cocktails | kimberly ah

Jun 23 2015

Hasegawa Happy Hour: Summer Solstice Edition

Naoto and I had a little party for two to celebrate the summer solstice on Sunday. It was a good chance to eat on the balcony together for the first time this season and to recreate one of my favorite new drinks from Japan, the Spumoni Cocktail. I ordered a Spumoni during our anniversary dinner and fell in love, ordering it at almost every izakaya after that. Campari, grapefruit juice and tonic are the only three ingredients, so it’s nicely bitter and really refreshing for summer. For dinner, we made steak salads (and sadly had to move to wine because we finished off the Campari!) We grilled a steak on our stove and added it to a bed of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, eggs, avocado, and goat cheese. It was so delicious and a great way to make an expensive steak feed both of us.

Spumoni Cocktail

1.5 oz Campari

2 oz freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (Bottled wouldn’t be horrible here, especially if you like a sweeter cocktail.)

2 oz tonic water (I’m not a huge fan of tonic, but I like it in this. If you hate tonic, club soda could be substituted for a slightly less bitter flavor.)

orange wedge for garnish

Add Campari and grapefruit juice to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until fully chilled. Pour in rocks glass with fresh ice. Top with tonic and garnish with an orange wedge. Enjoy on the balcony as you toast the summer season.

Tagged celebrations, cocktails, food, forest park

Jun 22 2015

4 Comments

adventures, cocktails, Japan 2015, My Love Affair with Tokyo, Naoberly's Noodle Tour, Uncategorized

Naoberly’s Noodle Tour: The Shinyokohama Ramen Museum

Naoto had one wish for our trip–to go to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum, a “food amusement park” in Yokohama. Since we’ve been on our Naoberly’s Noodle Tour, I was almost as excited as he was to try different varieties of ramen. These three pictures pretty much represent the “museum” part of the Ramen Museum. Actually, the museum part is smaller than the gift shop! But the real purpose of going to the museum is to treat yourself to different varieties of ramen. Two floors below street level, there is an old fashioned “neighborhood” featuring the best ramen shops from all across Japan. (Shown in the top picture.) Outside each shop, there’s a ticket machine where you choose your ramen, any extra toppings, and drinks. You pay at the ticket machine and when you sit down, the servers take the tickets and serve up your order. Museum rules dictate that each adult must order one bowl of ramen at each place he dines. Thankfully, the shops all offer a “smaller” bowl of ramen (in addition to a regular-sized bowl), so you can try a few different types. Sadly, though, even that small bowl of ramen was too much for me. We started at Komurasaki, which serves Kumamoto-style ramen. Naoto had a traditional tonkotsu ramen with added pork and eggs (pictured first) and I had the King’s Ramen with fire roasted garlic with added pork and corn. It really was delicious! Aaaaaand that was the only bowl I ate! After the first ramen shop, we sat at a table in the bar area and had drinks. Naoto had an Orion beer on tap (which is apparently a big deal since you can’t find Orion on tap around here) and I had a Okinawan citrus cocktail, which may have been the best thing I drank during this vacation. While Naoto moved onto another ramen shop, I stayed at the bar and wrote some postcards. Naoto went to Shina Soba-ya (where I could see him eating from my postcard-writing station!) and had not only another bowl of ramen, but spare ribs, too! After walking back upstairs and spending some time (and money) in the gift shop, we went back down to try one last bowl of ramen. We went to an izakaya and had Okinawan-style ramen (and another Orion beer and another citrus cocktail!). It was really simple but tasty and it had the thickest noodles of any ramen I’d had before.

I highly recommend the Ramen Museum for an afternoon full of noodle fun! I have a few more Naoberly’s Noodle Adventures to share with you soon!

Tagged adventures, cocktails, food, I *heart* Japan, Japan

May 14 2015

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cocktails

Hasegawa Happy Hour: Tomi Fujiyama Edition

At the end of April, Tomi Fujiyama was invited back to play at the Grand Ole Opry. Naoto and I have been following along with Tomi’s story since we saw the Made In Japan movie last month, so we were really excited to listen to her perform live on the radio. Her performance luckily fell on Hasegawa Happy Hour night, so we invited two special guests and served a sort of southern-style meal. (Thanks for joining us, James and Karen!)

