The Mister's Test Kitchen - Ramen

Hello all!

As promised, we're trying to get into the habit of posting on a regular basis so here is the second post of the night.

Just to shake things up a bit, I thought I'd share with you all my experiences gained from trail and error in the kitchen. If it's one thing I love more than eating, it's feeding people with the food I make. Nothing makes me happier than when someone says my food is delicious (must be an inherited trait, my dad is the exact same)

So one fine evening with nothing better to do, I decided I would try to make ramen. I knew this was long process and I had prepared adequately for the road ahead. Rather than make Tonkotsu though, I decided to make Torigara. My primary reasoning behind this decision was that I personally believed that Miso ramen (my absolute favorite ramen) is better suited to chicken stock because pork stock tends to overpower the already heavy dish (also, you just can't get pork leg bones at 8PM)


I went out and bought a whole chicken, some spring onions, one brown onion, a carrot, garlic, ginger, white peppercorns, pork rashers (for the Chashu) and a lot of soy sauce. Oh and eggs, so many eggs.

The chicken was dissected quite roughly and put into the stock pot. After covering the chicken with water, I brought that to a steady boil before I added the other ingredients. And here is where I made my first mistake: stock takes times and dedication. If you're not willing to put in the work, don't try to make stock. My mistake was that I would leave everything in the pot and that would be fine. What I didn't do was par-boil the chicken and clean it out. This simple step will result in a cleaner stock.

So back to the stock, I steadily added all the ingredients and boiled it over a controlled flame pretty much until I needed to go to sleep.

While that was boiling away, I mixed equal parts soy sauce, cooking sake and mirin to make the ajitsuke tamago. To make these eggs, simply put the eggs in cold water and bring the water to a boil. After the water boils, time the eggs for 4 minutes and then bathe in cold water. Peel the eggs and submerge in the marinade (which I heated in the microwave prior and chilled) preferably overnight. Even without ramen, these eggs are delectable with some rice and bonito flakes.

So back to the stock, being exhausted from watching over the stock, I poured it all into my sous-vide machine and let the slow cooker function take care of the rest.

The next morning I woke up to continue the preparation.

But first, I decided to make myself some breakfast. That's when I came up with the idea of making a Longanisa McMuffin. Longanisa is this sweet and spicy filipino sausage that you can find in most filipino stores. All I did was take the meat out of the casing, form it into a puck, fry it off in a frying pan with an egg on the side and whack it on a buttered and toasted english muffin. This was probably my proudest moment of the two days I spent cooking.

The stock had been stewing overnight and had since become rather flavorsome. When it came time to server the Mrs some delicious ramen, I realised I made my second mistake - I needed to source some legitimate noodles. Ramen noodles are NOT egg based noodles. Instead, their yellow hue comes from the fact that they are made with alkaline water. This means that not any yellow looking Japanese noodle would do. A mistake I realised later on in serving the ramen.

My third mistake was that I got tired and made a half-arsed effort with the Chashu and didn't braise it for long enough. If you're going to spend the time making ramen, put in some TLC and braise the pork properly. The pork should fall apart at the touch but instead mine was tough from not spending enough time in the cooking process. Pro-tip: put the pork INTO the stock and cooking it along with the stock. Once it's cooking to your desired texture, take it out and dip it into the marinade overnight. That way the chashu gets it's signature soft-pillowy bite and still gets the flavour treatment it needs.

My Final mistake was with the Tare. Ramen has multiple components: the stock, the noodles and the tare which is the sauce base differentiating each flavor (shoyu, miso, shio etc.). Whatever you do, do NOT make the shoyu tare the night before. Refrigerated tare will turn sour. Instead, keep the braising liquid or marinading liquid which you marinaded the chashu in. When it comes time to serve your Shoyu ramen, reduce the liquid until it becomes a thick, umami-packed sauce that you can thin out with the stock.

Overall, the Mrs was impressed with all the effort put in (she was being really nice) but word of advice: do not attempt to make ramen unless you have the balls to follow through until the end. Attention to detail is everything.

Ken's Sushi - Bexley North

Hello fellow foodies!

How has everyone been?

I'm glad to say that as of the last couple of week, our schedule's been freed up enough for us to make another post a mere 10 days after our last!

We know consistency is the key so from now on we'll post content at least twice a week until we get through our small backlog. I won't make any promises on which days those posts will be made but we will definitely do the best we can to stick to a regular schedule.

This means tonight we'll be posting TWO blogs!

First up tonight is a local (Mr - Local to me anyway) favorite. I quite literally squeal with joy when I get to eat at Ken's. One of the biggest draws is that it's one of the best family run Japanese restaurants in the south side and the prices are reasonable (cheap when relative to the amount the Father-unit orders). I also appreciate the quaint and homey decor and friendly service.

Anyways, it was a standard Tuesday night a couple of weeks ago when the whole family decided to take a night off and go eat out. As much as we love dad's cooking, it's already his occupation and as much as he loves delighting everyone with his culinary skills, the man really needs to chill out and take a night off. We arrive at our usual dinner time and our table is already set for us as we've called ahead to make reservations (trust me, if you do not book a table you most likely won't get to eat there that night as they are regularly booked out)

We started the meal off with our standard fare of edamame and beef tataki. The beef was seared wonderfully and the appetizing tataki sauce complemented the fresh flavors gorgeously. I would definitely recommend two orders of this for any table larger than three as you may find yourselves fighting over the thin, delectable slices of beef.

