I could eat all the naan with this sauce…
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Your sweetie is really great! Glad you had a wonderful to trip and a wonderful homecoming.
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Delicious!!!
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Oh my… The dishes! 
Does your friend happen to be a pro chef? 
Edit: alright, he’s not one. You guys are sure very blessed to have such a gem!
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Nothing fanciful.
Mixed mountain vegetables rice with shimeji.
Octopus sashimi was on sale. Tried this new recipe - octopus coated with tapioca starch (original called for potato starch) with soy sauce. Perhaps i’ll be a little more generous with the starch next round. Forgotten to marinate with grated ginger - the mister came back earlier than usual for quick dinner before heading out for drinks appointment with his colleagues.
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I have a plastic box with the air squeezed out, marination can be achieved in 20 minutes. You can use a food ziplock bag to do the same, just remember to get rid of the air inside the bag.
What vegetables did you use?
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I bought a mix. It looks like this in the link. Oh my, Singapore sells this in individual packs, quite costly. Might get some in my next trip to Japan.
These usually consist of warabi (bracken fern), himetake (young bamboo shoot), wood ear mushrooms, enoki, nametake and a few others.
If you go to Japan and have soba, they usually do have such an item called sansai soba 山菜そば.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/ヤマサン食品工業-菜ごころ国産山菜ミックス-90g×5袋/dp/B00GD2OMBW
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Yum! Are they located in the fridge in shops? Doesn’t seem to me they are dried.
Yes, usually in the section of chilled foods. Together with other boiled foods (mizuni 水煮).
They are usually packed with the water used to cook them. The instructions on the packet do mention that the vegetables should be drained and given a quick rinse before cooking.
Yes, we are very blessed to have friends that can cook like that 
We actually met them on another food forum 
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Looks good, your curry rice. Recently, saw Japanese curry in a book. Actually it was a bit disappointing to see they proposed using Japanese curry cubes.
Sorry to disappoint you, I used roux for this one as well. But added curry powder on top of the roux.
I’ve tried using just curry powder, tapioca starch (original uses potato starch), and all purpose flour with this recipe for curry udon. It works as well, lighter color and has a stronger curry flavor.
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As far as I know, real Japanese housewives have been cooking from a curry mix for decades.
The YouTube Japanology series has a very interesting curry episode. I fell in love with Japanese curry while in Naha 20 some years ago.
Always have 2~3 types of cubes in the pantry, and bags of powder we bring back from Japan.
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Actually, I’ve never tried that. If they are good, I’m eager to try. (I think the base of my comparison is broth cube and another culture). I rarely use curry in my cooking, usually bottled jar Thai stuff or just powder…
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I use dashi satchets (not those stick-like packets) for my curry udon as well from the recipe in the Japanese website (by Tomita Tadasuke).
And yes, Japanese prefer to mix their roux from different boxes. But there’s only two of us so I try to get the smallest box if possible. When it’s just a solo meal, I use Tomita’s recipe - feel that curry powder is still better than using curry roux made with preservatives.
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Oh sux… It should be nameko - the slimy mushrooms, not nametake - enoki simmered in soy sauce. 
Everything gets good when it starts with a roux. 
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Spicy yum! We have a couple of Chengdu’s here in L.A. Probably no relation. It’s probably a popular Szechuan restaurant name.
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i’ll ask him tonight!
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