Guest of Honor

Dude! Is that a bow on your head????

Pizza Sunday

Yesterday's lunch.

Kai Lana

New restaurant Kai Lana was a pleasant surprise. I had the lunch special with two options (tempura and gyoza) and he had it with three options (tempura, spicy garlic chicken, and beef teriyaki). Lunch came with miso soup, rice, and salad.

We were both amazed at the huge portion size. This photo doesn't do it justice, but the tempura was piled high and originally there were five dumplings. He seemed to think if we came back in a year, it might not be so big.

All the food tasted delicious. It's hard not to compare sushi/Japanese restaurants we frequent, but I must say Goshi's win the quality prize, and Kai Lana wins the price prize. And although Kai Lana isn't much to look from the outside, inside was clean with no fishy or weird smell, and the server was super nice.

Also they do an abundance of "Special" rolls, and this fascinates me, so we'll be returning soon!!!

You are what you eat

Hey ya there, sweetie dumpling!

Wanna go hot tubbin' sometime?

Sometime soon?

I was reading Gamene's post on making mandoo, a Kimchee dumpling. And as I scanned the list of her ingredients, I thought Hey! I have most of those. Plus I have my own Kimchee, now aged just over a month.

So I made the filling and put it in the fridge and pulled out a recent recipe from the L.A. Times on how to make dumplings from flour and water.

Normally I have the pre-made version at home, but I just didn't and I don't live close to a market and what the hay! I have flour and water. I even had the preferred unbleached bread flour - more gluten, you see.

Pressing together the dumplings together with fingers is the right of the cook. See the ones I did in the back row? haha! but I remembered that years ago (like in ancient times, 25 years ago), I'd bought a dumpling maker. It was the Frugal Gourmet's brand. Anyone remember him? He had a cooking show and wrote books. Historical food was his specialty - I enjoyed going around the world with his recipes.

Well since I seldom throw anything away, I found that dumpling maker (the white thing in the above photo) right next to the jello salad forms in the back of the bottom cabinet. Look how the dumplings resembles the rising sun. Well, see my banner for that image.

Not like my little ugly handmade purses. (Handmade tasted better though!)