Nishiki @ Kota Kinabalu (II)

Hey, do you know that Nishiki is also a very famous 400 year-old market in Kyoto? I was surfing the net looking up places of interest in Kyoto, hopefully if all goes well, we'd be walking along this market come November. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Anyway, back to KK's Nishiki, we had dinner here with KT and KH the last night of their stay in KK. They already had Sabah seafood for the past few days so let them have Japanese seafood for a change.

The only reason for coming to Nishiki....

Leanne's sole reason for going into any Japanese restaurant...

Something to go with the sake...

more for the sake...

Lucky us the wagyu promotion was on...yumzz..

The most disappointing dish of the evening...my goreng pisang has crispier batter :p

This was like homemade, coarse texture but very rich with a strong green tea flavor and not overly sweet. I like it.

KT picked up the tab but he said Citibank paid for this lovely meal, thank you.

Hana @ City Mall

Keshia wanted to celebrate her birthday with a Japanese dinner at Nishiki. I remember seeing a Japanese restaurant in City Mall a while back. I convinced her to try this new Japanese venue and she was happy as long as it is Japanese. So here we are in Hana at City Mall. Very easy to find as it is right across from Big Apple Donuts and Old Town Kopitiam.

We ordered a dish of sushi first before everything else and decided we were better off in Nishiki as far as raw seafood was concerned.  So we went for the sets and cooked dishes and was pleasantly surprised as we found the food to be pretty good. Service was fast and efficient even with a near full house.

 

Ebi (prawn) tempura @RM18. Very fresh prawns with a thin, light and crisp batter. A winner.

I enjoyed the Yasai (veggie) tempura @RM1o very much.

Especially this fresh shiitaki tempura.

The birthday girl's choice. Chicken teriyaki set @RM16.

Unagi set @Rm 28.

This Amiyaki Gyu Don@RM18 is voted the set of the night. There were about 5 pieces of reasonably sized slivers of beef. Grilled lightly with a most inviting smoky scent and according to Bryan, the owner of this winning dish, very tender and tasty but he never offer to share...*sigh* 

He just held them up to show us...*sigh*.

We had a beef teriyaki @RM20 and saba steak @RM19 too. And some side dishes from the 'Train', yes, they have the self service tram too. I don't remember why I didn't take any pictures of these dishes...most probably distracted by the Gyu Don and also the speed the food was devoured didn't leave any room for focusing. 

All the sets came with the usual pickles, chawan mushi and miso soup.

 

The dinner ended on a sweet note with this complimentary dessert.

I wouldn't mind coming back here again when we want some simple Japanese dishes. Will try their noodle dishes the next time.

If you are not a sashimi fan, this would be a great Japanese joint.

Cuttlefish Rice

Came across this recipe in a chinese blog, ikumichan. I am not very sure whether it is Japanese but by the look of most of the ingredients used I assumed that's what it is. It is such an elegant and unusual way to serve rice  and yet so easy to prepare. Next time I do this I am going to add some dried mushroom and cilantro for more flavor as I find the filling a little too bland. So the recipe given here is what I would do when I cook this dish again. 

10 whole small to medium cuttlefish, heads and hard spines removed, guts cleaned, towel dried

1 cup short grain rice (Calrose, Japanese or our Bario hill rice) soaked for 3 hours

1 1/2 cup minced pork

3 T finely chopped dried mushroom (soaked and drained)

3 T chopped cilantro

salt and pepper

Combine seasoned meat, rice, mushroom and cilantro together well. Fill each cuttlefish with the rice mixture to about 80% full (as the rice will expand when cooked). Secure the opening with a toothpick. 

Sauce:

2-3 cups water

2-3 T kikoman soy sauce

2 T cooking sake

2 T mirin

1-2 T sugar

Mix all ingredients together and bring to boil. Drop stuffed cuttlefish into the sauce. Bring to the boil again and simmer in medium heat for 40-50 minutes.

Adjust taste and thickness of sauce at the end of cooking.

Serve with some lettuce.

Eggplant Japanese style

Yes, another eggplant dish. I know, I know this is not everyone favourite veggie but I do have a whole bag of them in the fridge, remember?

Anyway, watched channel 703 (what else?) late one night and saw this fastest talking and cooking Japanese lady in a program called Dosanko. She makes cooking look soooo easy. She did this marvelous eggplant dish that is so simple. Just a few and very easily available ingredients were used but the dish turned out so deliciously refreshing. Give it a try.

Eggplant Japanese Style
3-4 eggplants, trimmed and cut lengthwise into six
oil for deep frying

Dressing:
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1-2 teaspoon mirin
2 tablespoon water
2 slices ginger, chopped
2 garlic, chopped
1 sprigs spring onions, chopped
1 chilli, seeded and chopped (not in the original recipe but added for a bit of heat and color)

Mix all the dressing ingredients together in a bowl (taste and adjust amount of soy sauce and vinegar to suit your palate) and set aside.

Heat oil in pan and deep fry eggplant until just turn soft, lift out from oil before they turn golden. Do not over fried (according to the fast talking lady) or the skin of eggplant would be tough (very true, I almost always did overcooked the eggplants but not this time).

Arrange eggplants on a serving plate; pour the dressing over and serve. It is that simple.