I made Old Fashioneds and pimento cheese for the happy hour portion of the evening. We listened online to the entire show. Karen said it felt like an old-timey evening with a family sitting around the radio. I think we may need to look into having more musically themed HHHs in the future. For dinner, I made turkey meatloaf, baked beans, and green beans. Tomi came on at the very end of the show and she sang her favorite song, Tennessee Waltz. It was lovely and sad (Seriously, don’t listen to the song if you’re feeling melancholy!) and totally worth listening to the entire night for Tomi’s dream moment.

(This video is from 2012, but it will give you an idea of how Tomi sounds.)

Tagged cocktails, food, homemaking

Apr 02 2015

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adventures, cocktails, Naoberly's Noodle Tour, what's for dinner

Naoberly’s Noodle Tour: Oiistar

I’m behind in my ramen reporting! We tried Oiistar back in February, before we went to Furious Spoon. Oiistar gets really good reviews from food writers in Chicago and it’s made it on several “best ramen in Chicago” lists. It was the first ramen shop in the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood. It definitely has a “hipster feel” to it, for better or for worse. It’s casual and there are individual tables, a counter, and communal seating to choose from. The owner describes his menu as having French and Italian influences, and you can definitely see that in the menu along with some Chinese and Korean. There are old black & white Looney Tunes cartoons projected onto the wall and the music is old school and loud (but not too loud.) It was freezing and snowy the night we went, so we were both in the mood for a hot bowl of noodles. We started with drinks and I will just say this: my review of this restaurant may be unfairly colored by what you are about to see…My drink, the house-made sangria, was served in a mason jar glued to a candlestick. This thing was enormous and clunky and just plain embarrassing. It was so top-heavy that I kept thinking it was going to fall over and spill everywhere. And it stood up so high on the table that it almost blocked my view of Naoto! Everything else in the restaurant was normal…I just have to wonder what in the world the restauranteur was thinking when he chose to serve his (perfectly delicious) sangria in this monstrosity. Okay…back to the food. We ordered buns as appetizers. They arrived at our table with our ramen, which was a huge bummer because it was impossible to enjoy both at the same time, as ramen noodles are best when eaten right away. Pictured above is the Tempura Shrimp bun, which is a fried shrimp with chili mayonnaise, fennel slaw, and sesame seeds on a Chinese-style bao bun. It was delicious and something I would order again if we venture back here.

For ramen, I got the oiimen (pictured at the top) with pork belly, egg, scallion, mushrooms, spicy oil, and garlic. Naoto got the kimchee ramen. The ramen was solid, but the texture of the noodles didn’t wow me. They are made in-house, which is supposed to be a huge plus. All of the other ramen places we had tried until that point have them shipped in from Sun Noodle. (In the meantime, Furious Spoon opened with their own homemade noodles and, after eating Furious Spoon’s noodles, I think Furious’s noodles are better.) But the flavors and the pork and the soft boiled egg in Oiistar’s ramen were delicious.

I would love to go back and try some of their salads and snacks. They offer a bruschetta topped with pickled shrimp, fennel, balsamic and olives that sounds intriguing enough for a repeat visit. I just won’t be ordering another ridiculous sangria.

Tagged adventures, cocktails, food

Mar 27 2015

4 Comments

cocktails, crafty adventures, homemaking

Hasegawa Happy Hour Menu

In a sign that I *may* have too much time on my hands (or that I was avoiding doing something productive), I typed up a menu for our Hasegawa Happy Hours. And when I say “typed” I mean typed on the typewriter because that’s how I roll. I know a menu seems weird and excessive, but honestly, if I didn’t have a set cocktail planned for our HHH guests, I was looking through my archives for suggestions. This way, I have all of my favorites in one place. I typed the menu on a piece of 8.5×11 card stock scored and folded the long way. It’s very simply “formatted” since it was done on the typewriter and it’s spring-centric, which means I can type up another one for summer (ooh, for balcony cocktails! I can’t wait!) I have a section for “Think Spring” cocktails, which are coincidentally all gin-based. (Eagle eyes will notice that I messed up on the Vieux Mot and typed the wrong ingredients. Womp, womp.)Then there’s a section for “Cozy Nights” that includes mostly whiskey cocktails, perfect for right about now when it’s damp and cold outside. In the “Deliciously Bitter” section, I have a small list of bitter cocktails. I’ve added several bitter liqueurs to my collection this year and these four are tasty winners. And, on a removable tiny business card, I typed up two Hasegawa originals, the CAP Cocktail and Pining for the Queen. It’s harder to keep those ingredients readily on hand around here, so I like to be able to remove the card if we don’t have any pomegranate juice or rosemary in the house.

