Hobby Day No. 4 - "What's Cooking" Japanese Cuisine
I'm so glad that we've managed to make our fourth Hobby Day happen, and this time it's another segment of What's Cooking? If this is your first time reading about 'What's Cooking?', may read more about it here including the mechanics.
Just like the first, we gathered in a nearby mall where we bought our groceries. For this case, the nearest was Alabang Town Center, so we met up there at around 1:00 PM. Not everybody had their lunch, so we made a quick stop in Banapple first. That's where we also had out pairings and cuisine-selection process.
Below are the results.
Also, since we felt like our budget was not enough the last time, we increased our contribution to P250 each. Hence, the appetizer and desert now had P375 budget each, and main course had P750.
Team Appetizers - Alvin and Emil
Team Main Dish - Almae and Renz (me)
Team Desserts - Anna and Mika
For the appetizers, Anna and Mika decided to do Shrimp Maki.
Almae and I decided to do two dishes -- karaage and yakitori. To make things easier, we decided to prep separately. I worked on the karaage and Almae on the yakitori.
We needed to wait for the meat to marinate for about an hour. It was a good thing that Alvin brought his newly bought Nintendo Switch that started our addiction over Mario Kart.
Since we were really enjoying throwing spiked shells and winning races, we didn't notice that more than 1 hour had passed. Hence, we all went to barracks and started cooking.
Karaage was similar to what is served in Tokyo Tonteki, and the yakitori tasted that of in Nanbantei. We felt so proud.
...we somehow all ended up "replicating" the taste of dishes we normally find in restaurants.
It was surprising how we somehow all ended up "replicating" the taste of dishes we normally find in restaurants. Even the maki (especially the spicy Japanese mayo) tasted that of we usually order in Nihonbashi Tei or Kenji Tei. I know this could have been just an effect of euphoria, but still we were all exuberant over our achievements.
To conclude the activity, we had the desserts which Alvin and Emil prepared. It was a huge bowl of coffee jelly embellished with strawberry sticks. Though it may not look Japanese at all, we were all satisfied with how rightly sweet it tasted.
Everyone really had a fantastic time, and just like before, there were a couple of leftovers. This got us thinking that maybe we should revert back to P200 contribution each.
This particular Hobby Day allowed us to realize that cooking can be "friendly" even for newbies. We used some recipes online as guide, and from there we let our creativity (and perhaps hidden skill, plus luck) flow.
We're excited for our future adventures, and for the next Hobby Day, we are eyeing for some physical activity (or at least something non-food).
If ever you have suggestions on how to further perk up the "What's Cooking" challenge, feel free to share your thoughts under the comments section. See you in our next Hobby Day!