Then came the sushi which is what they are known for (duh!)

Salmon nigiri is a crowd favorite. I mean, who doesn't love salmon? If you do not love salmon nigiri, we cannot be friends. But in all seriousness, Ken's does this dish really well in that the ratio of fish to rice is almost 50/50. I know the true sushi connoisseur will say that the rice is the main highlight of any piece of sushi but you can hardly argue against the proposition when the taste of pure salmon goodness permeates your mouth.

Ken's also does rolls really well. And when I mean well I mean look at the size of that thing! I've rather proud of the fact that I can finish most things in one bite but I tend to struggle with Ken's sushi rolls. In addition to that, notice that they do not stinge on the fillings which some sushi restaurants are very guilty of.

Although personally, the sushi is the highlight of the meal, their hot foods are definitely not to be dismissed. There is nothing I love more than good Tempura and Ken's certainly delivers on that. Abundant crispy nibbles of vegetables almost make me forget about that plump juicy prawn that's cooked to perfection.

It's a shame that they don't do Tonkatsu cutlets but as the mother-ship loves chicken katsu more than pork, we settle for that. But please do not mistake my meaning when I say settle as that definitely does not mean that this dish is lacking in anyway. The golden crunch of the breaded outside paired with that wonderfully juicy chicken is a delight and the sauce provided just bumps it up a level.

We did actually order a LOT more but as dad was hungry, we didn't get an opportunity to snap any pictures of the other items we ordered. Believe me though, with the amount we ordered, it's a welcome surprise our bill only amounted to so little. Overall, I would return again and again to Ken's sushi if not for their wonderful quality then for their absolute bargain prices and excellent service.

Would we return? Yes, again and again and again.

Recommendations? The Sushi platter. A little bit of everything you need. If you're feeling naughty, polish an order of Aburi salmon by yourself. I do that all the time.

Areas of improvement? I can't help but feel like if they chose to do Tonkatsu as well Chicken Katsu, they would do it really well too.

KIN by us - Macquarie Park

Hi All!

Firstly, apologies as I do realise it has been some time since my last post. I've just been going through quite a bit lately which has taken me away from my blogging duties however I'm now back and ready to post again!

A couple weekends ago, I decided to take Mrs to Macquarie Park. This was so that she could go shopping to her hearts content and so that I could come and stuff my face at a cafe I wanted to check out.

That cafe happened to be KIN. This place has gained quite a bit of publicity on instagram as it was recently opened and run by none other than last years MKR favorites, Uel and Shanelle. Now I'm not one to just give in to star power, but they did have one or two dishes which I just HAD to try. So despite knowing our wallet would suffer dearly when Mrs went shopping, I grabbed her one fine Saturday and drove to Macquarie Park.

We were seated quite quickly despite the crowds which set the afternoon off to a good start, nothing more displeasing than having to wait ages for seating. We started off our meal with a bit of coffee (which they source from Reuben Hills). The cup ware they use is cute and cool, oozing with Asian-chic. I also love the fact that they include a little biscuit with every coffee, all my childhood memories resurfaced upon tasting the little morsel. The coffee though left me a little unsatisfied though as I had been expecting a rich and aromatic cup but found it all too milky, lacking in the flavor of coffee (then again I was rather uncharacteristically adventurous in my choice of the Milo Mocha)

The Mrs left food selection up to me (that's why I love her) and so I chose the three items which appealed the most to me: Snap,Crackle, Plop, Sub-marine and Kaya toast.

The first to come was Snap,Crackle, Plop. This is KIN's take on chicken rice which I have to say is a different and edgy interpretation, but still yummy. Definitely appreciate the onsen tamago and the chicken crackling however the Mrs and I both felt the rice was a bit dry and lacking in the chicken flavour typical Hainanese chicken rices had. Then again, the rice itself isn't something I suppose can be made-to-order so for that they can be forgiven. 

Next to come was the Sub-marine which was a soft-shell crab sub with chilli sauce. This was the dish that I appreacited the most because really who doesn't love Singaporean chilli crab? And to put that in a sandwich? AND take out all dirty work or cracking the shells? Sold. I would have personally preferred the sauce to be a bit more viscous but overall, it was everything I wanted it to be. 

Finally, the one dish to reach out table was the Kaya toast. I have to admit, despite having been to both Malaysia and Singapore, I don't actually know how to legitimately eat Kaya toast. I would have been okay eating the toast with the egg as is but the Mrs berated me for my lack of understanding and told me that it was supposed to be eaten with soy sauce and pepper. Unfortunately, they really have neither of the proper condiments to compliment the dish (the soy sauce provided was standard soy sauce as opposed to the Kecap Manis which I believe the Mrs had described) which meant that according to the Mrs, the dish was incomplete. I however, didn't have a problem with that at all. 

Overall, I felt that our experience at KIN by us was satisfactory. Satisfactory in that the food, atmosphere and service warranted my trip to Macquarie Park however I still felt that they had some minor improvements they will need to make before their dishes become truly impressive. The presentation, techniques and concepts were all there but they just need a little more focus on making the dishes stand out in flavor. 

Would we return? Maybe after a little while.

Recommendations? The Sub-marine was definitely the standout dish to me.

Areas of improvement? The flavors of the food items do need to be a bit more pronounced.