We tested the menu out last weekend when we had friends over for a little sushi-making party. It worked like a charm!

Tagged cocktails, crafts, diy, office supplies, washi tape

Mar 10 2015

8 Comments

cocktails

Hasegawa Happy Hour – Breakfast Edition

Lately Naoto has been surprising me with new types of bitters for my liquor collection. It’s a nice treat because it forces me to look up new cocktail recipes and because the bottles are small–our liquor cabinet and bar carts are overflowing but these tiny bottles tuck into small spaces perfectly! Last week he brought home Scrappy’s Lavender Bitters which led me to the Scrappy’s Bitters website. They feature loads of cocktails highlighting their different bitters. The Dr. Girlfriend caught my eye because it included grapefruit juice, gin, Aperol, and St. Germaine. I made a frittata for dinner and those cocktail ingredients seemed kind of breakfast-y to me. The cocktail was delicious–citrusy and floral and not very strong–definitely a good brunch cocktail. We snacked on Beer Nuts while the frittata was baking. Have you ever tried Beer Nuts? They were a sweet and salty snack before sweet and salty snacks were a thing and we used to eat them when I was growing up. They’re a Central Illinois thing, maybe? Naoto also helped me study some Japanese. (I can’t even explain to you how bad I am…and I definitely can’t explain how bad I am in Japanese!)

Dr. Girlfriend (created by Phil Thompson of Tavern Law & found via Scrappy’s Bitters)

1 1/4 oz gin

1/2 oz Aperol

1/2 oz St. Germaine

3/4 oz grapefruit juice (freshly squeezed!)

1/2 oz lemon juice (freshly squeezed!)

1-3 dashes of lavender bitters (We liked it with a few extra dashes of bitters!)

Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Pour into a cocktail glass and enjoy while studying Japanese.

KAMPAI*!

* “Kampai” is the Japanese word for “Cheers”…I’ve got the cocktail words down pat!

Tagged cocktails, food

Feb 17 2015

Hasegawa Happy Hour – Valentine Edition

For Valentine’s Day, Naoto went to Freddy’s and picked up a dozen meatballs and we stayed in and hosted a Hasegawa Happy Hour. I made “Sweetheart Manhattans” and we ate spaghetti and meatballs, salad, cookies, and gelato…it was quite a night.

I’m a big fan of Leopold Brothers Michigan Tart Cherry Liqueur and I’m happy to have a bottle back in my arsenal again. So I made up a cocktail that is not as good as my favorite cocktail at Amelia’s, but comes pretty close. I named it the Sweetheart Manhattan, but it’s really not too sweet…it’s just filled with love.

Sweetheart Manhattans

2 oz rye whiskey

1/2 oz sweet vermouth

1/2 oz cherry liqueur

dash of orange bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice. Strain into cocktail glasses and garnish with a Luxardo cherry. Enjoy with friends on Valentine’s Day, or any other day. Cocktails are better than flowers anyway…

