Review: Shari Sushi Lounge

For Valentine's Day, Errol took me to an awesome sushi place, Shari Sushi Lounge. I went on my flight to Orlando all dressed up for dinner and we went straight there. The picture above is a screen shot of their website, with a picture of where we were in the restaurant. We were on the second floor, and it felt like a private area. It was quieter and more romantic - not to say the commotion downstairs wouldn't be enjoyable too! 

Errol and I are self-proclaimed sushi snobs. We've been to so many sushi places and prefer raw, raw, raw fish. So when we sat down and perused the menu, we were pleased to see this place doesn't have California roll or Philadelphia roll. All rolls were considered "Specialty". 

We started out with Toro Tartare: 

Toro Tartare: Fatty tuna chopped with scallions and smelt roe atop a crispy tortilla chip, with black flying fish roe, Shari spicy mayo and shaved tempura shallots

 Then the Beauty and the Beast Roll:

Beauty and the Beast Roll: Two-in-one roll with: half tuna, avocado, asparagus, and spicy tobiko roe, and half eel, cucumber, asparagus and wasabi roe

And the grand finale was the Sushi Sashimi Moriawase: Combination of nigiri and sashimi selected by the Chef, served with fresh Japanese wasabi and imported soy sauce.

Errol and I have had numerous plates of nigiri/sashimi. It's always a combination of great pieces of escolar, salmon, and tuna; plus fake crab and disgusting shrimp (and I love shrimp). Since it's "Chef's choice" we can never dictate that what we really want is just the good stuff (of course). So we devised a plan to say that one of us has a shellfish allergy so we can't have shrimp or [fake] crab.

We did it this time, and our waitress said, "Don't worry there's no shrimp or crab." We literally raised our eyebrows. But oooooh man when our platter came out we were knocked out of our seats. It was the most amazing presentation we had ever seen.

Pieces of nigiri on one section of the plate as if they were swimming in water.

Then an ice boat on the other side with THICK pieces of sashimi. 1) ice boat?! and 2) these were the thickest pieces of sashimi I've ever had. The ice boat served to keep the sashimi nice and cold.

Then the martini glass had a rose bud made of pieces of white fish and surrounded by slices of strawberries. This was an AMAZING presentation!

To round out the flavors was a specially imported Japanese soy sauce (in the shot glass). It was saltier (and I normally use reduced-sodium) but when you taste it, the flavor is just fuller. It's hard to explain but it wasn't about the salt, but able the breadth of flavor.

My Valentine!

No shellfish in sight :)

Errol and I took our sweet time to finish every last bit of our dinner. It was our first dinner together since the beginning of January, so it really was a lovely time for numerous reasons. I was definitely spoiled by this dinner and loved every minute of it.

Review: Buku (Triangle Restaurant Week)

http://bukuraleigh.com/buku/

Yesterday was the last day of Triangle Restaurant Week (TRW), a week where tons of restaurants in Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh create pre-fixed menus at pre-fixed prices for people to explore. These prices are generally much cheaper than when it's not TRW and is an innovative advertising opportunity.

This TRW, a few friends and I tried out Buku: Global Street Food. It is truly a global restaurant with twists on classic dishes ranging from:

• South America (Colombian arepa, Argentinian short rib)
• Europe (Polish pierogi, Belgian steak fries, German soft pretzel knots)
• Asia (Burmese deviled eggs, Vietnamese crepe)
• Africa (South African lamb kebabs)
• (Just to name a few!)

It was really exciting to even see twists on Filipino classics: 

• Lumpia with chili-mango ground pork, mango salad, and cilantro chutney
• Duck Adobo with coconut rice, atchara, and fried duck egg

The lumpia wasn't on the prefixed menu, but I had to get it. It was delicious! The meat tasted just like home, but the twist with the mango salad and cilantro chutney was amazingly refreshing. And I loooove cilantro. 

First Course: Laotian Duck Larb

Duck leg confit, sticky rice, cucumber, Laotian herb pesto, lime 

This was my first time having confit, and anything Laotian, so I had no idea what to expect. The duck had a strong flavor of salt and spice, and the cucumbers were necessary to balance that out (along with lots of water).  The taste was great, but I generally prefer sauces with meat and this was relatively dry. I didn't finish this course (a theme throughout the meal) but still liked it!

