Foodporn

For your salivating pleasure (and taking a page from docbrite), the contents of my birthday dinner at Lily tonight with the sandwichboy. The previous chef has left for a job in the States, and the new person is no Chef Aoki, but still delivered a seven-course omakase worthy of description.

Wine: Cave Springs 2002 Gewurztraminer, which was surprisingly light enough for sushi and still had enough balls to stand up to beef. Nose of lychee, pear, pepper, etc. Makes head swimmy and happy.

Amuse-bouche: Mature bean sprouts in a sesame-chili oil dressing that Roupen's still trying to figure out in all its glory. This is standard, so we've had it before.

Salad: Rapini/broccoli salad (we are debating which it was; I heard broccoli, Roupen insists it was rapini) with miso dressing and a little lemon. Was an interesting experiment, but I'm not sure how good a match this one was. One flavour was definitely overpowering the other.

Soup: Sea Urchin with mushroom, egg, and seaweed in a clear broth. Mmmmm. Normally I think uni tastes like a fine baby poop, so making it palatable for me is a challenge. Mmmmm.

Dragon Roll: being a roll of unagi (barbequed freshwater eel) and avocado, topped with yet more! unagi. Mmmmmmmmm. This was not actually part of the omakase; we ordered it seperately, because it's good.

Shrimp tempura roll wrapped in avocado with spicy mayonnaise: nice comparison in textures, and the mayo was obviously homemade and had a nice, slow heat to it without being overpowering. And I just love rolls that are wrapped in things like avocado or cucumber. Evidence of creativity. :)

At this point we got some tea, because Roupen's allergies were stuffing him up something crazy. Just regular green tea, nothing special.

Beef teriyaki with greens: not as good as the Best Teriyaki in the World (which is at Diao across from Maple Leaf Gardens, and involves New York Striploin which just melts in your mouth), but nothing is, or it wouldn't be the best. Still a decent interpretation, with different sesame seeds and more sesame in general in the sauce. Vegetables (carrot wrapped around some green beans and some celery greens) steamed all nicely and crisply, not soggy.

Crispy Salmon Hand Roll: I'm not sure about the texture of the wrapping on these. It's very crisp, and as I don't usually get hand rolls, I'm not sure if this is standard. Came in a nice, pretty lacquered stand, though, and was nice.

Sushi/Sashimi: four pieces each, being toro (the good tuna), salmon, swordfish (!) and something not identified. There was the nice little slice of lemon leaning on the sashimi again, which gives it this wonderful tart flavour as well as the fishy fish flavour. I actually couldn't finish this, I was so full by this point and sleepy and happy from the wine.

Dessert: three peeled plums in plum wine jelly. Cool, simple, fresh, refreshing, better than the fruit plate I was kind of hoping for to do the same thing. Mmmmm again.

Are we happy, ladies and gentlemen? Oh, we are happy indeed. I might be old, but I am also very full. :D

Came home to a very pleasant rejection -- when someone says they love your work but don't think the story's exactly a fit for the market, I can't be unhappy at all. I mean, love. Love is awesome. :)

And now, I'm going to play some City of Heroes and go to bed.