Jo

Scattered Seafood Sushi

This family loves Japanese food but eating out in Japanese restaurant has to be on special occasions because of the cost factor. The next best thing (in fact, I think it is the best thing as I have control over the freshness, quality and quantity of my ingredients) is to cook Japanese at home and it is not difficult.
Want to do something which restaurants don't normally serve and easy...that leaves me with the scattered sushi which means anything goes. The best thing about this dish is, you put what you like for the toppings.
While getting a few things for the dish, I saw grilled unagi all ready to serve at Recipe House for about Rm20! (an unagi set at our favourite Japanese joint costs Rm 32 with half the amount of unagi I was looking at). Knowing how crazy the kids are over this stuff, I have to include this topping.

So a scattered seafood sushi it is!

Scattered Sushi

Serve 4 - 6

For the sushi rice

4 cups short grain rice, Bario or our very own Saza's beras bukit (hill rice) is good

4 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

3 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup rice vinegar

Wash rice, add water and cook in the rice cooker.

Mix sugar, salt and vinegar in a small pot over low heat until dissolved. Leave to cool.

When rice is done, leave in cooker for another 10 minutes.
With a flat rice spoon, turn rice out into a wide pan and at the same time sprinkle vinegar mix over the rice.

Toss the rice with horizontal cutting strokes so that the vinegar mixes through. All these done under a fast fan, the reason being to cool the rice fast so that it doesn't become mushy.

When cool, cover with a clean kitchen cloth until ready to use. This rice can be used for all sushi and nori maki.

For the topping

4-6 dried shiitaki mushrooms, soaked until soft, discard stems and slice thinly

1 cup water + 1/2 teaspoon dashi granules

2 tablespoon mirin

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

12 fresh medium sized prawns

200g grilled unagi

2 sheets nori, toasted

3 eggs

1 carrot, peeled and julienned

1 small cucumber, seeded and julienned

Bring to boil soy sauce, mirin, dashi and sugar in a small pot. Add mushroom, simmer until tender. Drain and let cool.

Dip prawns into boiling water for 2 minutes. Peel, leaving the tails on and devein.

Stir eggs lightly with a dash of sugar and a pinch of salt (don't let air bubbles form).

Cook in a frying pan without stirring or turning with low heat until set. Cool on a chopping board. Cut into thin strips.

Cut unagi into 1 cm stripes.

Place sushi rice on a serving plate. I used a 36cm flat plate so I can thin out the rice to about 2.5 cm thick.

Scatter the eggs, carrot and cucumber over rice. Then crumble the toasted nori over. Arrange the mushroom, prawns and unagi attractively on top, garnish with some julienned pickle ginger on the unagi and cilantro all over.

Note: Suggested toppings - beef or chicken teriyaki over toasted b/w sesame seeds, grilled calamari or sashimi (make sure the fish is very fresh and topped on only when ready to eat).

Jo

Nishiki @ Kota Kinabalu (I)

We were at Nishiki for Keshia's 21st birthday.
Nishiki is one of the oldest Japanese restaurant in town but we didn't realised how old until now. Established in 1987 and that was 20 years ago!! Only a year younger than Keshia!
Japanese restaurants in KK come and go, but Nishiki stood the test of time and it is one of our favourite Japanese restaurant.
We have been going there for years mostly for special occasions or when we have a craving for raw seafood. It serves the best sashimi in town.



They ran out of salmon which was Keshia's favourite (we were there 8pm on a Friday evening and salmon is sold out already).

The birthday girl went for a whooping dinner set with two main courses - a skewered teriyaki beef and seafood deep-fried in crumbs with side dishes of garlic fried rice, salad, miso soup and a radish stew. After the meal she just couldn't handle anymore the ice-cream from Vedablu (just next door).

Bryan and Leanne had the unagi sets. The grilled eel came on top of the rice like a don set and serve with only miso soup and pickles. The unagi was fantastic, according to Leanne but the set itself was a bit of a let-down.

We shared a salmon fish head stew which was delicious.

The mix tempura, a must-have was done to perfection as usual- light and crispy with the freshest ingredients.

Jo

Umai Fine Japanese Cuisine

When Terri has a 4/5 rating for a Japanese restaurant in town, we wasted no time.

Umai it was for the Mid Autumn festival celebration. This was one of those rare times we ate out on a Chinese festival and like Heather, only a Japanese dinner would suffice to drive away the depression. Just any lame excuse to eat Japanese.

It is situated along the Lintas highway, first turning to the left after the Lido traffic junction on the first floor in the same building (D' Junction) as Royal China .

Greeted at the door by this ninja and waitresses in kimono. That got us even more into the nippon spirit.

Sashimi set

Spider maki

Another highly recommended maki, their house specialty (don't remember the name). So yummy.

Teppanyaki Beef set

Unagi Don

We also had tempura, soba and a fried prawns dish which I never got near enough to eat nor shoot.

That was Tuesday evening. We came away very impressed with the maki and don set (the presentation, taste and price) but couldn't say the same for the other dishes.

Came Friday, picked up Keshia and Bryan from school early and Bryan suggested Umai for lunch - another excuse to eat Japanese! This round we went for the maki and don sets only.

Dragon Maki
I wasn't too keen on this because the deep fried prawn in the maki was a tad too hard and salty.

Unagi Maki

This was really good with plenty of fish roe, wrapped in thin unagi slices and topped with a sweet sauce and dried bonito flakes. Truly a mouthful of sensation.

Tori Teri Don

Gyu Don

Salmon Teri Don

All the sets and don sets come with chawan mushi (excellent texture and taste),

Pickles plus miso soup and rice.

The don sets are good value for money (priced between Rm10 to Rm18) but for me, the true star of Umai is the maki. I'll go there next just for the maki.

Jo