Because it wouldn't be a travelogue without random travel stories...

I love traveling with my sister. Not only does she help carry a lot of the stuff or store things in the overhead compartment (a godsend to me, with my petite size and lack of upper-body strength), but we do a lot of random things in our crazy, sleep-deprived state. Here are some of the things we did:

(1) Did a little dance in our seats when the food arrived (of course, as you can see in my post below, the dance was not totally justified...).

(2) Complained about the breakfast burrito using very descriptive language (she described it as looking like a bloody, rolled-up towel; see below for my description).

(3) Did a “wave” (like they do at sports games) when our last piece of luggage FINALLY showed up after 30-40 minutes of waiting in the luggage carousel.

(4) Wondered why there were so many white people on the plane to the Philippines (normally there are very few or none at all—if ever they are, they’re usually married to a Filipino, and the ones on the plane were not).

(5) Clapped when the plane landed, and talked about whether or not we thought that people on the plane would start singing “Manila, Manila” (sadly, they didn’t).

Food in Transit--Airplane and Airport food

First of all, I am completely aware of the bad reputation that airplane food gets--precooked food reheated in airplane galleys are bound to taste worse than food prepared in a restaurant's kitchen; however, I do believe that it can still be judged for what it is, as it is still food. Of course, I do not expect gourmet meals from airplane food, but from my travels through the years using different airlines, I know that relatively good food is still a possibility...even when you are hundreds of miles above ground.

Hawaiian Airlines (Seattle to Honolulu). Food was absolutely atrocious—breakfast burrito with a blueberry muffin. Okay fine. Maybe it wasn’t that bad, because it was at least edible to some extent. Then again, just the fact that I have to qualify this statement by saying that the food was “at least edible” emphasizes its status on the borderline of inedibility. The breakfast burrito had a similar texture as what I would imagine foam to taste like (that is to say, Styrofoam foam sheets that you get when you have a big television)—obviously, I’ve never had foam in my life. Digging into the burrito with my fork excavated out some congealed egg-mushroom-potato-corn mix that was grayish in color. To top this concoction all off, the “sauce” over the burrito was a dried-up film of tomato-ish flavor. Although this sounds pretty disgusting (it was), it wasn’t too bad…I ate some of it because I was hungry. Moving on from my traumatic experience of eating the “burrito,” I ate some of the blueberry muffin that came with the meal. Overall, it was just a normal blueberry muffin, albeit having very little blueberries. I ate the top and picked out the blueberries. Here’s hoping the flight to Manila will yield better-tasting food.

(this is kind of what the burrito looked like--stole the picture from online--but the "sauce" was more reddish)-->note the un-sauce nature of the sauce, which was a solid film instead of a liquid substance.

Honolulu Airport. Americanized Chinese food—fried egg rolls with bright red ketchup and fried rice. Given our mutual disgust for the burrito (see above), this was not bad in comparison. Not even exaggerating with the bright red ketchup. It was as bright, fire-engine red as paint or lipstick thanks to artificial food coloring—I don’t think I’ve ever seen actual tomatoes that red.

Hawaiian Airlines (Honolulu to Manila). Food was significantly better than the first leg of my flight (which I suppose is not saying that much). The two full meals that were served on the flight were pork adobo with rice (it was either that or chicken in tomato sauce) and cold bihon noodles—both of them taking into account all the Filipinos on the plane.

The pork adobo wasn’t bad—the sauce was done correctly and had a passable balance of garlic, soy sauce and vinegar (main ingredients of adobo); my problem with it however was that it mostly consisted of FAT. I mean, there are people out there who love eating just the pork fat with rice but I find the notion rather disgusting and unhealthy, so I separated the meat from the fat and ate what little there was of it. Adobo came with chocolate, salad and bread—all were on the average level, yet tending towards the below-average side of things.

Cold bihon noodles weren’t as bad as I expected (the “bad expectations” coming from my dad’s stories, as he flew Hawaiian airlines previously and complained that they served him cold noodles, which he was quite upset about, given that it was a long flight and he wanted something warm in his stomach). Since I have a sore throat at the moment, the cold, citrusy (I sprinkled some lemon on top) noodles felt nice going down my scratchy throat. Tastewise, the noodles were fine too—just your average thin rice noodles with meat, vegetables and some soy sauce. My sister and I skipped the ice cream that came with this meal due to the dietary restrictions imposed by our respective sicknesses.

