For Snow Crabs

The friends went to Tokyo and of course, lugged back a suitcase full of food, including frozen snow crabs. They had plenty for us and hollered for a gathering.

The man excitedly planned the dinner menu around the sweet snow crab meat. He declared he wasn't going to pull out any stops in the kitchen and let the crab/s speak for themselves.

The man made this harissa mayonnaise dip for the crab. (Use Japanese mayo, not our usual Hellmann's) There was an appetizer of Japanese cold tofu with a mix of ponzu and soba-tsuyu topped with grated ginger, spring onions and bonita flakes. Now, I'm not big on crabs, but I sing a different tune for the snow crab. It's so sweet and tasty. We had it the best way- steamed. Tonight, I preferred dipping it in the tofu 'sauce' rather than the harissa mayo dip because the latter was a tad heavy.

We were most gleeful that the girlfriend ate up most of the mentaiko pasta. The man went to grab fresh mentaiko with her in mind. The pasta wasn't just to complement the crabs, it was specially cooked for her because he knew how much she loved it. But he didn't do an egg for it, just to keep the cholestrol level sane.

Importantly, he wanted to use the bottles of 柱侯酱 (zhu hou sauce) that he now has, to 'perfect' his Chinese-style braised beef brisket with daikon. He braved the morning rains to grab a truckload of beef from Tekka Market. He describes this sauce as sharp, like hoi sin sauce with marmite or bovril added to it. He has declared that now he knew what the taste is, he would be able to tweak further recipes by using hoi sin sauce, but with bovril and more garlic, or whatever. Everyone ignored the accompanying Japanese white rice and went for the brown rice instead. Heh.

At our dinner table, no meal is complete without an alcoholic drink. The drink in vogue with us is the mojito. The man makes a mean one. We like using a good quality Angostura rum because that brings out the full flavor of the mojito instead of the crass taste one gets at the bars.