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For dinner tonight, we enjoyed soba and tempura. The tempura was bought from Costco and it’s surprisingly good! I highly recommend it. It’s so easy to prepare too: just defrost and heat up in the microwave, then pop into the toaster oven to crisp up. Simple and delicious.

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Tonight Mariko and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with an amazing omakase dinner at Takao restaurant in Brentwood. We’ve been to Takao a few times for our anniversary and have always enjoyed it.

This time, the executive chef/owner, Izumida Takao, prepared all of our main dishes. Everything was delicious, but the toro wrapped around uni, and topped with caviar and truffles (photo above) was both Mariko and my favorite. In fact, it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my whole life! If you would like to try some awesome sushi, I definitely recommend Takao.

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I was reorganizing my browser’s bookmarks and came across this recipe for Salvadorian Chicken which I hadn’t made in a few years so I decided to make it for dinner. It’s a braised chicken in wine dish, and very easy to make.

I don’t really know how authentic it is, but it’s pretty tasty! I usually like very flavorful and spicy dishes, and this dish would be considered quite tame. Probably perfect for those with less-adventurous palettes.

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Mariko made chicken tikka masala and naan for our dinner tonight. It was super yummy and I ate way too much. Actually, my portion wasn’t too large but I didn’t eat much all day today so my stomach shrunk a bit. That’s my guess.

After dinner I started on my usual 5 km run, but I felt so sluggish that I decided to cut it a bit shorter than usual. That’s okay though… I’m happy that I at least got out there.

I hope you had a great day! またね～

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こんばんは。How’s it going?

Today we went for an early dinner at Loro. The restaurant is very popular, so we went early to beat the crowds and grab a table outside. Loro’s menu is kind of a mix of Asian and Texas BBQ, and everything we had was deeeelicious! Highly recommended if you are in Austin!

FYI, we’re still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, with cases rising here in Texas, so we thought hard about going out to eat. But because we went early and Loro has plenty of outdoor seating, we though it was safe. Indeed, all staff was masked up (as we were, when not stuffing our faces) and they were cleaning tables regularly.

I hope you had a great day! またね～

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Anchovy pizza is not a thing you see very often on menus, which seems somewhat strange to me because it seems like such an iconic topping. Maybe it’s that way just for me or my generation, and I suspect it might have earned a permanent space in my mind because of old Looney Tunes cartoons. In writing this post, I found out that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles often ate anchovy pizzas, but that was a little after my time and I never watched them, so I suspect it was Bugs Bunny or even Scooby Doo that put anchovies into my brain.

At any rate, several years ago I first ate them on pizza, and I thought they weren’t very good. Basically salty and fishy. But I actually kept craving them, and after a few more tries, I grew to love anchovy pizza! Thankfully, canned anchovies are readily available in markets so I can have my anchovy fix whenever I want. I am still a little baffled on why I like them so much since I think they are still overly salty, but truth be told, whenever I see the can of anchovies in the pantry just waiting to be used, I get a warm feeling in my heart and a craving in my belly.

I hope you had a nice day! またね～

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Tonight we enjoyed a Hello Fresh “Pork Sausage Rigatoni in a Creamy Sauce” dinner. It was our first time trying Hello Fresh and we were very satisfied. The ingredients that arrived were indeed fresh, the prep was easy, and the finished product was delicious.

What was nice is that Koa (16) made most of it, with just a bit of help from Mariko and I. We have two more Hello Fresh meals in the fridge so I am curious to see if these will be even better than the rigatoni dinner.

I hope you had a great day! またね～

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Gobble gobble!

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Tonight’s dinner was a mix of leftovers and new sides. The casserole on the left is a mix of sliced pork belly (leftover from last night’s yakiniku dinner), kimchee, egg, and cheese. In the casserole dish on the right is Koa-friendly nachos, with cheese, chips, jalapenos, beans, red sauce, and grilled chicken. Then the sides are avocado with ponzu and katsuobushi, and fresh tomato.

I was a good fridge/pantry cleanup day, and a pretty tasty one at that.

I hope you had a good day!

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