Past & Present

Both of my parents have always been pretty good cooks, so growing up I got to eat a pretty good verity of good meals. However, its not the most fancy or expensive that stands out to me. The meal that I remember being the most excited for growing up was something my mom called Japanese Noodles. When I was a little kid I thought it was amazing! Still a good meal, now I can see how its made and what goes in to it. It turned out to just be top roman noodles and some chicken breast or left over steak thrown in and then some stir-fried veggies, a hard-boiled egg and some soy sauce.

Now that I have grown up, my tastes have expanded and I can cook for myself. It is funny that my previous favorite dish was something called Japanese noodles, because now I work in a japanese steakhouse as a hibachi chef. Now that my parents don't do all of my cooking for me, I have a new favorite Japanese dish that I can make. My favorite thing to make is the halibut, but it's not complete without the other parts to the meal, so I will just go through the entire meal. Starting with the fried rice that starts as just rice with some handashi butter pepper and diced veggies. Through that on the grill and add more butter, sesame seeds, diced green onions, then stir till rice is steaming. Then add our house mustard sauce and some soy sauce and mix until evenly dispersed and serve. Then throw on the veggies, consisting of zucchini, white onions, carrots and mushrooms. Mix them sparingly with butter and sesame seeds until charred nicely, then add some house ginger sauce and soy sauce. mix it together and serve as second course. Before the halibut goes on the grill, it must first be boned and butter-flied. Then dry off the fish and coat with corn starch. Then coat the grill with melted butter and set the halibut in the butter. Once it starts getting a nice crisp layer on the bottom, add some diced green onions to the top and flip the fillet over onto a new pool of butter for the other side. At this point, add fresh squeezed lemon, then let set for another minute until crisp on the other side. Last, add a little bit of soy sauce and then flip over for a final second of sear on the lemon/soy side.

It's funny how much my tastes have developed over the years. I think its cool that my favorite dishes have always been japanese oriented but have matured so much. I really love cooking, so its cool that I get to make this dish on a regular basis.