Second Course: Macademia-encrusted Red Snapper

Purple sweet potato puree, mango, coconut-papaya salad, taro chips, passionfruit reduction

I was pretty full by this point (blame the water from the confit) but kept trying to power through. These were more flavors I'd never had; the sweet potato was really good. I wasn't the biggest fan of the sweet potato texture but I always like starch with a meal. The salad was pickled, which I didn't expect, and it was very good. The taro chips were a great texture in addition with the macadamia crust on the fish. 

Dessert: Normandy-style Roasted Apple Cake
Golden raisins, chevre buttercream, Calvados-vanilla bean ice cream, fried sage, cider reduction

I needed some sweet to round out the meal and this hit the spot. The ice cream was my favorite part of the entire meal! The cake is a dense one, but it's not too sweet (my kind of dessert). The raisins add a nice texture and flavor to the dish as well.

Overall, I would come back to Buku. It's definitely a place with dishes I couldn't recreate without spending a ton on fancy ingredients and taking some cooking classes. It's great to see a place that has such a wide variety of dishes from all over the world; it's like traveling to different countries all in one night!

Review: Inferno (SPOILERS)

**If you haven't read the book and don't wish to know any plot, don't read any further!**

***Clearly, this post is coming months after I went to Italy but I felt was definitely worth sharing***

I was very excited when I heard that Dan Brown was going to have a newest installment of a Robert Langdon adventure. Two reasons for this: 1) love Robert Langdon 2) was disappointed in The Lost Symbol and wanted his story salvaged!

The coolest part was the timing because the book is set in Florence and Venice (along with a third main   location in Istanbul) and that's where Errol and I were headed! My roommate got me the book for my birthday, which arrived at my home just in time to be packed for travel. Throughout the plane ride and Rome and Greve days, I managed to finish in time to explore the book whilst in Florence and Venice!

Ceiling of the Hall of 500, where Vasari wrote "cerca trova" on one of the paintings. 

View of the Ponte Vecchio from the top floor of the Uffizi Gallery

Hall of 500: Unfortunately the room was not available to the public so we couldn't go down and search for "Cerca trova" 

Unassuming hallway containing Dante's mask

Supposed death mask of Dante Alighieri 

Hall of Geographical Maps, including the map of Armenia

Map of Armenia! You can see in the middle of the right side frame there's a small pin handle. 

We asked one of the staff if it opened, and she opened it for us! Going through is a separate paid tour. 

Baptistery of San Giovanni


Inside the Baptistery where the Dante's mask was found


The REAL Doors of Paradise are actually in a separate museum!

St. Mark's Basilica (Venice) was being cleaned, but you could still see the horses! 

The perfect timing of this book made the trip to Italy that much sweeter. And I'm lucky that I went with someone who was just as excited as I was! 

Overall, I felt that Inferno was a really great book that brings up some controversial topics in an entertaining way. It's highly unpredictable (or maybe I'm just bad at predicting things) and keeps you wanting more. 

How-To: Wine Taste Like a Pro

It's time to get classy! Rome was a great place - exhausting, but great. But it was time to take a vacation from the vacation and go to the no-free-wi-fi town of Greve in the Chianti Region of Tuscany. We went to Castello di Verrazzano for a wine tour, and it was a blast.

The tour started off with a history of the castle, which was actually quite interesting because Giovanni da Verrazzano the first explorer to sail to New York Harbor in 1524, but credit for discovery always went to the country who commissioned the voyages. Giovanni's quest was sponsored by the French, who were taken over by Spain and his history was lost for some time. But his accomplishment is starting to resurface in the classroom, and there is even a bridge in his name in New York: the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

After the brief history lesson, we went through different rooms. Some of the passageways could get pretty dark and narrow. Definitely had to watch our feet (and in Errol's case, his head).

They also make their own balsamic vinegar, which is aged for 10 years. The barrels at the back of the room are the youngest, and get moved every year to the next barrel. They get smaller because the vinegar reduces over time and you get a delicious, sweet, concentrated syrup (not quite that thick, but it's definitely thicker than what we get in our US grocery stores).



