooked in Kamado-san, it turned out really fluffy and aromatic. Rice tended not to stick together like short-grain rice, and it fell apart nicely once inari was popped in mouth.

It was a sunny beautiful day and everybody enjoyed the event. Mr. Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills liked my inari sushi:-)

Trip to NYC (Winter 2012)...DAY 8: Bibimbop lunch at Danji

It's been such a busy week in NYC but definitely was a good one. I was going to leave town to go back to LA in the afternoon, so I spent a couple of hours strolling in town before my departure.

It was a nice sunny day in NYC. There was a farmers market at Union Square. I saw big ostrich eggs!

Beecher's NY has a wonderful selection of cheese as well as deli. Amish Market has some unique organic items.

For lunch, I stopped by at Danji in Hell's Kitchen. It's a modern Korean restaurant, which was rewarded with a Michelin star last year.

I had Daikon Beef Soup, and Farmers Market Bibim-Bop. They were both tasty, although the bibim-bop was already a bit cold after mixing. Their homemade kochujang was very nice.

With nice full stomach, I left New York.

Trip to NYC (Winter 2012)...DAY 7: Final evening at Le Bernardin

It was our final (half) day at the trade show. We wrapped up in the afternoon. 5 days went by so fast...we had a very good market, so it felt good.

To celebrate our final evening, three of us had dinner at Le Bernardin of Chef Eric Ripert tonight. It's indeed a fine dining and everything is very elegant there. I was so looking forward to savoring the finest seafood course there. We started early, but the dining room was soon filled up with seemingly mostly local business dinner people. (Because of its internationally famed status, I originally expected more diverse crowd.)

We had a tasting menu.

Amuse-bouche - Salmon gravlax, langoustine (or ?), and butternut squash soup. Fluke - Fluke "Sashimi"; Micro Watercress, Avocado, Jalapeno-lime Broth/ Langoustine - Seared Langoustine; Mache and Wild Mushroom Salad, Foie Gras, White Balsamic Dressing...perhaps my favorite dish of the night. Really nice.

Octopus - Charred Octopus; Fermented Black Bean-Pear Sauce Vierge, Purple Basil, Ink-Miso Vinaigrette...It was one of my favorite dishes of the night. Octopus was so tender and all the flavors worked well./ Salmon - Barely Cooked Wild Salmon; Wasabi-Bean Puree, Yuzu Emulsion...salmon was poached only one side, so it was barely cooked. Very nice.

Monkfish - Roasted Monkfish; Brussels Sprouts, Mushroom Custard, Pata Negra Emulsion/ "Religieuse" - Elderflower 'Creme Mousseline', Crunchy Choux, Pear Coulis, Blackberry Powder

Cheese Plate - In addition to the tasting menu, we selected some cheeses from the cheese cart. It came with toasted bread and more butter.

Chocolate & Sweet Potato - Warm Chocolate Tart; Vanilla-Sweet Potato Sorbet/ Last nibbles

Every dish was quite impeccable and really impressive. Both the taste and presentation were with no doubt one of the highest level among all the fine restaurants in the US. We had a nice meal. The service was very professional and everybody was extremely polite. It just felt like we were constantly rushed and something wasn't clicking. And, we politely got kicked out after just 2 bottles of wine...so we went back to our hotel to drink more (ahaha). I think it's probably you have to be a VIP to really enjoy this restaurant.

In any case, I had a great 7 days with Nagatani-en people, and I will miss them until next time we see each other. They are going back to Iga tomorrow.

Trip to NYC (Winter 2012)...DAY 6: Dinner at Kanoyama

Another busy day at the trade show today. We have only half more day...it's been going so fast.

Tonight, we had dinner at Kanoyama in East Village with our business friends/ partners. They treated us to an elegant and very authentic Japanese meal. The restaurant has a pretty quiet look from outside, but once you enter, it's a lively izakaya...nice vibe!

Then, we were guided to a back room a very nice sushi counter and tables. The space is more classy and chic. We had their omakase course.

I loved the dinosaur egg-shape bowl! Inside was a sesame tofu. Very nice.

Kabura-mushi, hamaguri soup, and sashimi plate.

Baked gindara in a pouch.

Sushi and tamago...fish were freshest seasonal kinds from both Japan and US.

And, lots of sake...they have a very nice sake list.

I enjoyed the dinner very much. Very high standard.