foodie saturday

My Saturday lesson cancelled due to hay fever (hope you're feeling better soon, Tomomi!), so Satoshi and I decided to check out Shukugawa to see if their sakura (cherry blossoms) were still in bloom since he didn't get a chance to enjoy them yet.

Actually, most of the single cherry blossoms have fallen off the trees. You can see the petals all over the ground and in the streams.

It is quite beautiful too, although the housewife in me often worries about who will sweep or clean this all up...

Luckily, the double cherry blossoms have started to bloom, so we had something to see. They look like pom-poms on the ends of the branches.

We were getting pretty hungry walking up the stream and found a pasta place, Ryu-Ryu to have a quick lunch at. This restaurant is actually a franchise and I've seen them around but this was our first time to try them. They were good and fast!

I had their kabocha (pumpkin) meat sauce. It was a little on the sweet side probably from the pumpkin, still it was delicious.

Satoshi had their eggplant, bacon, garlic and tarako (salted pollack roe) pasta, which he enjoyed.

For dinner, I used the cabbage I received yesterday to make okonomiyaki. Last night, I was thinking about using the cabbage for a stir-fry, but wanted to eat up some of the leftovers we had instead. Also, instead of using the food processor like I normally do when making okonomiyaki, I tried my best to sengiri (julienne) the cabbage. I still have a ways to go to get my sengiri as thin as most people can do it. In some okonomiyaki shops, you can order kim chee as a topping in the okonomiyaki, instead we just ate some on the side.

For dessert, I was inspired by Anita's puff pastry post. I didn't have leftover puff pastry dough like she did, but I did have puff pastry sheets in the freezer, so I took one out and cut an apple into fourths. I only used half of the apple to make 2 pies. I cut the sheet in half and put a whole fourth of the apple into the center with 1/2 tablespoon of sugar and several grinds of cinnamon. Then I wrapped it up like a present and egg washed the top. I baked it for 20 minutes in a 200C oven and what came out was a great dessert!

Hope you are having a great weekend!