Birthday weekend

This year my birthday fell on a Thursday. Josh had been sick all week so birthday dinner was looking bleak, but it turned out that we were able to go out close by to Shoya Izakaya, which is quickly becoming our favorite place.

Josh was playing it spicy. He started off with the kimchee, which is pretty tasty.

The tuna tartare is hard to beat. It tastes great with its slight spicyness, a mix of sesame, and the umami-rich miso paste and quail egg. I think we get it 9 out of 10 times. Assuming we have been there nine times by now.

The gyoza we think are made fresh per order because they take some time to come out. They are pretty good, though I think Josh likes them more than I do.

Josh got this chicken and scallion yaki which he said were very good. While it's a decent portion of their menu, I'm not that in love with the skewers on their menu. I might just be ordering the wrong things.

This is the uni sashimi, a huge honking pile of it for the same price as an uni nigiri order at Taka. With fresh wasabi. This is a damn good deal and tasty too.

This is the sweet shrimp sashimi, three fat delicious heads.

And then they fry the heads for you. Still the best fried, briniest shrimp heads. Delicious.

Josh got the spicy ramen, which we think was once upon a time based on the Chinese dan dan noodles. They were good, he said, and cleared his sinuses.

I got the kitsune udon, which I had been wanting to try. It was perfect and delicious, a lighter finish to a delicious dinner.

We may have gone to Shoya because it was convenient, but it was a great birthday dinner.

But birthday continued the next night when we headed to Taka. :)

It's fall, so they had ankimo. Yum. Josh meanwhile got his soda salad which he always enjoys.

Taka had a special on tonsoku, pork feet (read Taka's post about it). Taka says that no Americans order it, sad.

This dish was larger in size than I expected, with a mix of tender meat, tendons, and some fat. Topped with a miso sauce and scallions, it was savory and rich all at once.

From there, sashimi omakase as usual. Delicious.

Josh was done, but I'm piggish, so I also got some extra sashimi. Here: giant clam and sweet shrimp. Both delicious.

And I ordered ikura, but as it turns out, it's the season for sujiko (read Taka's post here) which is basically fresh salmon roe that Taka got as a sac and then cured himself.

The sujiko were a little more firm and larger than the ikura Taka normally carries. It was SO good.

Shrimp heads, shrimp heads, eat them up, yum!

And then to finish off, uni with quail egg. A great finish, as always.

We don't go to dim sum nearly enough for me. It's partially because we've been dissatisfied with the decline of the quality at Royal China. But I had been reading more and more that Oriental Pearl was going back up in quality, so we headed there on Sunday, around 10.15, which is soon after they open. (As we left, I did notice that most of the crowd starts showing up at 11.) Most of the clientele is Chinese, with a little American thrown in there. You can't be bashful here and if there is something you want that hasn't shown up, you have to ask.

Here is what we ate:

- Har gow -- delicious and light, just as they should be
- Shumai -- Josh eats these but he ate them all, so I assume they are good
- Pork ribs -- these little nuggets were meaty and good. At Royal China, they had become way too fatty.
- Tofu skin rolls (seen jook guen): I found the sauce on these too be a little heavy, but they were good, and better than the ones at Royal China.
- Daikon cake (lau bahk gau): The cakes themselves were delicious. But as in the past, I have to ask for oyster sauce, and then they brought me sweet soy instead of oyster sauce. If only I just brought my own, this would be perfect.

I also got the ngau dzap which is one of my favorites. It had tons of tripe and not just the marrow, which is what it had become at Royal China. This definitely sealed the deal on my dim sum place, even though I decided that I shouldn't get this every time.

And to finish, my absolute favorite: shrimp rice noodles. It was drowning in the soy sauce so I had to move them to another plate, but they were so delicious and good. Yum. Just looking at the picture makes me want more.

It was a great birthday weekend. I could eat like this all the time, though I don't know what that would do to my cholesterol! Delicious.