Dinner tonight was pan roasted asparagus soup with fresh tarragon courtesy of Bittman’s recipe. It was easy to make, consisted of only 3 ingredients, and delicious at the same time. This will definitely be a repeat soup. I think it might even taste good cold.

I also baked some focaccia to along with the soup. I kind of winged the recipes again and this time the dough was pretty wet. I think I need to put more olive oil over the top because it was a bit dry after I took it out of the oven. Nonetheless, the thyme, garlic, and fresh rosemary I sprinkled on top still made it delicious.

I had dinner at Musha, an izakaya in Santa Monica, recently and wanted to highlight some or our favorites on the menu. The place is small and gets pretty crowded at night so we made a reservation a day or so beforehand just so we didn’t have to wait thirty to sixty minutes for a table. Some of the food is definitely worth the wait, but they have a very small waiting area so it’s nice just getting there and getting seated right away.



The pure tofu (vegan if you don’t put in bonito flakes) is something we always order. Its their home made tofu, which has a cottage cheese-like texture with some seasoning on the side: chives, sea salt, fresh grated ginger, and their special soy sauce. It’s rich, creamy, and the vegan boyfriend says that it reminds him of cottage cheese.

I also had the Butakim, which was pork belly sauteed with kim chi. The pork belly was tender, flavorful thanks to the kimchi, and delicious. This was the first time I had it and I’ll definitely order it again. The dallop of kewpie mayonaise on the side was a nice touch and added even more richness to the dish.

As a carb dish, I ordered the spicy fried rice. I forgot what it was called on the menu, but it’s in the rice section and the description said something about ground pork. It was decent, but I make better fried rice at home.

One of their specials was the rapini, which I think is under their menu as “rape blossoms”. They’re tasty and tender, but I think the price is a bit high for the portion you get.

Something we order everytime we go there is their stone pot rice. It’s rice mixed with preserved salty vegetables and some mountain vegetables all cooked in a stone pot. The stone pot makes the rice crunchy if you leave some in it for a few minutes after they bring it. Protip: ask for a cup of hot tea after you empty the pot and then pour the hot tea into the stone pot and drink it. Delicious!

Lastly, I have my favorite dish: aburi saba. It’s marinated mackerel that the server will scorch with a blow torch right at your table. Despite the cool-factor of a small hand-held blow torch, the marinated mackerel makes my mouth water just thinking about it. I think this time, it was even served with a side of real wasabi.

Musha’s a great place to go as long as you don’t have to wait too long for a table. They have some decent sake and the usual Japanese beers and even though it’s loud in there, I wouldn’t mind it if a date brought me there.

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Musha
424 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 576-6330

After hearing Trevor Corson speak on the radio about sushi, I picked up his book because I wanted to learn more about one of my favorite foods. The Zen of Fish follows a new student through a sushi course at the California Sushi Academy. Mixed in with the story of the student and her classmates are historical facts and other information about things related to sushi such as fish, knives, rice, and etiquette.

While I was reading the book, I couldn’t help feeling annoyed by the passages about Kate, the student going through the school. She’s inept, clumsy, ditzy, and just not that interesting. I was more interested in the actual tidbits of information about sushi than Kate’s classes.

I would have rated this book higher if it only contained the informational passages about the Japanese cuisine. Those parts were interesting and worth reading for anyone who likes sushi, but the other parts felt like a waste of time. Corson might have been trying to get readers to relate to Kate, but he would have been more successful if he had chosen a stronger student from the class to follow.

The BF made Beet Rosti with Rosemary today for dinner with a side of beet greens and spinach (not pictured). It was delicious even though it was hard trying to gauge if the beets were cooked or not in the cast iron pan.

A few weeks ago, when I had to take a flight, I noticed that LAX now has 3 separate queues to go through security check: family, regular traveler, and expert. Having a lot of flying experience, I went into expert line. The line was fairly short, which was great. I guess a lot of people felt intimidated by declaring themselves an expert flying out of LAX.

Unfortunately, on the way back at the Oakland Airport, the expert line was rather long. Apparently, everyone thought they were an expert. Even people who didn’t take their laptops out beforehand. They should rename the expert queue to “line for people who can undress and take their shoes off in less than 5 seconds.”