Day 10 at The Culinary: Japan

Today I ventured to Asia.

This day started out like all the others, with Banquet for lunch. Here's the menu:

-- Wild Rice Soup
-- Butter Roasted Strip Loin with Pommes Fromage and Spinach with Garlic and Bacon in Jus
-- Profiterols with Strawberries and Créme Diplomat
-- Pomegranate Arnold Palmer

Pommes: French for "potatoes"

Fromage: French for "cheese"

Jus: French term for "juice". In this case refers to the natural juices exuded from the meat.

Profiterole: A miniature cream puff filled with either a sweet or savory mixture. In this case, créme diplomat.

Créme Diplomat: A French pastry cream

Sorry, no pitcures for this meal.

I don't really remember too much about this meal, but I remember the soup wasn't anything too great. The strip loin had a nice fatty, buttery flavor that I enjoyed, and the potatoes were in a mound that was crisped at the top. They were mildly cheesy and tasted pretty good. I've found the spinach to always be good at this school, and this was a better preparation because of the garlic and bacon. The dessert was fun, but difficult to cut into pieces. There were either three or four of them, and I liked them.


This day was a revolution. I mustered up enough courage to try a kitchen that wasn't K16. It was between 5:00 and 5:30, so the only kitchen open was K16. Only two kitchens would be opening at 5:30, and they were Asias (downstairs) and Americas (upstairs). I decided to try the Asias kitchen, and when I went there I was the first one on line to eat on Japan day! Here's the menu I had to choose from, and the food I chose, as well as the table I sat at which was full of food:

-- Fried Pork Tonkatsu and Teriyaki Beef with Stir Fried Vegetables and White Cabbage and Steamed White Rice
-- Miso Soup
-- Cucumber and Seaweed Salad
-- Key Lime Tart
-- Tiramisu




I love this last picture. That's a typical table of four here.

This dish was basically Japanese pork two ways. There was fried pork and rare teriyaki sliced pork. They were both excellent, but I definitely like the fried pork better because it was more tender and it was crispier. The salad was good because cucumber and seaweed are always refreshing to me. The soup wasn't very good, and it had way too much tofu in it. I don't really want to eat tofu. The key lime tart, which looked like a lemon tart, was very good, and the best part was the shell. The tiramisu wasn't very good in any way.

I was glad I tried a new kitchen. Also, I ate at the downstairs dining room because it was closer. There's also a dish room down there. I learned pretty fast that upstairs is much better than down. The food is generally better, there's more seating, it's more conveniently located, the desserts are better, and, unlike downstairs, you don't (practically) have to do your dishes.

Pretty fun dinner.

Until the next post,
Eat well, then eat more