Shiki Yoshi Japanese Cuisine Restaurant

Last week, my friend and I decided to go for Japanese food. One of them mentioned Shiki Yoshi Japanese Cuisine as one of her friends brother is working there. I've never notice Shiki Yoshi Japanese Restaurant before. My friend said that it is open for quite some time. Maybe I seldom went to Tanjong Tokong area. Or maybe, it don't have much decoration on it premise. Also signboard not very attractive. It's just a simple bungalow with no decoration. Inside is also the same. Nothing to catch my attention except maybe a low table with all the menu spread out. When we went inside, we noticed that there are no guest in the restaurant. I think to myself that maybe we are early. We reached there at about 6.40 pm. As in most Japanese restaurant, the staff are quite friendly with greetings when we enter.

When we are seated, again our thoughts turn to why there are no other guest as it is a Saturday. We became a bit worried that maybe the food is not nice. But we order anyway. As we were served green tea, a Japanese family came in. One of my friend mentioned that the food should be alright as there are Japanese guests. We waited for a while for our food. The first to arrive is the salad,

This is the Tofu Miso Salad. The vegetables are all raw including the bean sprout but all are crunchy. The tofu taste nice. This plate is price at RM15.00.

Nest to arrive is the Cranky Salmon Roll. Then followed quite closely by the others except the Teppanyaki Salmon and Seafood fried rice.

This is the Cranky Salmon Roll which cost RM22.00 for these 6 pieces.

 I've been craving for gyoza for a few weeks already. Since I did not go for any Japanese meal, these craving has go from days to week until I was thinking of making my own at home. So today no matter what, I'm ordering gyoza even without asking my friends if they agree or not. But these Gyoza are too small. Maybe I'm a big eater or maybe I like big portion, these 6 pieces dumpling appear tiny to me. The filling is too little, not enough to satisfied me. But at least after eating these, my craving is not that great anymore. This cost RM15.00.

 My friend suggest ordering this and it is the most expensive. This Ikura cost RM18.00 for this 2 pieces. RM9.00 just with one swallow. I don't even taste it properly and it was gone into my stomach.

This is the Mix Fry. It has 1 Shishamo, 1 prawn, 1 fish fillet, 1 brinjal, 1 lady finger, 1 sweet potato. I think that's all. I'm not very sure as I'm busy eating and didn't notice what other vegetable my friends ate. The price for this plate is RM22.00.

After the above arrive, the other food stop arriving. After about 10 minutes, the waiter brought out the Teppanyaki Salmon.

 The salmon taste nice. It is accompanied by lots of vegetables. This one cost RM18.00. This Teppanyaki Salmon goes along well with a bowl of rice.

The last to arrive is the Seafood Fried Rice. As with most Japanese fried rice, this one taste good. I wonder if it is the rice because all the Japanese fried rice I ate taste good. Like all the fried rice I ate in Thailand taste very good. I think it must be the rice they used. The price is RM12.00

They serve free flow of green tea. The wasabi they serve are tasteless. It don't have that spicy or whatever to call that power that rush up to your nose when you take wasabi. Anyway, the food is quite satisfactory except for the gyoza. Ah, I forgot to mention that half way through our meal, a couple came in.

This restaurant is at No 5G Jalan Tanjong Tokong, Penang.

Miso Soup with Vegetables

I came across a Tonjiru recipe in one of the blog I'm following. Then when searching the net for miso soup, I came across a soup called Kenchinjiru. As I'm new to Japanese cooking, both these soup looks similar to me except that Tonjiru contain pork and Kenchinjiru is a vegetarian soup. After reading the Kenchinjiru recipe, I realised that it did not contain miso. I cooked Tonjiru once and as my family don't usually eat the pork cooked with soup, I decided to do away with the pork the next time I cook this soup. The taste is still the same as the soup flavor came mostly from the dashi and miso.

Miso Soup with Vegetables

1.5 litre water
2-3 tbsp Dashi granules (or to taste)
2-3 tbsp miso (or to taste)
6 - 7 inch gobo (slice thinly)
1 small daikon
1 carrot
4 - 5 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 pc silken tofu

Method

1. Soak the mushroom until soft and squeeze out the excess water and cut into half.
2. Boil the water and add in the Dashi granules.
3. Put in all the vegetables and cook until tender.
4. Put in the tofu.
5. Lower the heat to maintain a simmer and add in the miso. Using a sieve will help the miso to dissolve. Turn off the heat and serve.

* Other vegetables can be used, such as pumpkin, leek, onion, potato etc.

Marble Green Bean Kuih

The other day, I went to buy breakfast at the road side. It's a lady selling kuih. I bought some chai kuih, cream puff and curry puff. As I was paying, I saw a lady pick up what looks like a hoon kuih. Since I'm late for work, I quickly take my things and left. Since then, I've been thinking of hoon kuih. So I decided to make hoon kuih myself.

I've never made hoon kuih before. But I remember that I have a hoon kuih recipe from the newspaper cutting years ago. So again, I have to search for the recipe but it's easy to find as I have filed it up.

Wan Sek Fah Mun Koe
(Marble Green Bean Kuih)

Ingredients
For the syrup:
400ml water
350g castor sugar
3 pandan leaves - knot

125g green bean flour (lek tau hoon of lok tau fun)
200ml water

1 ltr water
Tinge of yellow colouring
Tinge of green colouring

Method :
To make the syrup : Boil water with pandan leaves. Add sugar to dissolve. Set aside. ( I omitted this step as I cooked the sugar together with the 1 ltr of water)

Combine green bean flour with water and mix well. Leave aside for 10 minutes, Strain to remove impurities.

Boil litre of water. Add boiled syrup and simmer until water comes to a gentle boil. Pour in green bean flour mixture and stir briskly until mixture turns thick and is crystal clear.

Place two ladles of cooked mixture into two separate bowls. Add different colours to each portion. Leave the remaining mixture plain.

Pour two small ladles of plain mixture into a wet tin (22cm X 15cm). Add a coloured portion followed by a ladle of plain mixture. Mix im another coloured portion and top up with the rest of the mixture.

Use a chopstick to swirl the mixture to create a marble effect. Leave aside to set. Chill well in the refrigerator then cut into diamond shapes.

#Note : You can opt to use only one colouring for the kuih.