WB004: SOURCE of satisfaction

I enjoy going to Japanese restaurant-bars and izakayas (Japanese: 居酒屋).

There is something about the atmosphere, food and drink coming together that make you leave with a satisfying experience.

If you're having a bad day, you will leave happy (and merry). If you had a good day, you will leave happier (and merrier).

The other day, we went to an okonomiyaki¹ restaurant called 鉄板バルSOURCE 三軒茶屋店 (English: SOURCE Teppanyaki² Bar, Sangenjaya).

SOURCE is filled with revellers every time I walk past, whether it be during the week or weekend. There are counter seats (suitable for solo-eating), high-table seats, and one makeshift table outdoors.

We were extra motivated to go on a balmy Tuesday night because of a highball promotion: a メーが　ハイボル (English: Mega Highball) for the price of a normal-sized one.

Taking home more than a full tummy

Each time I visit a restaurant, I make it a point to identify a dish or two that is simple enough to make at home. Making these dishes help me appreciate the effort and the skill needed to make a simple dish taste wonderful.

First, a couple of dishes best left to the experts.

And finally, a dashi edamame (Japanese: 出汁枝豆) dish packed with umami and just the right hint of Sze Chuan pepper that looked "do-able".

Watching this YouTube video and observing how the staff prepared the dish helped guided us on what do do:

1. Boil edamame
2. Snip one end off (so it absorbs the mix)
3. Soak edamame in a mentsuyu- and Sze Chuan pepper-mix (for at least a day)

How was it?

Our homemade dashi edamame tasted quite good after three days of soaking.

By then, the edamame had absorbed a lot of the flavour. An improvement would be increasing the ratio of mentsuyu to edamame. That said, one runs the risk of making things too salty.

This dashi edamame experience reminds me of the time we ate a delicious small plate of dashi-tasting olives at a cocktail bar.

We tried replicating (at home) this dish, thinking: It can't be that hard to make - just soak the olives in dashi!

What we ended up with was olive-tasting dashi (which was also quite nice, but not as nice).

Same same, but different.

--Ends

¹Okonomiyaki is a Japanese teppanyaki, savory pancake dish consisting of wheat flour batter and other ingredients cooked on a teppan

²Teppan is the metal griddle or metal plate where food is cooked on. Yaki means grill, boil or pan-fry.