Shabu-Ya
57 JFK St
Cambridge, MA 02138
www.shabuyarestaurant.com

Dancing visions of thinly sliced rib eye and steaming hot pots of vegetables simmering away in a rich broth enticed d. and me to venture out  and try out Shabu-Ya in the square tonight.While the idea of having a shabu shabu restaurant so close to home was exciting, and the trendy, youthful restaurant decor was promising, all-in-all, we found that Shabu-Ya still has much room for improvement.

Cook-your-own food restaurants are always in a tough spot. There is no chef to work magic on the dish at the very end. And most diners like myself are far from being culinary masters. So it’s up to the restaurant to make sure that the quality and range of ingredients provided are so good in and of themselves so that even silly diners can throw everything together and still make something that tastes good in the end. And that’s a pretty tall order.

In the case of a shabu-shabu restaurant, this comes down to offering a rich soup-base and a variety of vegetables that will add the right complexity to the soup, so that diners can leave with full tummies and the final memory of noodles swimming in a delightfully rich broth at the very end. Because, as we all know, there really is nothing quite as anti-clamatic as a shabu-shabu that ends with a tasteless broth.

Shabu-ya unfortunately fell short in both respects; the soup-base lacked flavor, and the variety of vegetables offered, which primarily consisted of cabbage and bok choy added little depth to the soup. And so I must confess that while I was absolutely captivated by d.’s dinner conversation the entire time, I couldn’t help but daydream from time to time of an imaginary veggie patch from which I could pick just a small bit of asian turnip, a quarter of an onion, and a couple bits of ginger and garlic that I could slip into the soup. What wonders they could have done!

All in all, Shabu-ya’s enthusiastic owners, attentive servers, great location, and young decor give the restaurant great potential for success. To make sure it becomes a main staple in the competitive Harvard Square restaurant scene, they need to go back and improve upon the backbone of the restaurant – the shabu-shabu – by improving the broth, because really, a shabu-shabu restaurant with a bad soup is sorta like a steak house with a bad steak. And that’s just devastating.

It’s 18 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and it is just one of those days when you want to curl up with a blanket, a good mystery novel, and a hearty bowl of vegetable stew. But today of all days, the sight of our poor, droopy cucumbers wasting away in our refrigerator prompted C. and me to create an utterly out-of-season dish inspired by her mother: cucumber salad.

Prep time is minimal, and seasoning is entirely off-the-cuff (hence the frustratingly vague measurements in the recipe, below), but the outcome is fantastic. So don’t fret about an extra teaspoon of this or that, and have fun!

Summer in a Bowl (Adapted from C’s mother’s recipe)

Ingredients:

Some crispy, fresh cucumbers, sliced paper thin
A generous handful of sugar
An even more generous handful of salt
A couple drops of vinegar
Some rough-chopped cilantro
Minced peppers (the spicier the better!)

Directions:

1. Throw the handful of salt on the cucumbers with a few drops of vinegar, and mix together.
2. Season with sugar to taste. There should be the slightest hint of sweetness in each bite.
3. Add cilantro and peppers.
4. Mix thoroughly.
5. Chill for ~30 minutes prior to eating to let the flavors get all happy together.

And there you have it – a super easy, refreshing dish that is really just like having summer in a bowl. The best thing about this dish is the interaction of the sweet sugar, erm … salty salt (?), and sour acid coming together all at once, with the cilantro adding a hint of complexity to the flavor.

I am fairly certain this dish is present in a number of cultures in a variety of forms. It’d be great to hear about them!

Growing up, I used to love eating sponge cake rolls.
And today, I made one!

Mascarpone Sponge Cake Roll

I had forgotten about my childhood favorite for quite some time until today, when I chanced upon a sponge cake roll recipe that I had squirreled away years ago in my recipe file. But when I saw a photo of the fluffy round bundle of jam and goodness, it didn’t take much to immediately recall my favorite comfort treat.

Growing up, whenever we would chance upon sponge cake rolls in the local bakery, I would bargain with my mother to get a slice – just a small slice – that I could relish on our way home. I remember how I used to find such great comfort in slowly unraveling the roll as I ate it layer by layer, licking the filling off my fingers in quite an unladylike manner until I finally reached the best part – the center. Now, everyone knows that the center of the sponge cake is the best part. Surrounded by moist filling on either side with just the perfect dollop of filling gathered in the very middle of the roll, the center of a sponge roll cake is the perfect end to a delightful treat.

And now that I am an “adult,” I get to make my own! I really appreciate the elegance of this recipe; it combines the most basic ingredients (eggs, flour, oil, and sugar) to create a great treat that nearly anyone can enjoy. There are no special bells and whistles here. It is all about the technique and the care put into the making of it, and the recipe even allows for some improvisation; the recipe calls for a simple jam or preserve to create a fruity filling, but I thought that would be just a little too boring. So I grabbed the few ingredients we had in our pantry and refrigerator and had some fun. Mascarpone cheese served as the base to which I added a healthy glop of honey to give it some natural sweetening and flavor. Lastly, I added the zest of one orange to cut through the creaminess of it all and lend the filling a lightness to complement the lightness of the cake.

Out came the cake, on went the filling, and I, the little girl who had once found so much delight in unrolling sponge cakes layer by layer, found new enjoyment and comfort in rolling the sponge cake up slowly, creating the perfect middle with a generous dollop of cream in the very center, all the while knowing that a., c., g., d., and i would be unraveling healthy slices of the cake just moments later in anticipation of that perfect cream center.