Bling-bling Sunday

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As this crappy year slowly comes to a close, we find ourselves once again gathering with friends at home due to the government's ban on dine-in service after 6 p.m.  Chef DaRC very kindly hosted us at home and whipped up a series of beautiful dishes.  

We started with some caviar, and thankfully it was a smaller can than the one DaRC brought a couple of months ago.

As it turned out, Goldfinger had very kindly given me a box of goodies a few days ago.  Among the various tasty treats was this pack of Japanese gold foil... which I have no real use for.  I did, for a moment, consider putting some on my face...

So I figured the perfect place for it would be on top of the caviar.  After all, isn't that what chefs at them fancy schmancy restaurants do?  Those dishes keep popping up on social media posts by those influencers... 

Is this how you're supposed to do it?  Some mini blinis, sour cream, caviar, and a touch of bling-bling?  

We also had a supply of chutoro (中トロ) from farmed tuna, which allowed Chef DaRC to show off his knife skills using his new toy.  This was made into nigiri sushi with some packaged Sukiyabashi Jiro sushi rice, and seeing how much I fucking love combining "premium" ingredients together, OF COURSE I just had to add some of that caviar and gold foil on top!

The "leftover" chutoro was made into a toro and scallion rice bowl (ねぎトロ丼), but why waste a perfectly good opportunity to use up some of the leftover caviar, too?

This bowl of soup (吸い物) with great northern tellin (白貝) and turnip (蕪) - in a dashi (出汁) made with radish and kombu (昆布) and garnished with some mitsuba (三ツ葉) - was elegant and delicious.  Thankfully someone brought a real yuzu (柚子) so that we didn't have to put up with the use of yuzu powder!  Just the thought of it was enough to make one recoil...  Quelle horreur!

These prawns were blanched with some Shaoxing wine.

The Cantonese-style steamed fish was very, very nice, too.

We also had a pretty big, 6.4-catty King crab, served two ways.  First came the baked crab legs, which were baked in an oven topped with mayo flavored with X.O. sauce and flying fish roe.  Loved the mayo with that kick.  I was surprised to see DaRC using salicornia as garnish, and I was happily munching on them.

The rest of the crab meat from the body was baked with some lime oil.

I picked up a few different cuts of barbecued pork from Sun Kwai Heung BBQ Food (新桂香燒臘), and Chef DaRC used them to make his version of 黯然銷魂飯 - with a fried Kinshi no Sekisairan (金鵄の赤彩卵) on top, garnished with some confit d'echalotes from Le Pont.  This, boys and girls, WAZ DA SHIT.  Someone had a second bowl...

Dessert came in the form of Ispahan 2000, a collaboration between Pierre Hermé and NEXT FIVE.  I pretty much love any Ispahan product from The Fat One, and the combination of lychee, rose, and raspberries is always nice.  However, I found the cake to be a tad on the dry side - which isn't a surprise considering it came in a package.  Perhaps we should have poured the accompanying sweet sake on top.

We had plenty of alcohol to go around, including a bunch of sake.

Juyondai Sōkō (十四代  双虹), 30BY, from isshobin - very fragrant, sweet on the palate, some fermented rice flavors, and really round on the palate.

Senkin Kamosu (仙禽  醸), 2017 - an assemblage of three different types of rice.  Seimaibuai (精米歩合) of 20% for each of Yamada Nishiki (山田錦), Kame no O (亀ノ尾), and Omachi (雄町). Pretty soft and sweet on the palate, with a longer and dry finish.

2000 Coche-Dury Meursault - ripe on the palate but still got plenty of acidity.  Big, big toasty nose with flint.

2017 Patrick Javillier Meursault Les Clousots - nice and toasty, with some ripeness on the palate but a grippy finish.

2003 Domaine des Lambrays Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru Les Loups, en magnum - served two hours after opening.  Nice with soft red fruits.

NEXT FIVE Ispahan 2020 - pretty sweet on the palate, with some woodsy notes.

Many thanks to DaRC and Ro Ro for being such wonderful hosts. Our gatherings have certainly helped Hello Kitty and I get through this pretty tough year...