Archive for the ‘Japanese’ Category

It’s been so hard for me to write this article due to the immense respect I have for Tottie Kaya and her cooking.  For two weeks I’ve been trying to think of some clever one liners for this review and just the best way to deliver a stunning review for a stunning lady. Tottie grew up in Laos and her mother was the cook to the royal family there, so you know Ms. Tottie knows how to cook!!  She fled her country after communism took over and immigrated here to the United States.  Six years ago she accomplished her goal and dream to have her own restaurant and it’s just so darn good,  she needs two to accommodate all of us who love her cooking!

Tottie’s Asian 2 is sister location to the original Totties’s Asian Fusion on Thomas Rd. in Scottsdale.  Tottie’s 2 is a little closer for me, being located in the Lincoln Village on  Scottsdale Rd. behind Fogo De Chao and next to Trader Joe’s.  My first time into Tottie’s was for her Media Dinner that she had in February.  It was just spectacular!  The whole restaurant was closed to the public as food writers, bloggers, and people of the industry got to see how incredibly hospitable Tottie and her crew really are.  She had an artist there who’s amazing drawings covered the walls of her restaurant and we each got our own beautiful full color lithograph to take home.  Arizona’s own Candy Lesher was our host for the evening who made delectable white cupcakes with fresh blackberry buttercream frosting for us to take home.  Tottie had flamenco dancers to entertain us while we munched on Asian style tapas that covered a ten foot long mission style wood table.

must have Tottie rolls

shrimp, chicken and beef in this rice!

At this party I was introduced to the “Tottie Roll” ($7.50) which are crispylicious spring rolls that you put inside a lettuce leaf along with fresh mint, cilantro and some fish sauce.  Then you roll it all up in the lettuce leaf and go to town! This appetizer is just a happy party in your mouth with crunchy texture and popping fresh flavors all over the place.  It is a “must order” item in my opinion.  Also, that night I got the pleasure of eating the best panang that I’ve ever had.  At our table I was sitting next to one of Tottie’s distributors, and he too agreed that the panang rocked.  For the party it was just the curry sauce without any meat or veggies, but it was just perfect and we slathered it all over almost every tapas we had.

With such a wonderfully positive experience from Tottie’s media event, I decided I needed to go back sooner than later and bring my husband and some friends of ours along. As soon as I was seated I looked to see if  Tottie was in the kitchen, and happily for me, she was!  Cooking away she even had time to wave to me and say hi.  I was very excited to know that Tottie herself would be cooking our meal.  It was the perfect dinner and we learned a lot that night!  Going from a tapas party to Tottie’s regular menu I didn’t know how enormous her portions were.  For one thing, she’s on Scottsdale Rd. close to old town and every high priced restaurant or shop imaginable, however nothing on her menu tips $13.95.  For $10.95 I got a humongous bowl of beef panang that could have easily fed the whole table along with an appetizer.  The thing was, we had no clue about the size and the price was so reasonable that all four of us ordered our own dish so you can imagine the leftovers.  It was all so tasty and amazing service to boot! 

beef panang

singapore noodles

For the table we also go the Tottie Rolls ($7.50), of course,  Tottie’s Fried Rice ($10.50) and also potstickers ($7.50).  For entrees we had the beef panang ($10.95), Beef Kang Keo Wan (($10.50),  and Singapore Rice Noodles ($10.95). For me, I like some heat, so I learned that the perfect spice level for me is Medium -low.  They have low, medium-low, medium and from there it would just be super hot so I can’t tell you what the level is higher than medium.  Another one of my favorite things at Tottie’s is their Thai Tea.  It’s a brewed tea with a sweetened cream swirled in at the top and served on ice. Oh my goodness, it is so delicious, I have to have two when I am there and I have no desire to know the calories in them

Then, after eating two appetizers, four mains we were finished, ready to take our leftovers home.  We told our server we were passing on dessert, but Tottie would have none of that.  What she brought next was more than our eyes could behold.   All of Tottie’s desserts are dairy free (great for me and my lactose intolerant hubby) and made from coconut milk.  My favorite is the fried honey banana served along side coconut milk ice cream ($5.95)  We also had the pleasure of trying the ice cream sampler ($12.95) and her pumpkin cheesecake ($5.95).  Those honey fried bananas are out of control amazing good!!  My second favorite is the pumpkin cheesecake made from small green kamancha pumpkins.  The cheesecake has little bursts of the pumpkin puree inside and it is just very honest and pure in flavor.

mmm honey fried bananas w/coconut ice cream

no pain from this non dairy ice cream, YUM!!

