Things to eat and drink when you get the chance, or as inspiration to cook at home. Where possible I've linked to recipes.
For general recipes, I cannot recommend [cached]Serious Eats highly enough, their recipes are very detailed and well tested. [cached]Kenji López-Alt is especially amazing, I love his scientific approach to cooking, and he has a great book as well, [cached]The Food Lab.
tea
I buy from [cached]Yuuki-Cha and [cached]Ippodo for green / Japanese teas, and [cached]What-Cha for black and oolong teas. See also my blog post.
- Sencha (煎茶), my every day tea.
- Matcha (抹茶) or [cached]powdered sencha (食べる緑茶), great to shake with milk
- Oolong
- [cached]Houjicha (ほうじ茶), roasted green tea
- [cached]Genmaicha (玄米茶), green tea with roasted rice
- [cached]Black
- Jasmine [cached]green or [cached]oolang
alcoholic drinks
- plum wine (umeshu, 梅酒)
- sake, e.g. dassai
- ice wine
- eggnog
cocktails
Standard recipes and my own favourites. I recommend Liquid Intelligence and The Bar Book.
Cocktail Kingdom has great jiggers (large, small), strainers (julep, hawthorne) and shaking tins (top, bottom).
In the recipes below, "1 oz" can be whichever measure you have at hand, typically 25 or 30 ml.
- Tenochtitlan: old fashioned with 1 1/2 oz cognac, 1/2 oz creme de cacao, 2 dash chocolate bitters, 1 star anise; build on large ice
- Midnight Stinger: 1 oz bourbon, 1 oz fernet, 3/4 oz lemon juice, 3/4 oz simple syrup; shake with ice and serve on crushed ice
- Gordon's Cup: amazingly refreshing, muddle 4 lime wedges and 4 cucumber wheels in as shaker, add 2 oz gin, 3/4 oz syrup and shake with ice; pour into glass with 4 fresh lime wedges and 4 fresh cucumber wheels, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Mai Tai: 2 oz rum (I prefer dark), 3/4 oz lime juice, 3/4 oz contreau, 1/2 oz orgeat; shake with ice, serve on crushed ice.
- El Toledano: strong marizpan vibes, 1/2 oz vodka, 3/4 oz disaronno, 1/2 oz orgeat; shake and serve in old fashioned glass, decorate with [cached]mazapan from Toledo.
sweet bites
- [cached]Mozartknödel (right), sweet dumplings filled with chocolate/nougat/marzipan
- Sachertorte
- Pastel de nata
- Dorayaki
- Taiyaki
- Yōkan (great with tea)
- Warabimochi
fish
Preferrably raw, either as sushi (寿司), sashimi (刺身) or on top of a rice bowl (丼)
- Tuna, especially fatty
- Salmon
- Eel (unagi)
- Sea Urchin (uni), unappetizing at first sight, but absolutely delicous
- Sweet Shrimp (amaebi, 甘えび)
seafood
- Arròs negre
- Grilled octopus
meat
- Steak, medium rare
- Jamón ibérico, Chorizo, Morcilla
- Korean & Japanese style bbq (yakiniku, 焼き肉)
- Chicken shawarma
- Burgers
stew & soup
breakfast
- [cached]Shakshuka, poached eggs in spicy tomato sauce. Straightforward to make and great for brunch.
more
- Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), savory pancake
- Croquetas
- Pizza
rice bowls
- [cached]Gyudon (牛丼)
- [cached]Oyakodon (親子丼), aka parent-and-child bowl
- Tempura (天丼)
- [cached]teriyaki salmon avocado bowls
bread
- Vollkornbrot
- Naan
- Banana nutella crêpe