Tao, Midtown East, NYC

I should backdate this post to August, when my computer was broken, but I am too lazy. I went to Tao with 7 other friends on August 8 (reservation for 8 at 8pm, on 8-8-08). While everybody else was watching the Olympics' Opening Ceremony, we were eating copious amounts of sushi in a loud and huge restaurant. Reservations are months in advance, so make your reservation early (unless you are related to Uncle Richie).

Since it was the summer, we gravitated towards more refreshing dishes. Not pictured is the table-full of appetizers that we all shared. At first, the atmosphere was very much like a family dinner in a polite family. We were passing dishes around and making lettuce wraps for each other. When the sushi came out, the atmosphere changed to "fend-for-yourself."
By the time dessert rolled out, we were all in a feeding frenzy, digging madly at the mounds of ice cream and sweets.
Check out the little buddhas in white, milk, and dark chocolate! After dinner mints or after dinner buddhas?

Mura - Raleigh, NC

Due to request by some friends who patiently sit through my photo sessions before digging into their meals, I am anachronistically posting photos of my latest food conquest.

Mura is a decently new restaurant in North Raleigh, part of the completely revamped North Hills shopping center complex. I remember North Hills as being a half-abandoned lot back in high school, where store fronts were so cheap that a handful of high schoolers could afford to rent one out to build the decorations for their winter formal. That is not the case today, where Kobe beef at Mura can cost $69.00. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you heard that right. Raleigh - Entree - $69.00. I think we've hit a new high.

We took advantage of the great weather to sit outside, but unfortunately it made for poorly-lit pictures. For that, I apologize. Dinner started off with VERY lightly seared tuna marinated in ponzu sauce, served with a sriracha paste. When I've had tuna before, you could see at least 1/8 inch of cooked edge. At Mura, they try to only cook the surface. I was extremely impressed with the pile of orange paste that presented itself, enough so, that I flagged down our waiter and asked him "what is this and why is it so good?" According to him, it is a puree of crab, shrimp, and daikon, mixed with sriracha. Some food purists might say the spiciness ruins the subtle flavors of the tuna, but I say it was brilliant!
left: TNT Crunch - shrimp tempura with spicy mayo. I made him bring out more sriracha because it lacked the TNT that was promised. If you order the TNT Crunch, make sure not to get it "mild."
center: Ebi Maki - Shanna's choice. Soft shell crab with asparagus, avocado, topped with wasabi dressing and spicy mayo. Very good.
right: the Mura Roll - basically a ton of fish rolled inside of rice, nori (seaweed), and thinly sliced daikon. I wasn't particularly a fan of the daikon on the outside, and the roll is much better without the cilantro in the middle overpowering all the other flavors.
I am sort of bewildered by the tackiness of the logo, "Mura" embossed on the dessert plates. I tried to obscure it with the tiramisu. The tiramisu torte looked a little like a bench. I must admit I am not used to the ladyfingers being on both edges of the dessert. Sauces from the inside, out: dulce de leche, caramel, dark chocolate, enveloped in raspberry syrup.
Shanna's choice of dessert, a chocolate torte with ice cream. Now that I think of it, the weather was perfect for ice cream!

Big Wheel Sushi

My first encounter with my mom's oldest sister (big aunt) after 11 years of not seeing her was getting a cultural tour on Taiwanese teens, in Shi Men Ding. Our first stop (after passing by countless stores peddling pink, lacy, and anime accessories to teens with disposable income) was the Giant Wheel revolving sushi bar. I'm not sure why it's called Giant (da) Wheel (treh luen); maybe it has something to do with the train that was pulling the sushi? Left: Giant asparagus spears with a sour plum sauce. Very strange feeling, eating asparagus with plum. If you disregard the internal instinct to gag when you think of plum sauce, it's actually not bad.
Right: noodles made out of a vegetable called mountain medicine (shan yao). It's more like shreds of some sort of root that comes out slimey but very subtle in taste.
Both are served cold.
Cone, I think this is salmon.
The REAL train pulling the sushi. Many revolving sushi restaurants have a conveyor belt that passes little covered dishes in front of diners. This restaurant put the effort into building a huge set of train tracks that went all the way around the dining room, from the front of the store to the back, taking great care to pass through the window display so that people outside can see too. They had to weigh down the train in certain areas because the food it was pulling was too heavy and would make the pulling engine tilt.
Giant shrimp tempura. I love tempura because the batter is so light and crispy. The key to having excellent tempura batter is to mix the powder with ice water right before dipping food in it. This makes the batter light, and non-chewy.