This article is clearly getting long, and I could post pictures and descriptions all night from Tottie’s.  I just think you need to go and see for yourselves folks!! Tottie’s Asian 2 most undoubtedly gets the FOOD-TRAMP-STAMP OF APPROVAL!!

Tottie’s Asian 2

6204 N Scottsdale Rd. #106

Scottsdale, AZ 85253

So, a week ago today I visited Kabuki on a blogger invite to get the word out about their new “Japanese comfort food” concept.  I have mixed emotions…so many, that I’ve been putting off this post for a whole week!  Kabuki is a Japanese restaurant for, “..all mankind..”  boasting that,  “…we guarantee you will walk out hooked on our food.”  That is one powerful claim, but that was not quite my experience.

I eat sushi, a LOT of sushi and I enjoy Japanese food.  However, I am very picky about where I eat raw food as I had food poisoning once from ill prepared sushi.  So, with only hearing so-so reviews about the food I did not go for any raw sushi…I wanted to try the cooked food first. 

I brought my husband along because I knew there was bound to be something he would enjoy on their menu.  Food Tramps in Training, let me give you a warning right now:  The Kabuki menu is gargantuan…I’m talking 6 pages alone for their drinks/sake/beer/ wine, 2 pages for appetizers, 3 pages dedicated to sushi, and another 3 for entrees…I still haven’t included the lunch and dessert menu!  I really should have done more homework on their menu because upon opening it I just felt like I was hit by a big truck that was full of WAY too many decisions regarding food.  I did indeed look over this huge menu on the internet before coming to dine, but I never really looked at it…even looking at it online was a little much.

Luckily, we came at the last ten minutes of happy hour and our super nice server, Mike, was willing to give us a few minutes to make some choices from the happy hour menu.  I wasn’t all that impressed with the happy hour menu.  It was less in price than the regular menu, but it was not $2.00 rolls or even $1.00 rolls like I have seen at other sushi joints that have better sushi.  We ended up ordering the sesame chicken ($4.95)  California roll ($2.95) and the shrimp tempura roll ($4.95).  As we were still reviewing the normal menu our server brought us edamame.  I must say that it was the best edamame I have ever had!  If there is one positive, definite thing I could say about Kabuki,  it is their ability to perfectly salt and prepare their those peas

sesame chicken

Our appetizers came and the sesame chicken was good.  It was hot (temp wise) and crunchy and had a great sweet sauce that had a nice hint of spice.  Since I didn’t “know” their sushi we opted for the very clique, common cooked rolls.  They were very good!  The California roll was fresh and just what a normal California roll should be.  I was much more impressed with the shrimp tempura roll.   The cucumber in this roll was sliced in bigger pieces which I enjoyed because I could really taste the light freshness of it next to the crispy shrimp.

pretty good for happy hour

I still had no idea at this point what I should order for dinner.  My husband knew he wanted the breaded seafood ($13.95) listed under “signature dishes”.  I seriously needed two more hours to look everything over and was just overwhelmed…so much so; that I decided to ask the server two dishes he would recommendand I chose one.  He mentioned the curry shrimp ($12.95).  I love love love curry, any kind of curry so I figured I couldn’t go wrong with that. I really should have gotten  a noddle bowl and I’m really kicking myself in the behind for not doing so…but shoulda coulda woulda! 

Jeremy’s dish looked good to the eye, I’m really not into fried seafood unless im in the Keys, or unless I’m at a fish fry so I left it all to him.  He told me it was good.  He mentioned that it all tasted the same though.  He said from the eye he could see what was what between the fish, shrimp and scallops, but he could not taste a difference in any of it.  His dish came with asparagus, white rice and a side salad.  Plenty of food for the price.  My shrimp curry came highly recommended, but I was not so impressed.  It came to me beautifully arranged on the plate.  My first bite was a bite of cold pan seared shrimp along with cold curry sauce.  At first I thought maybe it was just that one shrimp so I tried another and it was cold as well.  So disappointing, but we didn’t have time to send it back and since I was basically eating free I really didn’t want to be “that guy” who complains about his food.  The curry was too creamy and almost chalky tasting and had no zip to it whatsoever.  I’m sure this dish would have been way better had it come to me hot temperature wise and spice wise.  I have no desire to try that again though.

