My girlfriend and I cheated on our husbands and dated a crazy Gnome, who hosted our trip.
Wendy, one of my best friends and I were whisked away to NYC for a 4-day vacation to celebrate NYC Restaurant week, featuring over 200 restaurants in NYC with prix fix $24.95 lunch and $35.00 dinners. Fancy restaurants like Nobu, Bar Basque, Adour Alain Ducasse and Aquavit participate! UPDATE: Restaurant Week has been extended until Feb 27, 2010
What we didn’t expect was the crazy cold weather – we’re Florida girls and we’re used to flip flops in January. In fact, this was taken a couple of weeks ago:
And this was NYC when we arrived, in between 2 huge storms.
So we bundled up as warm as we could – I have like 24 layers on – which meant that I couldn’t button up my big coat. Which meant that the 24 layers were useless. That hats? Useless because they didn’t cover our ears.
Found lovely earmuffs that made me look like a Chinese Princess Leia
One word: DORK.
Another made me look like a Smurf, which actually might not have been too bad, since we were going on a date with the tall hat-happy Gnome.
But in the end, we ditched the whole hat idea (vanity trumped warmth) and it was okay.
When our date finally arrived (he was late and I thought he stood us up!) he was so incredibly polite – what a gentleman.
Gnome likes to eat.
Our first of three dates was at the famous Nobu Restaurant.
Perfect way to start the meal – grilled shishito peppers with sweet sesame/miso dressing, eggplant chips and edamame.
Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalepeno, one of Nobu’s classics. The sauce is a mix of 2 parts yuzu and 1 part soy sauce.
A decadent treat – Bigeye & Bluefin Toro Tartar with Caviar (I forgot what the little fruit’s name is). Time stood still when I savored this dish.
Squid “pasta” with Japanese Mushrooms, Mini Carrots, Asaparagus – there’s no real pasta in this dish, the squid is cut and sliced so that it curls into a tubular penne shape.
Salmon Skin Sushi – the outside is hand cut daikon skin. There’s also one of my favorite sushi ingredients of all time, pickled gobo (burdock root).
And finally, the best steamed fish I’ve ever had, it was steamed with a Chinese black bean sauce mixed with Japanese sake.
*NOTE*
While Nobu restaurant uses Chilean Sea Bass, it’s not recommended. In fact, it wasn’t until I published this post did my friend remind me that Chilean Sea Bass is on the “severely overfished” list. DUH! I knew that.
Which goes to show you that even I get caught up in the excitement of an amazing restaurant menu and have a lapse of judgement. Bad.
Well, the types of fish fillets you can use: Salmon, Black Sea Bass, Rockfish, Grouper, Arctic Char. See full list of sustainable fish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium site.
Fish talk aside, I love the flavors of this sauce – salty black bean sauce with Japanese sake (use a dry sake, not sweet) and flaky, light steamed fish is a great combo. The sake calms down the sometimes pungent black bean. If you don’t have chives, sub with thinly sliced green onion.
Steamed Fish with Black Bean Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 thick fish fillets (about 1.25" thick)
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 4 tablespoons Chinese salted black bean paste, mixed with a little sake
- 8 tablespoons sake (Japanese rice alcohol)
- thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled
- 1 bunch fresh chives, cut into 1 1/2-inch lengths
- 6 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
Instructions
- Season the fillets on both sides with salt and pepper. Spread the tops with black bean paste. Place fish into heatproof dish, add sake and steam for 10 minutes over high heat in a steamer.
- While fish is steaming, use a vegetable peeler to slice the ginger into very thin slices, then use knife to julienne into thin slivers.
- When fish is finished, remove the dish from the steamer and pour the accumulated cooking liquid onto a large deep plate for serving. Top the ginger slivers and the chives over the fish.
- In a small frying pan, heat up the olive oil and sesame oil until just before it begins to smoke, then pour it over the fish. The chives and ginger should sizzle.
- Transfer the fish to the plates containing the reserved steaming liquid and serve.
Did you try this recipe? Please leave a star rating in the recipe card below and leave a review in the comment section! I always appreciate your feedback and I know other readers do, too!
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Can I substitute black bean paste with soy sauce?
Might be too thick and salty.
@ali
FYI alcohol evaporates during the cooking process so there is no need to substitute.
Hi Jaden!
Can we substitute rice alcohol with some other non-alcoholic liquid? I am a Muslim and consumption of alcohol is forbidden in Islam. I find a lot of Chinese recipes with shaoxing wine or rice wine 🙁 and I really wish I knew a good non -alcoholic substitute for that . Thanks! 🙂
Is Chinese salted black bean paste what I would find in jars, or is it the salted black beans that I often see in clear plastic bags? Thank you. Love your website.
The paste is what you’d find in jars.
I used to manage at Morimoto in Philadelphia, and we did a very similar dish to this. It’s absolutely amazing. It is very important to spoon over the hot oil, which sounds weird, but it releases so much flavor into the dish.
FYI the little fruit is called a yamamomo – japanese mountain peach
what kind of steamer do you use for a recipe like this?
I use a wok with lid and just prop up a pie plate to hold the fish.
Is it true what they say about the size of a gnome’s pointy hat? 😉
Even if you froze your ears off, it looks like you had a great time.
Wish I had been there. The food looks delicious and now I need to make this steamed fish pronto!
This sounds divine. I have my own thoughts about the whole fish debate but I’m not going to litter your blog which is after all about enjoying food with the kind of words that make food taste bad!
It looks like you had a great time! The fish recipe looks amazing, Jaden!
Glad to hear you mentioning Chilean Sea Bass is a fish to avoid, Bluefin and Big eye Tuna too. I know they taste so good it is really there own fault but shouldnt people who care about food as much as food bloggers be campaigning against eating endangered species. The NE chefs did it with Give Swordfish a Break…..
Big Eye is perfectly fine, depending on where and how it’s caught.
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_search.aspx?s=tuna
what a crazy shoots! love it! and the fish looks divine…
The black bean sauce sounds amazing! Cool idea to add it to fish!!
I am currently in Chile and the Chilean Sea Bass or Corvina is very cheap.
Ahh!!! I’m so jealous, there’s none restaurant week here in Orlando! Lucky you 😉
Ah! Florida,
In the third photo down, did you pose those people in front of the columns, looks like an infinity picture.
‘Yuzu’…> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzu
Thanks for the excellent post Jaden
NYC is worth suffering the cold for. Seeing your picture made me homesick. Earmuffs do the trick. Did you get all that food for $35? Next year I’ll do restaurant week too!
That little fruit looks like a yang mei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrica_rubra).
That looks amazing!
Wow. You suck as a spammer. Can’t even get your html right!