Izakaya Tomo and various other food experiences in Canada: 8-9 Feb 2020

Being totally honest here...at the insistence of certain other individuals, I decided to explore another restaurant in this city, letting me report back on more food. In particular, a friend of mine has barely eaten Japanese food and seemed especially curious about what an Izakaya would be like.

Honestly, I also heard about this restaurant on Friday, and another person told me they most liked my blogs about food (they know who they are). So that made me even more interested to come to the restaurant!

Part 1 focuses on the Izakaya whereas Parts 2 and 3 encapsulate some various food experiments of mine today.

Part 1: Izakaya Tomo (8 Feb 2020)

Cool illustration on the wall here!

 Of course I sat near the entrance! The izakaya was fairly dim, while I prefer a more lit-up experience, but it was well arranged.

With a menu like this, it's a small wonder I ate beef tataki! It seemed immediately appetizing and unlike something I had eaten at another Japanese restaurant recently. However, the presence of seafood and pork in the menu did give me pause. As I understand it, pork is not as common in Japan but is very beloved in red-meat-loving Alberta. 

 At first, I was going to get a standard salmon sushi but I went with the special salmon they featured.

 Beef tataki is below

For once, I will include a proper after image for the tataki, so that you can see I...do not eat everything. I try very hard to, but it can be quite difficult for me! Especially with my pickiness towards textures.

Today's special: Aburi salmon

Another shot of salmon, with soy-wasabi dipping sauce I love (it's essential, okay)

Unlike the standard salmon dish I am used to, this one was partially cooked, which caught me by surprise. The rice used also fell apart more readily than expected. It was an interesting experiment for me to try out! As per usual, soy-wasabi was a delightful pairing for this dish, even if it felt like there was not enough fish for the wasabi.


As you can see below, my sushi sin is not eating the ginger that comes with the dish. I like ginger in cooking a lot but not eating on its own!

Normally, I would have simply stopped after two dishes, but I realized that this would not be enough food for me. Also, the budget of $30 CAD had not yet been met, so I figured why not! An experience with kara-age a while ago left me feeling quite wary of the dish in general. (In the wrong hands, this dish is simply boring fried chicken.)

But the restaurant  featured an exciting array of tastes-- negi shio, including salt and green onion, caught my eye the most.

Chicken kara-age (negi shio), as seen below, is clearly partially breaded unlike the Fried Chicken I had last time. This gave a refreshing texture with elements of softness and crunchiness lovingly paired. The green onion deepened the flavor simultaneously. Clearly, kara-age can be handled quite well!

Far away shot of Izakaya Tomo entrance (keeping life mysterious and interesting)

(No, it was just forgetting until I was at the bus stop, so I zoomed in)

Because Izakayas are a rather unique type of restaurant, dominated by smaller dishes and Japanese food served in a more informal setting, I found myself invigorated after this experience. Actually, after coming home, I went grocery shopping~ All of this in service of being a homebody today (9 Feb 2020). 

Part 2: Nutella and Bread (9 Feb)
Nothing to comment here, except that *two* Nutella packets is quite the splurge for me!

Part 3: Trying to be clever with instant ramen (9 Feb)
So I tried these steps:

-Cook instant ramen in water already containing garlic-ginger paste, chicken tikka masala, another chicken masala, instant ramen broth powder
-Add in spaghetti noodles too
-Add an egg

Before:

As you can see, the egg got lopsided.

True to form, I gave up on the egg and stirred the dish.  In the future, perhaps I will try cooking the egg on the noodles, or something mature like that. But this time, I drained most of the water out and largely took the noodles. The 'broth' itself, thrown together with the instant ramen base, was likely nothing too special, and filled with salt. (For this reason, I usually eat instant ramen as just noodles, especially if I cook in the pot.)

So I was left with the below item.

While it's rather simple, its only textural complexity being two noodles of different length and taste, the spiciness comes out quite strongly, leaving my mouth feeling burning. If anything, maybe this dish teaches me nothing new -- as I already know that more spices will lead to greater heat -- but it was nice to mix noodles of different lengths. This dish required more thinking on my part, cooking some of the noodles before the rest. However, I also learned that this was absolutely not the way to add egg to ramen -- as it ended up in weirdly broken pieces.

Well, I am a busy researcher, so maybe tomorrow's dinner will probably be pizza or something haha.