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Best meal I ever ate:

At an Izakaya in NYC: Kobe strip seared with a hard crust, raw but warm inside - served with shiso mustard; little "straw buds" pop and taste like caviar;cherry tomatoes wrapped in shiso and bacon and grilled without breaking the tomato

My current drink of choice:

Always Tea - Formosa Oolong Spring Dragon (Upton Tea TT88) - a very reasonably priced, wonderful golden oolong ($14.40 for 125g)

I really wish I could:

Eat myself down to 180... (doesn't work, darn it)

My "Go-to" dinner party dish:

Grilled kalbi, using thin-sliced flanken ribs

My favorite comfort food:

Mom's Oden, Kare, Katsudon...

My top 5 favorite restaurants:

Local: Phien's Kitchen, Lowell MA - Best Larb; Pho 88, Lowell MA - Great Shabu Shabu; Yummy's, Lowell MA - Tasty gristly meat sticks; delicious banh mi Not so local: Peter Luger, of course; Katz's, of course.

My most tattered cookbooks:

On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee; Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn; Molecular Gastronomy by Hervé This; The Encyclopedia of Fish Cookery by A.J. McClane; Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon; Cookwise by Shirley O. Corriher; Japanese Cooking A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji