Tokyo House in My House

If you are from the Youngstown area than you know about the restaurant Tokyo House. It is the best restaurant if you want japanese hibachi. It doesn't even compare to any other hibachi restaurant for one simple reason, orange sauce. What is orange sauce you say? Well, you might be familiar with shrimp sauce a common condiment at hibachi restaurants, but this shrimp sauce, or orange sauce as it is called there is unlike any you will ever taste. You pile it on your rice by the jug, there is no such amount as too much orange sauce. It is like heaven on rice, and in a former pot smoking life it is also amazing on just about anything else, from ham on toast to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to Krispy Kreme donuts (yes I've tried it on many a food, but other factors were also at work in those days.) There was probably a 2 or 3 year span where I went to Tokyo House at least once a week and sometimes twice. Yes, it is an amazing place.

I've cooked hibachi style dinners for myself and my brother but never really thought to make my own orange sauce. I thought it might be almost sacrilege to try and make it one my own, but my trips to the Tokyo House are becoming farther and farther apart, so I guess I need to figure something out. So this week I finally looked up a recipe for shrimp sauce to see how it would compare to the famed orange sauce. I found it on allrecipes.com, a great website for recipes by the way. It had the same consistency and look to it however not quite that obsessive inducing flavor that the one at the Tokyo House has. It was good but nothing thats going to keep you up at night with grease smeared lips and bloated stomach wondering when the next time you are going to eat it will be. I will certainly work with the recipe because I do think it is close, however it was definitely too sweet. So here is the recipe and I'm sure I will mess around with it and update at some point with what I come up with, and try it yourself if you're in the mood.

Shrimp Sauce (for now, orange sauce to come)

1 cup mayonnaise

3 tbs white sugar

3 tbs rice wine vinegar

2 tbs melted butter

3/4 tsp paprika

3/8 tsp garlic powder

The Coolest Gadget Ever

The iPad has to be the coolest thing I've ever seen. I need one! Yes it might just be a giant iPod touch but it's amazing and I am obsessed with it. I need one!

Portabella and Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich w/ spinach and bacon pesto

Last night I made one of the best sandwiches I've ever eaten. I got a food processor for Christmas, since then I've made a couple of pestos. I couldn't believe how expensive it is to by pesto from the store so I figured why not just make it myself. The first one I made was way to garlicky, but the next one was pretty well balanced. I wanted to do something different for the next one and I thought of the bacon jam Kevin, a contestant on the last season of Top chef, made. The idea of a jam made out of bacon just seemed so good I figured why can't I add bacon to a pesto. One of my favorite combinations of toppings for a pizza is spinach and bacon, thats why I decided to use spinach as the base for the pesto. I figured the pesto would work well with portabellas and roasted red peppers, so I decided to combine them all into a sandwich. On Wednesdays my brother just eats a big salad, he was certainly looking at my meal with envious eyes. Its actually a very easy recipe to make and is very tasty, give it a try if you think it sounds good.

Portabella and Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich w/ spinach and bacon pesto

1 large sandwich

1 large portabella mushroom

1 red pepper

2 slices of provolone

3 c baby spinach

1/4 c basil

1/4 c parsley

2 garlic cloves

3 slices of bacon

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1 handful of pine nuts

1/4 plus 2-3 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Roll the red pepper in 1 tbsp of olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place on a baking tray. On the same tray lay the slices of bacon. Cook the bacon for about 10 minutes or until they are crispy. When you take the bacon out rotate the red pepper, continue to cook the pepper for about 30 total minutes rotating about every 10 minutes. When the pepper is done set it aside to cool, then peal away the skin, which should come off somewhat easily.

For the pesto toast the pine nuts over low to medium low heat for about 10 minutes making sure they don't burn. Then put the garlic, spinach, basil, parsley, pine nuts bacon and cheese into the food processor. Drizzle the 1/4 cup of olive into the mixture as it works in the food processor, you might not need all of the olive oil. It is done when it is similar to a paste.

For the portabella, wipe the top with a damp paper towel to clean it off. Over medium heat place the remaining tablespoons of olive oil. Saute the mushroom for 6-8 minutes on each side or until it is tender. Season with salt and pepper when it is almost done cooking. If you season mushrooms with the salt early in the cooking process it could draw the moisture out of them and dry them out.

To put the sandwich together I bake the bread for about 2 minutes with nothing on it. Take it out of the oven and spread some pesto on each half. Slice the mushroom and pepper into long pieces and place them onto the bread, alternating mushroom and pepper slices. Put the 2 slices of provolone on the half of bread that doesn't have the mushrooms and peppers then put the sandwich back into the oven to bake until the cheese starts to melt. When the cheese is melted take it out of the oven put the halves together and enjoy!

Kansas City Patriots

Another Chiefs coaching vacancy another Patriot old boy is hired. Romeo Crennel defensive coordinator for the Patriots during their 3 super bowl wins in the early part of the '00s was just hired to take on the same role for the Chiefs. So in one years time the Chiefs have hired the Patriots old GM, Scott Pioli, and both their defensive and offensive coordinators. I like the move and am very excited to see what these coaches can do in Kansas City. If you're going to model your team after another one the Patriots aren't a bad one to choose.

Contra!

Just go get it. Vampire Weekend's second album Contra is out today and I've already listened to it twice (it was available for download yesterday on itunes). I started listening to their first album two summers ago and haven't stopped since, it tops the most played list on my ipod by far. It might be the beginning of January but this will definitely be one of the best albums of the year. Did I mention to go buy this now!

No Reservations!

The new season of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations starts up tonight at 10:00 PM, in Panama, on the Travel Channel. I'm very excited, its one of my favorite shows on tv. Bourdain is a badass and I could listen to him talk all day. He offers up good insight and shows you places and people you probably wouldn't go to if you were to be luck enough to travel to the places he does. If you've never watched and aren't doing anything at 10 tonight give it a try.

Worst Weather

Yesterday while watching the football games we were talking about how bad the weather is here in the Youngstown area. Its been snowing and cold for what seems like the last month, so obviously we are going to start complaining about it. Yeah I'm sure people all over the place think they have terrible weather, but I made the statement that we have the worst weather out of anywhere in the country that you would actually live. So that means like the Dakota's, Montana and those other weird northern states don't count. Well I heard a stat on the news last night that proves my statement. Yesterday was only the third day since November 14, that we had sunshine. Yes, I typed that right. We only had sunshine November 14, December 12 and yesterday, just awful isn't it?

Only in a dream