CURRY AND CHAWAN MUSHI

Ok, I give in, I'm doing a blog about curry. Mainly cause I want to avoid doing paperwork, am waiting on a couple of people to get back to me, and am sick of reading stuff online. Tom suggested that I do this post after we made a simple Japanese curry for dinner last week. You know, the ones where you just sautee the meat and veggies and chuck in some water and at the last minute, throw in those premade curry cubes? Yeah, it makes for a pretty tasty dinner (though we have a ton of leftovers still in the fridge. I need to start making a little headway).

I do admit that my favorite type of curry is the Japanese curry, since that's what I grew up with. My mom makes it and my grandma made it and so there's that nostaligia aspect playing into it. And I like how when you go to a Japanese curry house (not that we have any in Boston, but there are tons out in LA) they give you the little toppings. Like the pickles or raisins. And they have cool toppings. Like the chicken katsu curry. You get the idea. One of my favorite places in LA is Hurry Curry. They serve the curry on spaghetti, too.

The other thing I like about curry is how different countries have their own variations. It's true, I haven't had the Korean curry, but I am a big fan of Thai curry, with it's use of coconut milk. Sometimes I'll make it at home, but it's quite a production since it require more ingredients and lots more effort than the Japanese stuff. Plus there's that whole coconut milk thing. It's just not really healthy, so I consume it sparingly. And of course there are the myriad variations of Indian curry. I found this curry recipe recently in the NYTimes Magazine. It looks simple enough, and I've got all the ingredients at home, so maybe I'll invite you over and you can be my guinea pig.

Ok, and now for something completely unrelated to curry, the other night I had dinner at Ginza with family members. My aunt ordered way to much food, which was all ok. Ginza doesn't have the best Japanese food in Boston, but it's not the worst either. It was the first time I'd actually had dinner at Ginza (in the restaurant, we've ordered out before) and I was surprised to find some dishes that aren't normally served at Japanese restaurants. I ordered the chawan-mushi, which is basically a steamed egg custard with dashi and lots of ingredients thrown in. It's really delicate and flavorful and I was happy to find it. I ate almost 2 of them. The other thing I noticed (but didn't order) is this soup the they serve in a teapot. I normally have this at Japanese restaurants in Taiwan. My sisters and I refer to it as the teapot soup. But it's great and flavorful, so I'll have to check out the Ginza version the next time I'm there.

And that's it for today. If I remember I'll try to take some photos of the soup I'm making for dinner tonight.