Art in Seattle and TV Dinners

Went here with my aunt (photo credits!) and my cousin on Friday for lunch. Art is a restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel, which is located conveniently in the heart of downtown Seattle. Among all the things on its lunch menu, Art has “TV dinner” lunches—or to say it in more “gourmet” terms, four-course meals that are served simultaneously on one plate. The TV dinner trays in Art were themed to match the World Cup mania as well; there were four choices—Asia, Americas, Europe and Africa. I chose Americas (go Brazil!), my cousin chose Europe and my aunt chose Africa—we figured that by picking different things, we would be able to sample each other’s food.

Here is the menu (price of each tray was $20.10--get it?)

Here is my plate, the Americas platter. Counter-clockwise from top left…Salad de Palmito (heat of palm salad), Chivato al Plato (beef steak, quail egg, onions and mozzarella), Picadinho de Jarcare (alligator terrine), and Tropical Fruit Salad (with margarita sauce).

Salad de Palmito (heat of palm salad): Was nice and refreshing. Basically some hearts of palm in a shape of a circle topped with lettuce, chopped-up heats of palm, radish, carrots and a citrusy-tasting vinaigrette.

Chivato al Plato (beef steak, quail egg, onions and mozzarella): To be completely honest, did not even know that this dish had mozzarella until I rechecked the menu while writing this blog, but otherwise, the beef steak was nicely-cooked and had a full, meaty flavor, which went along nicely with the quail egg that topped it. In retrospect, knowing that it had mozzarella allows me to make more sense out of the depth of flavor and meatiness which the mozzarella brought out in the beef, even though the mozzarella itself was not highlighted as a main component of the dish.

Picadinho de Jarcare (alligator terrine): One of the main reasons why I chose the Americas TV tray as opposed to the others--I have a love for trying exotic meats a lot of the time. Even if I've tried alligator when I went to Louisiana (in the form of a "fish-stick" type of thing), I wanted to see how it would fare in a terrine. I didn't think that this was really that remarkable--the alligator had the texture of tough, dry fish...a bit like overcooked blue marlin without the fishy taste, and there were large chunks of it in the terrine, which had other components like tomato, pimientos, onions, etc in it if I'm not mistaken. Was overall underwhelming, except for the fact that it was alligator.

Tropical Fruit Salad (with margarita sauce): The tropical fruits included in this fruit salad were papaya and pineapple I think...maybe some mango (can't totally remember right now). I liked the addition of the sherbet and the margarita sauce--neither was overly sweet, but added a nice, light flavor that went well with the fruits. Didn't taste the "margarita-ness" of the sauce however--it was very subtle.

This is Mia's plate, the Europe platter. Counter-clockwise from top left: Apple Strudel (with cherry sauce), Salad Lyonnaise (with frisee, lardons and poached egg), Modern Fish and Chips (with curry tartar and minted freeze-dried pea powder) and the Risotto con L'Oro (risotto with veal, gold dust and gold leaf).

Didn't really try anything of Mia's with the exception of her Modern Fish and Chips, for which the fish was cooked really well and the tartar sauce was light and not overpowering (which is my criticism with tartar sauce most of the time, which is full of mayonnaise, which I dislike in large quantities. Mia said her food was good though, and since she's pretty picky/discerning with her food, I will trust her judgment.

(No picture for the Africa plate, although I tried everything and liked the strong flavors which arose from the harmony between the meat and the spices used)

Overall--Art's food was pretty tasty, but I thought that $20.10 was a bit steep to pay for the food (although I do like the reference to the year)--and yes, I am taking into consideration that this restaurant is in the Four Seasons, as other things on their regular lunch menu were priced in the range of $13 to $18. Although the ingredients that they used in the TV trays were relatively expensive (veal, alligator, lamb, etc.), they were not present in large enough quantities to justify the steep price. In addition, although I did like the flavors that they used, I did not think that their combinations were really that innovative--I expected a lot more in terms of conceptual creation of the food. I felt that despite the artistic way that these things were plated (hence the name of the restaurant), they did not totally pay homage to authentic flavors of the respective continents that they strove to represent; instead, they were beautiful looking, second-rate copies of the originals.

Megan's Excellent Seattle Foodventure (Double Desserts)

picture credits to Twinkle, our fellow foodventurer...