the shrimp curry that wasn't

fried seafood

We decided to get dessert as I was curious if they could get that right.  I chose the item on the menu that was marked “chef recommended” so I was assured that it would be good.  I ordered banana tempura ($5.95)  I love anything tempura. I was envisioning fried bananas with some ice cream, maybe a little cinnamon sugar or confectioners sugar on the bananas with lots of yummy sauce of some sort.  It ended up being many pieces of tempura banana with a light dusting of confectioners sugar paired with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some caramel sauce.  For me the best part was the caramel sauce.  There was not enough sweet to go with the savory of the thick tempura crust on the banana.  I think there needed to be much more powdered sugar and more caramel sauce.  I ended up removing the tempura completely and just ate the banana with the ice cream.  My husband ate only two bites and was not impressed either.

more caramel sauce please!

All in all I have come to this conclusion.  I will not put Kabuki on my “worst of” list but I certainly could not put it on my “best of” list either.  If I ever walked through their doors again it would be for , sushi, sake and happy hour.  For me it’s all about keeping it fresh and simple and that’s not really what Kabuki is about.  I can see why we may never strike a BFF culinary friendship. If you’re curious though, you should definitely go and see for yourself.  Please comment back if you’ve had a great experience and a dish that was amazing, I would love to hear!

Inside Tempe Marketplace adjacent to Barnes and Noble

2000 E Rio Salido Pkwy

Tempe, AZ 85281

489.350.9160

Are you ready for some football, I mean sushi, or how about both at a great price!!??  Well, wordpress is violating the food tramp tonight, so this is a direct copy and paste from their press release!  You know the food tramp will be there soon to do some taste testing of her own, tee hee hee. 

KABUKI OFFERS $1 GAME NIGHT SPECIALS ALL-NIGHT LONG DURING THE ARIZONA CARDINALS GAME on Monday, December 14^th

The Japanese restaurant will treat Arizona football fans to select $1 appetizers, sushi, rolls, draft beer, and bottles of sake

WHAT:              Due to popular demand, Cardinal fans can now head to Kabuki Japanese Restaurant in the Westgate City Center and Tempe Marketplace for a special NFL promotion during the Arizona Cardinals game this Monday, December 14, 2009. As an added bonus, the promotion will run for extended hours from 6 p.m. – close at both restaurant locations.

When guests order from the select menu of Executive Chef Masa Kurihara’s regularly priced sushi, rolls, and appetizers, they will receive the second order for just $1. Appetizers on the One-Dollar Menuinclude Mixed Tempura, Gyoza Dumplings, and Sesame Chicken. Sushi selections include Smoked Salmon, Halibut, and Fresh Water Eel. Featured rolls include Spicy Tuna, Yellowtail, Vegetable, and Dynamite. In addition, a variety of sake, beer, and wine will be available for guests to enjoy during the game festivities, all priced at $1 for the second order. Beverages include a Sake Bomb; Hot Sake; Cold Shochikubai Nigori Sake, and Gekkeikan Zipang Sparkling Sake by the bottle; alongside Cedar Brook Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Kirin Ichiban, Miller Lite, and Kilt Lifter draft beer are also available on the One-Dollar Game Day Menu by the mug. www.kabukirestaurants.com

WHEN:             Monday, December 14, 2009

6 p.m.-close

WHERE:           Kabuki Japanese Restaurant

                       Westgate City Center

                       6770 N. Sunrise Blvd.

                       Glendale, AZ 85305

623.772.9832

                       Tempe Marketplace

                       2000 E. Rio Salado Parkway

Tempe, AZ 85281

                       480.350.9160

ABOUT

KABUKI:         Kabuki Japanese Restaurant is a full-service, casual dining Japanese restaurant chain with locations in Southern California, Arizona, and Las Vegas. The restaurant is an innovator in its market segment, showcasing traditional and innovative Japanese cuisine, contemporary interior designs, and superior service. The menu is executed by a team of highly skilled sushi chefs who have each been individually trained by Kabuki’s Executive Chef, Masa Kurihara. The Kabuki experience appeals to both city dwellers and suburbanites, and offers a great dining environment for sushi novices, connoisseurs, families, and friends alike.