daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
Friday dinner: Yakiniku! Pork, beef, jalapeño, onion, kimchee, leafy lettuce, shiitake, sigeumchi-namul, kongnamool, cheese, pickled daikon/carrot, and Scotch Bonnet peppers… yum!!!
こんばんは。How’s it going?
This evening we made yakitori on the grill. Was yummy! Mariko said the meat was a little overcooked because we kept it on too long to get a nice char, so next time we’ll up the flame a bit so the grill marks arrive earlier.
Besides the chicken, we added onion, and since we didn’t have any green onion in the fridge, we added jalapeño peppers for a bit of color. I guess these were Texas-style yakitori skewers. 😆
Oh, and another thing… we didn’t soak the skewers in water beforehand, so they burned pretty badly. Oh well, next time!
Hope you had a nice day.
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
A new fried chicken restaurant opened up recently so we decided to give it a try. CharmBBQ Korean Fried Chicken is the real-deal and is the sister store to Charm Korean BBQ, which we enjoyed.
Upon entering the restaurant, you can tell this is authentic due to the large shochu ad with lifesize Korean model. LoL. I breathed a small sigh of relief when I saw that. Also, the restaurant has multiple TVs set up on all walls, showing sports, news, and K-Pop. Something for everybody! 😆 I actually switched seats with Koa so I could face the TV that was showing a mega-concert with Twice. Woohoo!
Anyway, onto the food. They serve bone-in chicken, boneless tenders, and many other Korean appetizers and dinners including hotpot. If you order the chicken, you can choose from a variety of sauces. We chose half habañero and half traditional Korean sauce. They were both tasty! I was surprised at the number of items on the menu – we’ll definitely be back again to try some more dishes.
Charm BBQ Chicken also has a large variety of drinks (there’s a huge bar) including pitchers of beer. I had the beer/shochu combo drink which was pretty good! Next time, though, a regular beer will be my order. Seems like a good place to enjoy a pitcher of beer with friends, have some spicy chicken, and watch a ballgame. I love the restaurant’s slogan: Beer+Chicken=Truth. haha ☺
Although we like Korean fried chicken, we all agreed that Japanese karaage is superior, but for a change of pace, Korean fried chicken at Charm BBQ Korean Fried Chicken is yummy.
I hope you had a good day!
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
A few days ago I bought a 3.75 lb. pork butt at the supermarket, and that means it’s time for carnitas tacos! Ever since we got our Instant Pot, making carnitas has become super-easy. It’s actually not difficult to make carnitas even without the pressure cooker, but with it, it’s really simple.
I’ve experimented with a few different recipes, but this time I wanted to go basic. The recipe is basically salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper, and half a cup of beer. Cut the pork into 2-inch cubes, more or less, put everything into the Instant Pot, and cook on high pressure for 60 minutes.
After it’s done, transfer the meat into a large bowl and use two forks to shred the pork. Give it a taste to make sure it’s salted to your liking, and the meat is ready to be eaten! But, if you like it a little crispy, you can put the meat into a hot skillet and brown it up. That’s my preferred way.
For toppings, we had onion, cilantro, avocado, lime, lettuce, jalapeño, and salsa. Add to that some rice and beans, and you have the classic taco meal. It was yummy!
I hope you had a nice day!
またね〜
So burgers and steaks are staples of the backyard grill, but tonight Mariko grilled up some sliced pork, which had been soaking in a Vietnamese-style marinade. It smelled absolutely amazing as it cooked on the barbecue!
But the pork was just one ingredient for the banh mi that we had for dinner. Cilantro, pickled radish and carrot, and jalapeño rounded out the filling for the homemade baguette. It was so delicious, and of course, there were no leftovers. 😆
I hope you had a nice day!
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
This evening I cooked up some frozen gyoza for Bay and me to eat for dinner. Over the years, I’ve gotten better at cooking gyoza, which I’ll admit doesn’t take much skill, but it’s a fun way to cook them nonetheless.
Basically, I put a little oil in the pan, then arrange the gyoza flat side down, in a nice pattern. Spiral is always a nice-looking design. Next, I get the pan hot and sizzling, then add a centimeter or two of water and cover the pan so that the gyoza steam through. After a few minutes, take the cover off and continue cooking until the water has disappeared. If you like, you can add a little sesame oil to the pan for flavor.
Cook until the bottom of the gyoza are golden brown and a little crispy, then use a spatula to loosen them a bit from the pan. To serve them up, put a large plate upside down over the pan, then with the palm of one hand on the top of the plate and the other grabbing the handle of the pan, turn the entire production upside down so that the plate is on the bottom and the gyoza fall off the pan and onto the plate. The sizzling, golden-brown side will be facing up.
If all goes well, you should have something that looks like this:
For dipping, we use ponzu or shoyu, and maybe add some chili oil as well. Sometimes we’ll just use good rayu chili oil by itself. It’s so good!
I hope you had a delicious day!
またね～
こんばんは。Mariko had a simple request for Mother’s Day: please feed me and let me watch my tv shows. 😆
With that in mind, Bay was tasked with preparing breakfast, and Koa would help with the grill at dinner, and also make sure Mariko had mimosas on-demand. 🥂
First up was breakfast, and for this, Bay made deluxe breakfast burritos with eggs, cheese, chorizo, jalapeño sausage, bacon, and hashbrowns. Since we couldn’t find super-gigantic tortillas, Bay divided them into smaller burritos, but they were still awesome. 🌯
For dinner, Bay prepared garlic mashed potatoes in the Instant Pot, while Koa grilled the sirloin steaks on the deck barbecue. This was Koa’s first time grilling, so I helped him with the meat-thermometer and seasoning the 4 Top Sirloins from Omaha Steaks. They turned out nicely, with perfect medium-rare doneness. I threw in some broccoli for good measure, plus some rolls that Mariko had baked earlier, and it was a yummy dinner! 🥩
And as a little bonus, we also gave her a bouquet of fresh flowers. 💐
I hope you had a nice day!
またね～
p.s. We ordered a bunch of food items from Omaha Steaks, and if you’d like to try the Top Sirloin steaks like we had, please click on the delicious-looking steak photo (affiliate link) below.