Hiroki Bakery: Went here after going to La Carta de Oaxaca in Ballard (see post below). Hiroki Bakery is in Wallingford, which is a neighborhood of Seattle (they're all pretty close to each other to be quite honest). This bakery was opened by a Japanese guy named Hiroki, who creates baked goods that take Japanese and European influences into account.

Green Tea Tiramisu: I think that Tiramisu is probably not the best term to call this delicious cake. When I think of tiramisu, I think of coffee liqueur-soaked ladyfingers layered with creamy, decadent yet light mascarpone cream. Unlike this description, the green tea tiramisu was more of...subtly matcha-flavored sponge cake layered with green tea mascarpone cream--a bit of a reversal of a regular tiramisu because the flavor here came from the mascarpone instead of the cake layers. Still, the cake was excellent, and still very light. We split it among 4 people though, since we were stuffed from eating lunch.

White Chocolate Citrus Lavender Cake: This cake was good too--the cake was infused with lavender, which made sense when combined with the citrusy notes (and of course, the white chocolate) in the cake. I felt that the power of this cake was mostly aromatic, as opposed to appealing to mere taste--I don't think I've ever eaten anything that smelled this good. The cake itself was alright--a bit on the dry and crumbly side, I thought. I liked the green tea tiramisu better.

Old School Frozen Custard Went here after Hiroki (by this time, we were pretty full--actually, fuller than normal full), because my mom had a Livingsocial coupon for this (similar to Groupon). This place has a frozen custard flavor of the day--in that sense, it is similar to Culver's, and they have vanilla and chocolate custard every day. So, what sets custard apart from ice cream? Well, it has less air, which is compensated by the addition of more egg yolk and butterfat. The texture of frozen custard comes out to be richer, smoother and silkier than regular ice cream, which just tastes creamy and milky overall.

Interior of Old School Frozen Custard: note the blackboard where they write down their special combinations. How this place works is that they take the custard flavors and mix it up with a lot of yummy ingredients in a machine--sort of similar to DQ Blizzards, only a lot better.

The Playground (all their items were school-themed): Combined chocolate custard, oreo pieces, gummy worms, chocolate fudge and whipped cream. So goood--chocolatey and fudgy. I loved the combination of oreo chunks, chocolate fudge and chocolate custard. We split this among 4 people too because we were so full and just took 2 pints of frozen custard home--Kahlua chip and Mocha Heath Bar Crunch. I tried the Mocha Heath Bar Crunch the other day and it was delicious--just mocha-y enough to meld well with the slightly salty-sweet Heath bar pieces. It was good with Nutella too. Yumyum.

Megan's Excellent Seattle Foodventure (La Carta da Oaxaca)

This is what I did the first day that I got back from school.

(but to preface this story:)

The night before I left school: Only around an hour of sleep because I was packing. It was pretty exhausting and also a good workout because I lugged all my boxes and luggage (also my fridge) to the downstairs storage myself (this is more remarkable given that I am a tiny Asian girl with no conceivable upper-body strength, and even more remarkable given the fact that I had barely any sleep...go me!).

The night before...

Denny's for dinner (after getting back at around 11 at night). Mom told me that I was going to my sister's recital at 10 in the morning (so I had to wake up at 9 am), and that we were going to go eat good food for lunch.

And the yumventure (and coincidentally also on Philippine Independence Day) begins:

La Carta de Oaxaca
One of the best Mexican restaurants that I've been to, especially since it is not your typical tacos, burritos and enchiladas place. The Oacaxan influence on the cuisine here is apparent in the variety of their menu, as well as the fact that they had mole. YUM. Also, they make their own tortillas (you can see it in their open kitchen) and have a good salsa bar. YUM. Overall, amazing, home-style (authentic), hearty (and cheap) food.

Interior: Note the open kitchen and the salsa bar near the bar area of the kitchen (it's right beside where the white thing is below the person at the kitchen). They had around 5-6 different salsas and all were good.

Lady making tortillas by hand (note the red basin next to her where the dough was--she would roll the dough out in spheres, flatten it, and place it on the pan to toast). Their tortillas are delicious by the way.

Chips and Guacamole: Yum. Chips were fresh and guacamole was nice and chunky.

Pork Mole Negro Oaxaquena: Did not get this myself, but two of my eating companions did (and I've tried this dish previously when I went here a while ago). The mole that they have here is pretty delicious--it has a nice, smoky-sweet flavor, and the pork is pretty tender. Such a hearty meal.