Tagged celebrations, cocktails, food, holidays, vintage

Feb 11 2015

10 Comments

adventures, Naoberly's Noodle Tour, what's for dinner

Naoberly’s Noodle Tour: Ramen-San

Naoto and I are back in a ramen groove again…which is perfect timing since we are still in the dead of winter around here. Last weekend, we tried Ramen-san in the River North neighborhood of Chicago. I wish I’d taken more pictures of the entire restaurant. It’s rustic-modern with beautiful exposed brick walls, semi-communal tables and bench seating. It was just the right amount of noisy and while we were there (early dinner on Saturday night), they turned down the lights and showed the Bulls game on the brick walls. We started with cocktails. Naoto got an Asahi (He loves finding Japanese beers on tap!) and I got a Singapore Sling. Can you believe I’ve never had a Singapore Sling before? It was so good–gin, pineapple, Cherry Heering, Benedictine and lime, all beautifully topped with a slice of pineapple and decadent Luxardo cherries. We ordered the shrimp & pork wontons, which were a little spicy and really tasty. It was a nice warm-up for our big bowls of ramen. I have to say that the ramen presentation at Ramen-san was pretty lackluster. It kind of looked like my ramen was just thrown in the bowl, which was a bit surprising considering this was the priciest ramen we’ve had and the restaurant itself was very polished. In spite of it all, the ramen was very tasty. I got the tonkotsu ramen, which is pretty traditional with its pork broth, chashu pork slices and soft cooked egg. The broth was really tasty and the noodles were cooked perfectly.Naoto had the Kimchi & Fried Chicken Ramen. He really liked this spicy and unusual take on traditional ramen. He said it had just the right amount of heat to warm him up and he loved that the fried chicken was still crispy, even in the broth! Because we were taking the L, we got drinks for dessert. Naoto got another beer and I tried the Cilantro-Lime Margarita. It was rich and delicious with its special addition of yuzu (my favorite Japanese citrus) and spicy lime salt.

Ramen-san is the latest in our Ramen Adventures. Here are the links to our previous journeys:

Slurping Turtle

Misoya

Tagged adventures, cocktails, food

Jan 06 2015

NYE 2015 at the Golden Steer

For the third year in a row, we had New Year’s Eve dinner at the Golden Steer. Each year, the crowd has grown. Two years ago, it was just Naoto and me. Last year, we added Karen to the mix. This year, along with Karen, we added four more people–our friends Jackie, Jim, Brett and Stacy. Ending the year with good friends, good steaks (and French onion soup, tasty salads, baked potatoes and cracker baskets) and good cocktails was the best way to say goodbye to 2014 and hello to 2015. (I really need to do an official post about Golden Steer–its old school charm has not been captured properly in these pictures.)

After the Steer, we came back to our place and had prosecco cocktails and snacks. Jim made this Martha Stewart smoked salmon spread…soooo good! I made Chex Mix and Karen made sweets, including her famous toffee and caramels.

So far, so good, 2015.

Let’s keep it that way.

Tagged adventures, celebrations, cocktails, food, forest park, holidays

Jan 04 2015

Another Christmas Tea

Another book club holiday tea is in the books (hehe) and we’re onto a new year. December book club always falls around winter solstice, so it was rather dark all day at Peggy’s, but hopefully you can appreciate the beauty of the rooms and the table settings in spite of my dark pictures. We split into two tables, each seen above, and as always the place settings were festive and lovely. Peggy should seriously give lessons on how to set a table because I always feel like mine lack the layering that hers have. She has such a great mix of dishes to play around with, too. We started the morning with a cocktail–ginger sage prosecco. We found the recipe here and I made the syrup, which is easy and delicious and amazingly useful in other cocktails too. It’s warm and wintry, perfect for this time of the year. Bruising the sage leaf before you float it on top of your cocktail is also highly recommended.

Our menu was very similar to last year’s menu. I made ham salad tea sandwiches again, and they were served alongside pimento tea sandwiches and classic cucumber tea sandwiches. We had two kinds of scones, cherry almond and coconut, served with Devonshire cream, Meyer lemon curd, lime curd and lilikoi curd. And we had Christmas cookies and lemon squares and lots and lots of hot tea. For our book this month, we read Emma–our first dip into Jane Austen. Sadly, only a few finished the book (which is rare for us!) so the book discussion was not as long and as deep as usual. But lesson learned, choosing a lighter book in December may be the way to go. After the book discussion, we lingered on in Peggy’s comfortable home and chatted about our Christmas plans, families and other books. I’m looking forward to another year of book club, and more reading in general. I didn’t read as much as I should have in 2014, so it’s time for a fresh start. For January we are reading Ethan Frome. Edith Wharton is a favorite of mine, so I’m looking forward to it. We don’t have any other titles planned for the year, which is a preferred way to go. Last year we planned an entire year ahead and a few of us felt stuck with some of the titles. It’s nice to plan a little at a time, and leave some openings for interesting titles that pop up in the newspaper or recommendations from friends. If you’re in a book club, I’d love to hear how you choose your titles.