ELITE ONLY Event: A Japanese course lunch at Shimomura

Wonderful Unilocal EE held at a traditional Japanese restaurant. There’s no signs except for the small printed menu in the outside. When you first walk in, your shoes must be taken off so be sure to wear shoes that are easy to slip on and off (wish I had known — had boots on).
Seating was comfortable and had the look of a tatami room but without having to sit seiza-​style — there’s was a table with small chairs.
Now on to the food! Our lunch was a 7 course meal starting with a small piece of tofu topped with ikura (salmon roe), chopped scallions, mushroom, and a bit of wasabi in a light dashi-​like sauce. Next was a hamachi (Japanese amberjack fish) carpaccio with lots of fresh vegetables in a oil and a ponzu-​like sauce. The third item was very intriguing; it was a potato and pork ball covered in a light but savory cream sauce with a bit of black pepper on top… at first I thought it was ice cream: P
Next was a traditional Japanese item: chawan-​mushi; an steamed egg dish with vegetable and seafood in a flavorful broth served in an interesting stone-​like bowl (and still very warm when it was served). It was by far one of the best chawan-​mushi I’ve ever had. Flowering that was a stewed pork dish in a black sauce served with a few vegetables and a bit of yuzu-​pepper paste on top. Vegetable were cooked perfectly and the pork was very soft and pretty easy to cut through with just my chopsticks; the yuzu-​pepper went excellent with the sauce.
Our last dish before dessert was a medley of pickled vegetables ranging from gobō (burdock root) to cucumber to some okaka (dried bonito fish flakes) to go with some great takikomi gohan (which is a Japanese rice dish seasoned with dashi and soy sauce along with mushrooms, and vegetables), and a side of miso soup. The soup was simple but had a great flavor I’m not sure I can replicate at home and the rice had a light but excellent flavor thanks to the mushrooms and vegetables cooked along with it. Now finally… dessert! It was an assortment of small items such as an apple flavored jelly topped with blueberries, a slice of nashi (Japanese pear) and kiwi; there was also some sweet beans called azuki, as well as a yuzu (Japanese citrus) sorbet, a piece of roll cake, and a slice of green tea flavored jelly (?). It was all delicious and had the perfect amount of sweetness — but my personal favorite was the yuzu sorbet… excellent amount of flavor of the yuzu without it being too overpowering.
Toward the the end of the event, we had a guessing game of sorts and the winner walked out with a gift certificate for Starbucks.
Wonderful experience with some great people. Thanks Yuko-​San for putting together a great Unilocal EE!