Lamb Birria: Sooo goood. And I didn't even know that Mexican people had lamb as part of their cuisine. Lamb was really tender and had a lot of different spices that allowed the meaty, hearty flavor of the lamb meat to come out. Originally I thought that they probably put in some alcohol--like beer or wine--to give the stew some depth, but when I looked at recipes for this meal, it turned out that it was just spices. The beans that this was served with were also really yummy, especially when you combined all the elements of the dish and made a taco with the tortillas (also putting in some salsa from their extensive selection completed the experience). Also, I finished my food--that is saying a lot.

Pozole (picture stolen from online--no, we did not have beer with our meal): Mindy's order. Pork stew with hominy that you eat up with tortillas. I tried her soup and it was seasoned very well--I've tried versions of this soup that were too salty, too spicy or too oily, but this soup was just right. It had a nice, meaty flavor and would be something that I would want on a rainy day.

Caldo de Pescado (taken from online as well): Mom's order. Apparently this restaurant won "best fish soup" with this dish, and my mom would agree wholeheartedly with that, because she really loved this fish soup. I tried some from her and the broth was very...nice--flavorful, but you still got that fish taste that was not overwhelmed by a lot of random spices.

End of the (school)Year Roundup

With finals and reading period a distant memory in my mind, as I am basking in the cool weather that is Seattle summer, here is my end of the year roundup!

Gioco (or longest wait ever for food)

Used up a Groupon for this. Groupon is one of my favorite websites because it gives you the opportunity of a coupon (or two) a day for Chicago businesses--whether it's restaurants, manicures/pedicures, or helicopter lessons. It's also fun to check and see what's the deal for the day. I got my mom to subscribe to it as well for Seattle-area things. In any case, the deal for Gioco was $20 for $40 worth of food...so I got Alice Li, fellow foodventurer and my especial foodtographer (she has a lovely camera) to come help me eat our food.

As a whole, the food was pretty good. We started off with the bread that they gave us (not bad) and some Calamari. I liked the calamari because instead of just having your normal fried squid, they also breaded and fried up some lemon and basil (both of which added some extra taste to the crunchy squid).

For the main course, I got the Bucatini con Gambero (Bucatini with Rock Shrimp in a garlicky, tomato-based sauce) and it was pretty excellent--shrimp was cooked to perfection and the sauce was good. Alice on the other hand, got the Pollo Arrosto con Erba Secco (Roasted Chicken with herbs and some mushroom sauce), but I felt that her chicken was a bit on the dry side.

So here's the thing that ruined the restaurant for me--the service. I am Asian, so I go to a lot of good Asian restaurants where service and customer satisfaction is not necessarily the priority of the owners (instead, food is the main thing), but Gioco's service was undeniably bad, even with that in mind. Our food took about 40 minutes (maybe more) to arrive--which is ridiculous given that I just had a pasta and Alice just had a roast chicken. Even when I followed up with the waiter 20-30 minutes into the wait, it took them 10 minutes to get our food out to us. Long story short, the horrible service turned the meal into an insanely long 90-minute dinner. I was so tempted to tip very little, but felt a bit bad (or at least Alice did and so I eventually did), so I'm just pouring out my dissatisfaction onto this review.

Bread (we had a lot of it while waiting)

Pollo Arrosto con Erba Secco

(the other two things--Calamari and my Bucatini con Gambero were too normal to take pictures of--also, I will add that for the bucatini that it took too long for it to arrive so I was relatively impatient to eat it when it did come)

Hai Yen (or the joining of foodventure forces)

The thing that's fun with meeting fellow foodventurers is comparing notes and then going to eat somewhere together. I met my friend Tiffany in Calculus but only started talking to her in Nutritional Science (which I was taking but she was auditing). Given our shared love for food (even though we do have different foodventure styles), we decided that we must culminate our foodventure bonding (of talking about what we've eaten over the weekend) and go eat somewhere before the year ended. We decided on Hai Yen (after going through many different choices and finding somewhere neither of us have been to) and trekked over to Lincoln Park on Memorial Day with Alice.

Hai Yen had pretty good Vietnamese food. It's not your typical pho and spring roll place, it took some French and Chinese influences into account when coming up with their menu. We all started off with their Vegetarian Spring Rolls, which were good and normal (nothing too spectacular--hard to beat Green Leaf's spring rolls, which have crunchy wonton skin in them).

