Google always makes me humble. Even my toilet bowl made from teflon idea is out there. Sigh.

Anyway, the one pot idea is pretty much what the name entails – cooking (and in my case – eating too) all in one pot. I’m a big fan because it makes cooking easy and there’s less washing at the end.

Here’s my latest example:

Nabe hot pot (for around 4 people)

Ingredients (stock):

• 2L Dashi stock
• 1 Dried Date
• 1 Chopped carrot
• Handful of dried scallops
• Handful of wakame
• 3 Tbsp sake rice wine
• 3 Tbsp mirin
• Pork belly

Ingredients (for the pot – add what you like & as much as you like):

• Tofu
• Shitake mushrooms
• Enoki Mushrooms
• Bok Choy
• Winter melon

Method:

Cook all the ingredients for the stock in a slow cooker for at least 5 hours. Best to leave it overnight and try and get the wakame to completely dissolve. About 1 hour before eating, add in all the ingredients into the hot pot.

Finally, eat out of the pot.

Pretty easy huh? Would love to hear more one pot meal ideas if you have them!

What did we eat?

Chauie and I ordered to share (sorry I don’t remember the exact dishes ordered):

• Fried tofu with a fish sauce and bonito flakes.



• Gyoza (Japanese fried dumpling).



• Japanese spaghetti with chicken in cream sauce.
• Wagyu beef skewers.



• Grilled salmon sushi.

What I liked:

• It’s a modern Japanese restaurant, so you order using a touch screen (sorry inner geek).
• The speed at which the food and drinks come is super quick. It almost made up for the time we lost waiting to get a table.
• This is for KTang and JenHo – they do serve Umeshu (plum wine) and Yuzushu (citrus wine).

What I didn’t like:

• Obviously, having to wait to get a table.
• Some of the plates were chipped.

Top tip:

I’ve been told that you should book a week before you want to go. This will eliminate the gross waiting time.

Rating: 8/10. Everything I had was just outright tasty. I’m going back again when I next go to Sydney and this time I won’t pre-stuff myself.

This place has recently become my favourite bar because:

• Great drinks at reasonable prices (a must try is the Yuzu – a drink that tastes like a mix of mandarin juice and lemon gelati but is still alcoholic)
• Friendly staff
• Sit down at the bar style drinking
• No ‘doof doof’ music
• Not a big place – so I don’t feel like I should be hanging there with all my facebook friends
• Good japanese food (they are part of Izakaya Chuuji)

By the way, I’ve decided to make this my belated ‘May Restaurant (ahem…Bar) of the month’. Previous winners can be found in my older posts.

What did we eat?

At their upstairs dining we got:

• A grill (no gas or electricity required!)
• A choice of raw ingredients to cook. We had: wagyu, ox tongue, lamb, onion, pumpkin, chilli beef & capsicum
• A few cooked dishes – yakitori and squid
• The majority of us ordered ice-cream for dessert while others had ochazuke which is rice in green tea
• A choice of 5 sauces that you can add to some seasame seeds that you grind yourself.

Note: they also have downstairs with is more of an a la carte style menu and the prices also seem quite reasonable.

What I liked?

• On Monday and Tuesday they have buy 1 get 1 free dishes for you to grill
• On Wednesday and Thursdays they have a select number of drinks alcoholic drinks for only $3.50, including some sake.

What I didn’t like:

• Even though each table has their own ventilation shaft, you still come out of the restaurant smelling like dog heaven.
• The candy that we got at the end had a picture of a pear on it, but tasted like mint.

Top tip:

Wear some shabby clothing and go with someone who likes to cook or someone you can force to cook for you.

Rating:

7/10. My friends tell me it’s pretty authentic, but I’ve never been to Japan so I’ll take their word for it. Oiiishiiii.

Anyway…

What did we eat?

• You get a choice between 3 soup bases: miso, soy and chicken broth
• Fresh ingredients roll around on top of a sushi train style platform and you pick off what you want to eat. There are various vegetables (e.g. enoki mushroom, cabbage, chinese mushroom) and meat (e.g. pork, chicken, beef).
• You also get to choose a dipping sauce – traditional soy, sesame, suki (slightly chilli)

What I liked:

• IT’S ALL YOU CAN EAT BABY for $25 pp.
• Everyone gets their own little hot pot so you don’t have to worry about your friend with ‘flu-like’ symptoms dipping their chopsticks into your broth.
• They had plenty of meat on offer, not just 1 or 2

What I didn’t like:

• They give you about 1.5 hours to eat your food. Even though I couldn’t eat any more after about 1 hour, I still don’t like the idea of being time limited.
• An egg costs $1 extra?! I’m pretty sure I ate about $50 worth of meat that night…surely they could’ve made the egg free?
• Probably not situated in the best location either – the restaurant faces a carpark and you need to walk in the side of the carpark to get it.

Top tip:

They open at 4pm for bookings, so if you’re going on a Friday or Saturday night, make sure you book ahead first.

Rating:

7/10 Pretty good value and variety at $25 a head. Well worth a visit if you want to try something different.

Makoto Sushi Bar
119 Liverpool Street (Cnr, Pitt & Liverpool St.)
Sydney
Phone: +61 2 9283 6767
Web: http://www.masuya.com.au/en/makoto/

Ding Tai Fung: Xiao long bao. Yep this is another xiao long bao place, but it’s bloody good, so go get yourself 20 steamers.

Makoto: Various sushi from the sushi train.

What I liked:

Ding Tai Fung: The pastry is the so delicate yet it doesn’t break and you don’t have to be too gentle. Kinda like what a good boyfriend should be. Too bad boyfriends don’t have succulent pork fat soup on the inside.

Makoto: All the sushi is made on the spot like it should be! This means that the rice is still warm and the fish is cold. The staff are really friendly and the grilled salmon sushi…let’s just say if I saw an starving old crippled lady with a plate, I would steal it from her without hesitation.

What I didn’t like:

Ding Tai Fung: You will have to wait quite a while to get a seat because they’re that popular and they don’t take bookings.

They also have whacked operating hours:
Mon-Sun: 11.30 till 2.30 and then 5.30-10pm
Public holidays and weekends, they are open for an extra 30 mins later.

Makoto: …I can’t think of anything…

The waiting area outside Ding Tai Fung in HK. I feel bad for the restaurant next door.

Top tip:

Ding Tai Fung: Wear comfortable shoes because you’ll be standing in line for quite a while. Also, don’t bother with Ding Tai Fung in HK or ShenZhen (China), Sydney is of a much higher standard.

Makoto: Get there early before they open. They have a sheet at the front of the door where you can write down the number of people you have, where you want to sit and you then take a number that they call out when they open.

Rating:

Ding Tai Fung: 9/10. I would be happy to come back as a pig in my next life to be in one of those xiao long baos.

Makoto: 10/10. Oiiishiiiiiii.