Monthly Archives: August 2013

Trader Joe’s

You can find a lot of organic grocery items in the very reasonable prices here.  The quality of food is high here.  This wonderful grocery shop started in California.  There are now several branch stores in the Midwest.    They offer many items under their own brand name.  They are really tasty.  I especially like their frozen Tamales, frozen pizzas and organic blueberry jams.  Their high fiber cereals are excellent.  They also have good variety of granola.

Yusho

LOGAN POSER RAMEN

LOGAN POSER RAMEN

Street food is popular in Asia.  Japanese street food has many varieties.  Yusho restaurant has some creative Japanese style street food dishes that are done perfectly on the hot grill.  Chef Matthias crafts dishes in an art form.  Each dish is uniquely presented.  Besides grilled items, Yusho offers noodles on Sundays.

You also would not want to miss meeting the sake master Tim there.  Tim is very knowledgeable on sake varieties.  He is friendly and very enthusiastic on sake.  He is a certified sake sommelier.  He continues to study sake.

Takashi

Seafood Salad

Seafood Salad

I love this new seafood salad at Takashi restaurant.  Chef Takashi’s restaurant is located five miles northwest of downtown Chicago.  It features French American cuisine with Japanese influences.   Every dish is perfectly prepared and is extremely tasty.   The presentation of each dish is unbelievable beautiful and eye pleasing.  The menu changes often.  It follows seasonal ingredients.

When I am there, I like to order the tasting menu.  It provides the best samples of Chef Takashi’s current signature dishes.  I highly recommend the tasting menu for the first time visitors.

From Asparagus to Zucchini

This is the resource I go to when I have questions with any kind of vegetables.  Although there aren’t any pretty pictures, the book offers storage and cooking tips on each vegetable.  You can get to know the vegetables by reading the small write-up on each vegetable.  There are some simple and useful recipes included.  The indexes and table of contents are very well arranged and can be easily used by the beginner cooks.