Finally, it was time to taste the wine! Accompanied with our tour was also a plate of food, perfectly timed for the meal to count for lunch.

So here's the steps to taste wine like a professional:

Step 1: Make sure you always hold the glass at the stem so you don't warm the wine with your fingers. Lean the glass over a white surface to make sure the wine is the proper color, with no foreign particles in it.

Step 2: Smell the wine. Make sure you really stick your nose in the glass!

Step 3: Swish the wine by moving the glass in a small circle with the bottom of the glass staying on the table. Do this for 10-15 seconds 

Step 4: Smell the wine again (with nose in!). It should smell different because more oxygen has incorporated into the liquid to bring out more scents. This was a really cool part to learn! The smell was always completely different from the first time.

Step 5: Finally get to taste! Take a sip, and swish it around in your mouth. 

Different parts of the tongue sense different tastes.

Step 6: Swallow and repeat again. Or in my case, have a bite of food. 

The food plate was amazing, filled with salami, wild boar, multiple cheeses, and lard right in the middle. We also got to have a tiny morsel of their balsamic vinegar, aka balsamic gold.

And they also make their own grappa, a grape-based brandy.
Not a huge fan, but it was definitely a first.

I would highly recommend everyone visit here while taking a trip to Italy. Just make sure you eat a big breakfast and leave some time after to sober up if you drive. Now I actually have a beginner's idea of what I'm looking at in the wine section of Harris Teeter.

And the views were absolutely spectacular.

Italy Trip: Food in Rome

Food is extremely important... especially in Italy! In Rome, I didn't necessarily learn as much about food history as I did in the Tuscan region, but as our first stop in Italy, Errol and I learned a lot of the "traditions" and restaurant etiquette. 

COLAZIONE:

I rarely ever eat breakfast... I prefer to sleep right up until I have just enough time to change and run to the bus for class. But when you're trying to have enough energy for the physical and mental toll that Rome takes out of you, carbo-loading is a must. And eventually, it became part of my stomach's food clock that has even rolled over to now! 

Of the three places we stayed in Rome (and in the other cities - more on those separately), the breakfast was the same: cappuccino, bread, pastries (filled with cream, nutella, etc.), and various spreads. Another benefit of breakfast was that it was always included in our hostel/B&B, so we saved Euros that way. 

PRANZO:
We always wanted to have light but filling (is that possible?) meals for lunch so we didn't get food coma. That usually meant pizza! Pizza in Italy is quite a delicacy, and made me forget the greasy dough I used to get from Little Caesar's for $5 for a quick college dinner. We had lots of different types of pizza, but all menus had generally the same kinds:

• Margherita - tomato + mozarella
• Napoli - 4 to 5 anchovies spread across the pizza; only need a little bit for the full effect! 
• Prosciutto - self-explanatory; delicious, melt-in-your-mouth slices 
• BIG TIP: "Pepperoni" in America is "salame piccante" in Italy, and is much better! 

My absolute favorite pizza was in Dar Poeta in Trastevere, a quaint area in southeast Rome. This pizza had the perfect combination of tart and savory, and I couldn't get enough of it:

buffalo mozzarella with artichokes topped with parmigiano reggiano

Just as a heads up, restaurants try to maximize tables in a small area, so every place has an outside area. We almost always chose to sit outside! Just keep a look out for the scooters and Smart cars that try to squeeze through; they get pretty close!

ANTIPASTI:
Probably one of the more expensive places we ate was at Enoteca Cavour 313, recommended by our Rick Steves guidebook. These pictures are what we had for dinner one night, but count as appetizers in my book. We got to have some delicious cheeses, and a first - beef carpaccio! As you can see it's raw beef sliced extremely thinly, topped with olive oil, red onion, capers, and a couple of anchovies. Surprisingly it was almost too salty for me (those who know me know that's a rarity!), but I still really liked it.

PRIMI e SECONDI PIATTI:

Another restaurant we went to was our first full meal with multiple courses, and we learned a lot.