For the main dish, I had the Bun Tom Nuong, which was a dish of steamed noodles with grilled shrimp and a spring roll on top. I liked their version of this dish, which I've had in different variations in various Vietnamese restaurants. What set this apart was that the noodles had more "bite" and were more "al dente" than in other places (thin and soggy-ish noodles). In addition, I liked the use of shredded basil which was mixed into the noodles and gave the dish a fresher taste. Tiffany got the Go Ngo Sen Chay--lotus root salad with tofu--and liked it as well. Alice however, didn't like her Pho or Vietnamese coffee too much. Overall, not bad for Vietnamese food in my opinion. It was refreshing.

Spring Rolls

Go Ngo Sen Chay

Bun Tom Nuong

Demera (or "food fun")

Another Groupon that we decided to use (we--me, Alice and Kevin). Two more people were supposed to join us, but because of rain, overtime practices and reading period-tiredness, it ended up being the three of us, and it was like a reunion of the Pilsen foodventurers. Demera is an Ethopian restaurant that I decided on getting the Groupon for because it's Ethiopian food, and I have had good recollections of Ethiopian food after eating in an Ethiopian restaurant in Seattle with my family.

Demera was fun, because of the Ethopian dance performers who were encouraging audience participation--people really got into it, it gave the night a fun atmosphere. Not only that, but the fact that we were not given utensils (so we had to eat with our hands) was a different experience from the normal restaurant setting.

Food-wise, Demera was just "meh." We ordered the appetizer platter consisting of the sambussa samplers and the ambasha. Sambussas were essentially meat or vegetable pies reminiscent of Indian samosas or Jamaican patties. I thought they were good (favorite part of the meal). Ambasha on the other hand was a traditional baked skillet bread that was served with their homemade cottage cheese. Flavor-wise, the bread was sweetish, and its texture was interesting--somewhat spongy but also a bit crumbly (Kevin really liked this bread; I really liked the sambussas). For our main dish, we ordered a messob platter with side dishes of vegetables, beef and lamb served on an injera bread (with a lot of extra injera on the side). Injera is the Ethiopian sour crepe that is probably most similar to sourdough pancakes/crepes but a lot more intense in its sour flavor (Alice did not like them). We also had Ethiopian coffee on the side, and I thought it was stronger and more heady than regular coffee. It had a subtle smokiness to its flavor, which was nice.

Appetizer platter: sambussas and ambasha with the homemade cottage cheese side thing

Vegetarian/Meat Messob platter served on the injera

Ethiopian coffee

Triple Crown Restaurant (or dimsum at 11ish in the evening)

Alice and Megan foodventure to celebrate the end of the year--even though at this time, Alice was still not done with one of her final papers. We took the CTA to Chinatown at around 11:45 at night and had dimsum and tea there for fun. Food was unremarkable, but it wasn't bad quality for that late in the evening. If you think it is really stupid for two Asian girls to be walking the streets of Chinatown that late in the evening, you are correct, since there were some drunk/crazy/creepy people in the CTA stations, but we had good company--namely, some of our other friends who were having an end-of-the-year celebration of their Bible Study group (and they were all guys--we had a lot of...henchmen/protectors I guess). This is why it is always helpful to have guy friends.

In response to the question, what don't you like to eat?

Alice's question, basically.

And this is excluding things that are cooked badly, which will always be bad.

(just saying, the fact that I dislike these things does not mean that I will not eat them--I've been forced to or have forced myself to at some point I'm sure)

1. Fish Head Sinigang

Even though this seems like an obvious thing to dislike, it still sounds pretty strange to a lot of people when I say that I dislike eating this (i.e. my mom and sister love eating this). Why do I dislike it?

(1) fish heads--I never really liked eating fish that had a lot of bones or had bones in unexpected places, because I was always afraid swallowing them. It is a lot worse when it comes to fish heads, because not only are the bones in weird/unknown places, you are not sure what you are eating--fin/eye/jaw/cheek (cheeks actually good). The other thing is that they look at you with their opaque, white eyes--that creeps me out. Mostly, fish heads take forever to eat and they're not that good in my opinion.

(2) sinigang--Sinigang is whatever to me. It's basically sour/salty soup flavored with tamarind with tomatoes and onions thrown in, and very common to Filipino cuisine. I honestly prefer the Vietnamese soup that has a similar flavor profile.

