Sakana on Foothill Blvd

The best Japanese restaurant in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mtns. Well, I have not tried them all, but I loved this place. The staff was super nice. The lunches were served two-tiered. Don't forget to look at the lower plate (waitstaff says to bento person Ha Ha!) 

Look at the lovely yumminess! 

Pretz

Not too long ago, I hooked up with a friend of a friend, well a friend of a blog friend. I guess the friend has a blog too and he became one of my early followers (love all you early followers!) and anyhoo I heard from my blog friend that the happy Hello Panda crackers were something that he turned her onto, so when I said Hello!, I asked him what his favorite Japanese snacks were.

He said Pretz.

And this is why I went to the Asian store and bought a boatload of snacks.

It turns out that Pretz are not available at this store and really the only place I had ever seen them was at J-List. So a orderin' we shall go. High Ho the merry O. A orderin' we shall go. (Who knew that the O stood for online.)

I also got some Sake drops, Beer drops, and gyoza drops. Gyoza are pork dumpings, and the drops taste just like that, only candified. One word: Awful.

But I love the beer drops and the bacon Pretz. Love bacon!

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!)