Kitchen Guide: Sushi

Sushi is single most recognizable Japanese dish in the world.
Sushi comes in different shapes and arrangements. However, at its very basic it has seafood, or meat and rice as ingredient. Below are popular sushi variants

Nigiri

This type of sushi is possibly you've seen most. It is the simplest form of sushi, hand shaped seasoned rice with toppings. Popular toppings include fishes, fish roes, squids, shellfishes, beef tataki, and veggies.

Gunkan

Gunkan translates to battleship in Japanese. Gunkan sushi is nigiri sushi with seaweed wrapped along its perimeter. The purpose is to contain the topping which is usually difficult to keep intact, such as salmon roe (ikura), and sea urchin roe (uni).

Maki

 Maki sushi, widely known as rolled sushi, has its fillings rolled inside a sushi rice. Fillings are usually combination of various ingredient, salamon, eel, avocado, crab sticks, mayonnaise, flying fish roe (tobiko), cucumber, shiitake mushroom, egg (tamago), etc.
Traditionally, maki has sea seaweed wrapped outside the roll. Modern version of maki sushi includes inside out roll.

Temaki

Temaki literally means hand (te) maki (rolled sushi), i.e. a handy version of maki. It is shaped like a cone for ease of handling and very suitable to eat on the go.

Hakozushi

A variant of nigiri sushi which differentiate itself on its shape. Hakozushi takes the form of squarish shape.

Chirashi Sushi

Chirashi Sushi is very similar to Katsudon, in which various slices of toppings are arranged and stack on top a bowl of sushi rice.

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Venue Focus: Smokey Ribs Medan, Onion Wedding Ring

Download EATalian app for more info & reviews - Non Halal Eatery

Sits across old Polonia Airport & The Palace elite housing complex, Smokey Ribs is easy to find, as there's not many store tuck along the street. You just need to watch out for the bright orange neon light on the signboard.

Smokey Ribs offers American BBQ fairs, centered on grilled items such as ribs and steaks, US Meat. It features wood & brick dominated decor, low lit lighting, and vintage posters over its wall. Homey welcoming ambiance.

Starters

The Onion Ring is the star of the night. It has crunchy and flavorful batter outside, and sweet moist onion inside, you simply want to MARRY them. But heck, it need more generous helping of the thousand-island like dipping sauce. It's so good that 1 small bowl is not enough, have to lick it clean!

Salad is kinda dry, again, more dressing can certainly help. Veggies are fresh and cheese gratings are tasty tho.

Mains

Pork ribs are tender, fell off the bone, and well seasoned. It came with equally good coleslaw, and choice of sides like mash potato, fries, etc, - we chose baked beans.

The coleslaw, bro, is possibly the best coleslaw I've ever tasted, crunchy veggies, runny and tasty dressing. Baked beans has slight spiciness to it, fits in Medan's taste bud well.

Unfortunately, the accompanying sauce is kinda too salty. It overpowers the meat if you dip into it. So I prefer not to use the sauce at all. Adding ingredients honey, brown sugar syrup, apple puree and cinnamon could help awaken the natural sweetness and flavor to the sauce.

But still, good job on the Pork Ribs Dish, Chef!

Oklahoma BBQ sausage is okay, nothing much to be bragged about. The sauce is also too strong. Good thing it came with milder cream of chicken soup as side, which balances the saltiness - we ate the soup after finishing the sausage because the soup came late.

Beverage

Unfortunately, beverage items were not appealing, we ended up ordering hot lemon tea and lime juice, and to my surprise, they serve off-the-supermarket-shelf-midlow-teabag (can't mention the brand - don't want to get blackmailed) for their hot tea, and too-simple-looking-and-tasting lime juice. Dude, for such a respectable restaurant like Smokey Ribs, surely you can do much better than this. 

Made me rubbed my forehead! Yes Jackie, just like you...

My suggestion, they should try using tea leaves, turn it into their own powerful mocktail, and put more twist on the lime juice. The ambience is perfect to chill with mates on Saturday night. Certainly enough, a great cocktail or mocktail will light up the night!

Prepare to spend IDR 150K++ per pax. Expensive, but it justifies the quality ingredients and tasty food. Good thing doesn't come cheap - worth it well.

All in all, great food, perfect ambiance, superb service, good value.

Well Done
Tender Meat
Good Service
Onion Ring

Can be improved
Sauces for meat pretty salty
More sauce for Onion Ring
Limited Beverage items



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Chef's Diary: Reynold Poernomo - Indonesian Prodigy in Australian Masterchef

Best desert I've seen in six year - Matt Preston

Yes, he is just 20 years old. Yes, he hails from Indonesia. Yes, the judges and other contestants dubbed him, "THE DESSERT KING", and yes, he is Reynold Poernomo.

Reynold's family moved from Surabaya, Indonesia when he was very young. Both his mother and brother are prominent names in culinary industry. His mother is the owner of, Artplate, pastry and cakes house offering catering service in Sydney. Meanwhile, his brother, Arnold Poernomo, is none other than the youngest judge in Masterchef Indonesia.

His cooking technique earns him high praise from judges in Masterchef Asutralia, not once, but 3 times.

He hit it hard in his first qualification round as in the first video above. The three judges finished the dish, leaving clean empty plate.

That is the best Quenelle I've ever seen in Masterchef - George Calombaris

The judges even took picture of his food, first time this has ever happened in Masterchef Australia history. skip to 27.30 in the video below

Finally, his most formidable dish, "The Forbidden Fruit", chocolate mousse shelled in red cocoa butter that resembles apple. A dish that left the judges stunned, saying, "This is only week 2, and you deliver dish that is worthy for Grand Final". skip to 1.03.15 in the video above

But his path of success does not always come smooth. Ironically, he was criticized for his artisan skill by fans, who reckons that he should be kicked out from the show because he is obviously overqualified - as Masterchef is supposed to take amateur contestants without significant experience in professional cooking.

Nevertheless, he is the pride of Indonesia, bringing the nation name to the world's elite culinary world.

images from
http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2015/05/11/1227350/007863-9df1e04e-f6c8-11e4-9416-e181221d5c3b.jpg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3078451/MasterChef-fans-question-Reynold-Poernomo-s-professional-expertise-brother-revealed-judge-Indonesian-version-show.html