Wine and Dine - An evening at 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo BOMBANA

There are places that wow you with excellent cooking techniques, or fascinating combination of ingredients, and there are some that impress you with consistently high quality, spot on dishes day in day out, and Chef Bombana's Otto e Mezzo certainly has a lot of both.

Eating in Tokyo: Sushi Yoshitake

If the old sayings that "the best way to judge a sushi chef is by the toro he serves" hold any weight, I am certain that Chef Masahiro Yoshitake is the best I have ever encountered.
 

Sushi Yoshitake

Well sh*t happens at work and that brought me to Tokyo for a few days - but with the opportunity to return to my favorite place on earth, I secretly called this blessing in disguise. The trip may be arranged at very last minute, but it didn't stop me from calling Amex Concierge to arrange a few dinner reservations for me before departure. They got back to me within an hour with 2 confirmed bookings - my hats off to them for such efficiency and high level of service.

Eating in Tokyo: Tonki at Meguro

Often when you told people a certain place is THE best in something or somewhere, it easily led to a heated argument with someone who happens to disagree. But I guess most who have visited Tonki - a Tokyo restaurant specialized in Tonkatsu - would come to a consensus that it is THE most epic culinary institution, serving consistently great street food since as long as they can remember.

You had me at Deep-fried Tofu - The Monogamous Chinese

Understandably, I had a cloud of doubts over my head when I first heard of this new Chinese restaurant on top of Soho, serving Sichuanese and Pekinese cuisines - after all, this is not an area traditionally known for quality Chinese food. And I have to admit if I wasn't invited to a tasting event at The Monogamous, I wouldn't even notice its opening let alone setting foot in.

48 Hours Short Ribs

Sous Vide is more than just cooking in a plastic bag...

Sous Vide short ribs has always been considered kind of the holy grail in sous vide cooking at home, as this seems to bring out the best balance of flavors and texture for a meat cut that may be otherwise tricky to handle. And I have been planning to do this ever since I got my Sous Vide Supreme machine just before Christmas. 

Here I am using a much simplified recipe - given the time constraint I had and I strictly used what I have left over from the refrigerator as well. But with a choice cut from a trusted butcher, you really don't need to over-do things to make this a decent dish. That I guess is one beauty of sous vide cooking - it's really hard to go wrong.