A Japanese Home-Cooked Lunch

(Let's take a break from Penang. Come have lunch with me, and learn how to make sushi.)

Tina is the typical Japanese lady--graceful, polite, punctual, proper, well-mannered and hospitable. Only Tina really isn't Japanese by blood but by marriage. I had a request from a friend, Yong, to teach her make sushi so I turned to Tina for proper methods of sushi-making. I do make sushi but can never make the rice rolls compact and the fillings smack in the center.

Tina not only taught us how to make sushi, but also prepared a most exquisite and scrumptious Japanese lunch for us. The meal was delicious to our eyes and tongues and I picked up many tips on Japanese cooking. For example, Tina's miso soup was made with both black and brown miso. I neber knew black miso existed. Thought there are only white and the regular brown miso. The two misos combined made the best miso soup we have ever tasted. We all agreed that Tina's meal can beat those in all the Japanese restaurants in KK. Handsdown. Take a look at what she served us:


Teriyaki Saba mackeral, miso soup, maki sushi, daikon with bonito flakes, cuke & wakame salad, potato salad, okra salad and carrot & daikon pickles.

Everything was delicious, and Tina has elevated our standard and expectation of Japanese food.



I love Tina's chopsticks rest.


Maki sushi.


Cucumber and wakame (a seaweed) salad.


Boiled daikon topped with bonito shavings and served with a miso sauce.


Okra, konbu and wakame tossed with a konbu sauce. This was delicate yet flavorful.



Coffee jelly with cream/milk.


Japanese rice crackers with black beans. So yum.


Japanese marshmallows.

Firmer and less sweet than regular marshmallows with a nice nectarine-like jam inside. These were finished mostly by Eric, Wendy's 10-year old boy who'll make a great husband one day--he loves to cook.

What a memorable meal!