Shabu Test Kitchen. Possible Happy Hour Appetizers?!

OK, so shabu-shabu can get a little monotonous in the kitchen, so of course what else do we do, but start our own little Cal Shabu Test Kitchen. We have limited cooking utensils, but its almost jailhouse style culinary cuisine… but way better I’m sure… Check these out…
Our first attempt at sushi rolls… Salmon, teriyaki, green onions, Sriracha and a bunch of other things! Not Bad for a first attempt, but we’re not a sushi restaurant. So lets see what else we can come up with…

Baked Salmon Skin Rolls with pink garlic, Japanese mayo, spicy teriyaki and homemade salmon poke. Yummy!!!! But still its sushi… haha.. back to the test kitchen…

So we thought maybe we should try a beef dish, so we sliced up some jalapenos, made some cheater sushi rice, marinated onions in shichimi and chili oil, added a small flamed piece of rib eye, a little mayo, sriracha, and julienned spinach and carrots. Not bad! But for some reason we were still obsessed with the salmon…

Slice of cucumber, sushi rice ball with a seared piece of salmon, seasoned with our own house shichimi togarashi and a splash of spicy teriyaki. Now I’m getting hungry! Last but not least, one more salmon tester… Amazing!

And on that note, I’m going to make some appetizers right now! Email us if you think we should start trying some of these in the restaurant. Cheers!!

2 New Ways to get BUZZED @ Cal Shabu Santa Monica!!! Memorial Weekend Drunks!!

Our apologies for the long hiatus from blogging, we haven’t forgotten!! We’ve been making some new drinks for our menu, and what better weekend than Memorial weekend to unload our newest, highest-alcohol-content-we-can-serve, fresh-squeezed watermelon shochu delight!! For those who don’t know exactly what shochu is, its basically a magical elixir for our lowly beer and wine license. It’s the closest thing to vodka that we can serve, distilled like sake and with a much more neutral and vodka-like flavor than sake; it makes shochu one of the best mixers. It can be, and is drunken with craploads of different things. Not only did we get a couple new drinks, but we made ourselves some blackboard signage and a sandwich board which we’re learning how to draw on with chaulk.

We’re getting there slowly..

Happy Memorial Day!!! Deal Ends after Monday dinner!

Have a great weekend!!