2. Raw Celery

It just has a weird taste that's pretty strong and rather unpleasant overall. I really don't mind it if it's cooked in such a way where you get the taste out mostly, but generally speaking, I'd rather not eat celery if I don't have to.

3. Pork and Beans

Had to eat this for breakfast many times growing up. Or, at least this was supposed to be breakfast. I always refused to eat it--if ever, I would get just a tiny bit (or just the pork part) and eat it with my rice. Otherwise, I would just eat the rice (especially if it had egg in it) or toast some bread for myself (the beginnings of my food survival skills). My sister loved this though...I just didn't.

4. Creme Brulee

To be fair, I don't dislike this as much as all the other things, but I just don't care for creme brulee. The sugar thing on top is just too sweet/too burnt/too caramelized in flavor for me, and the egg custard (though good) is too rich when combined with that. Personal preference I suppose?

5. Donuts

Too much sugar, fat and oil. I mean, I've gone to good donut places, like Top Pot in Seattle, whose donuts were pretty good...but this is just not something that I would eat. Donuts are just fried, sugary dough for me, which is just blah. That being said, I like beignets though. Yumyum. Completely different story--texture is much more interesting/palatable.

6. Croissants

I've had good croissants...of course, it's not I've been to Paris or anything, but I've been to Le Panier in Seattle, which people have lauded with giving them very Parisian-style croissants (granted, it's not the same I'm sure). Croissants are just normal for me though--crumbly, buttery, flaky, slightly sweet bread. Just give me French bread with butter (or even without) anytime instead.

7. Cotton Candy

...to me, is just like eating sugar, which make sense because it is. I'm not a huge fan of it.

(I'm sure I can come up with more if I think hard enough. As of now, it's just these things.)

Stuff I'm Craving

So I woke up today and was kind of still half-asleep and lying down in my bed and asked myself--"what am I craving at the moment?" I know, it's such a weird thought to begin the day with, but surprisingly, I was able to answer my own question rather quickly, and have been thinking about these things ever since.

(...and no, I don't think about food ALL THE TIME, I do have other interests--at least I'd like to believe so)

1. Buko Juice (Coconut Juice)
This weather that Chicago's been having lately (i.e. humid, warm and sunny) makes me just want to drink this refreshing treat that I grew up with in many respects. Like not even exaggerating when I say I grew up with this--we had coconut trees in my garden and sometimes we (and when I say we, I don't mean myself) would just take some of the coconuts, crack them open and have some juice from them. That and the fact that my grandfather had a farm-resort in the rural/provincial area, and he would bring back some coconuts that the maids would take and get the juice out of, such that when I would open the fridge, there would be pitchers of fresh juice that would be sooo nice, cool and refreshing. I have to say that eating the juice out of a coconut shell is another story though that must be tried--although sometimes the coconut that they give you is not that fresh. The best are when they have just cracked open the shell.
I've tried to get this juice in Asian grocery stores that sell it canned, but it's just not the same (and also on the side of disgusting sometimes), especially since there's a weird metallic/chemical taste in the juice, and the chunks of coconut meat are ridiculously tiny.

2. Fig and Prosciutto pizza

I know, I've blogged about craving this before. I just have a thing for salty/sweet things to be honest. What can I say--my craving has not yet been satisfied, so I maintain my desire to eat this particular pizza. Yum.

3. Gindara teriyaki

I know, this just seems like an extremely out-of-the-blue, and also random thing to really crave for and I really don't know what specifically triggered this craving, but gindara has been a pervasive thought in my mind ever since I thought about it. I guess in some ways I've grown up eating gindara--my grandparents like eating Japanese food, and there are a lot of relatively good Japanese restaurants in the Philippines (I'm guessing Japanese occupation is a possible reason?). This is specifically the dish...at least one of them...that was a constant menu order (along with uni sashimi--yum). I've had this dish cooked badly many times--it's pretty easy to mess it up by: grilling it too much such that it gets dry/burnt, not having fresh cod to begin with and putting too much teriyaki sauce (and having the fish swim in it, literally). But, when prepared well (and it is so simple theoretically--it's the execution that is more difficult), it is...amazingly good. To just have the gindara perfectly grilled, so it has the outer layer of caramelized sauce on it--it just melts in your mouth. Eating this with just Japanese rice is such simple perfection.