1. Water is never free in a restaurant. You order one water for 2 people, and they bring out a 500 mL bottle that you ration on your own (generally 2-3 Euros a bottle!).
2. Sitting costs money. There's lots of standing eating, or getting food to-go and eating at a square. In fact, when I think back I think only tourists eat at restaurants because true Italians think a cover charge is ridiculous (which it is). It will cost 2-3 Euros per person tacked onto the bill. 
3. BIG TIP: If there's a cover charge, DON'T TIP. Really, don't. 
4. There's a charge for bread, and you get it no matter what. Most Italian restaurants in America give you bread with olive oil and herbs, or garlic breadsticks. In Italy, you get bread with olive oil and vinegar (balsamic or white wine). And that's normally 2-3 Euros. 

With that, you already have added at least 6 Euros to your bill before you've even had your meal. Crazy, right? As we progressed through the trip, we ate at restaurants less often simply due to all of the extra hidden costs. 

That being said, the food at this restaurant (whose name escapes me) was delicious! Top left is buffalo mozzarella (absolute fave), bottom left was spaghetti carbonara (on my food bucket list), and bottom right was Errol's veal. 

If you are sick of pasta - which you are bound to be no matter how much you love it - there are kebab places all over the place! Super cheap, super delicious, they're essentially the gyros you know of, but in wraps. Once we discovered these, we ate at one every couple of days. I wish we had more places like this to replace McDonald's! 

DOLCI:
Last but not least was the sweets! In Rome, I didn't have very much dessert. However, we did have plenty of gelato at any time of day! There are little window shops everywhere, where you can order your cone or cup and be on your merry way. There are tons of flavors, and some are quite interesting... but Errol's favorite was mango! Here he is holding one of the dozens of mango in a  "cono piccolo".

The only other dessert we had in a restaurant in Rome was the nutella calzone... I think you can guess if I liked it or not.

Another dessert on my food bucket list was panna cotta, a creamy dessert that is a mix between pudding and jello and is delicious! I grabbed one of these in a window shop for a couple of Euros.



Overall, the first city in Italy gave us a great introduction to food, and the best was yet to come! If you ever go to Italy, I hope you learn from our restaurant mistakes and try a lot of the things we did.

Review: Earring Wardrobe Class at Ornamentea

In Raleigh, NC there is a charming green building that contains the all the supplies you need to create beautiful and unique jewelry. 

At Ornamentea, there are walls of beads, enamel powder, metals, and so much more! One could read get lost in all of it, but luckily they have classes for beginners like me. As part of their "Wire Working and Chain Maille" courses, a friend and I went to Earring Wardrobe class with 2 of our professors as part of a bid we won at the UNC ESOP Senate Auction. 

We worked through pre-made kits to create 5 earrings. Each place setting contained everything we needed, very nicely spread.  

We learned the roles of each of these for different pliers: round nose, needle nose, flat nose, and cutting nose. Above the pliers are is a metal file, and below is a ruler that we used a few times to measure lengths of wires.

Earring 1: This first set, we learned how to make a wrapped loop, which I felt was the most complicated one. Overall, I think it turned out well :)

Earring 2: These were confetti earrings, not meant to match, which bothered some people. But when put together they make a pretty color palate. These were more simple, with the skill taught of opening and closing loops. 

Earring 3: The wrapped loop skills came in handy when we learned how to double wrapped loop through the teardrop bead. This was my favorite color combination! 

Earring 4: It was time to learn how to free form wires and make J loops (for when you don't have pinhead wires). This was definitely more difficult to do, but eventually got to the shape I was satisfied with. Key point: don't stop moving through the wire to keep smooth. We hammed the wires a bit afterwards to help keep its shape. 

Earring 5: Saved the best for last! This one taught us the fun effect of texture hammering. Using the round end, we hammered the round copper sheets on one side to create the textured part on the other. We used a small metal hole punch once the effect was complete. This was another free formed hook, but this time we used a Sharpie pen to create the loop - much easier! 

Overall, it was a lovely experience that I would definitely recommend! It's a quick 3 hours that you can take your mother, daughter, and best friend after dinner and drinks. Thanks to a skilled instructor with clear explanations, I learned some basic skills that I would love to use to create some of my own jewelry. Now I find myself look at earrings I buy and think, "I could make that!". 

Their websites:
Ornamentea Website
Ornamentea Facebook
Ornamentea YouTube