Yui Restaurant: A Gem in Sierra Madre

There are some reliably good Japanese restaurants in and around Pasadena. However, they did not have a dish I took for granted while living in Silicon Valley in the Bay Area. While on a search for a Japanese restaurant with kakuni, or stewed pork belly, this particular restaurant came up. Yui Restaurant, in the next city over, proved to be a gem in the midst of a small collection of local shops and restaurants.

Rolled Pork; Pressed Saba Sushi; Seaweed Salad: and Noodles with Salmon and Okra (January 1, 2018)

Happy New Year everyone! I’ll start this new year with a new bento container (check out Bento and Co). I though to go between this new one and the previous zojirushi depending on whether I have soup or stews. With all the festive eating, I thought to make things a little lighter. Thinly sliced pork belly is rolled around garlic chives and stewed in sake, mirin, and soy sauce that has been reduced. Salt cured saba (mackerel) is pressed with rice for sushi. Seaweed salad finishes the bottom container. Noodles with salmon skin, okra, and garlic chives fills the top container.

Seaweed Salad and Octopus; Salmon Stew; Dashi; Oxtail Inari with Pickled Lotus Root (December 10, 2017)

The weather is getting colder and I’m settling into the new job. Having had a wonderful dinner at Bone Kettle with a well braised oxtail and deep broth, I thought to incorporate both oxtail and warming broths into my lunches this week. Oxtail stewed overnight and picked apart filled tofu skins paired with turmeric pickled lotus root. A dashi with oyster mushroom and chopped choy sum balances the beef dish. The starter is the staple that is the seaweed salad alongside marinated octopus. Lastly, the broth from the braised oxtail served as the base for the salmon belly stew with shirataki noodles.

Shad Nigiri with Forbidden Rice; Cucumber “Roll”; Shrimp Dashi; and Stuffed Pork in Mapo Sauce

So this week started with the idea of a different way of preparing my vegetables, which led to the cucumber rolls, which are lightly pickled. Filled with a variety of vegetables, the roll packs a nice crunch with the creaminess of avocado, bite of the scallions, peppery astringency of the radish sprout, and fresh crunch of the pea sprouts. This would be the lightest dish. The heavier balance was the eggplant and mushroom stuffed pork in mapo sauce. Rounding out the two are shad nigiri sushi using forbidden rice and a shrimp dashi with a deep shrimp flavor.

Seaweed Salad; Assorted Appetizers; Salmon in Lemongrass Dashi; and Beef Dumpling (October 22, 2017)

I decided to continue experimenting with thinly sliced beef as the wrapper for a “dumpling” using cabbage, oyster mushrooms, green onions, and beet as the filling. With the remaining beet, I used a few chunks to color the pickled lotus root as part of a mix of appetizers that included shiitake mushrooms boiled in soy and marinated small octopus. A seaweed salad with ikura starts the lunch. Finally, a dashi redolent of lemongrass with salmon rounds out this week’s lunch.

The Bento Doctor