D and I were browsing one of our favorite food blogs: chubbyhubby.net and decided to try out a few recipes from there. We made the deconstructed california roll with a trio of tuna tartare. Because I'm horrible at following directions unless it pertains to baking, I fiddled around with the tuna tartare recipe. The dish turned out really great although I substituted a seaweed salad instead of the wakame seaweed for the deconstructed California roll. The pictures are horrible though because we only had my old camera to use.

Tuna tartare from bottom to top: ginger and red pepper with sesame oil tartare, sauteed shitake, green onions and soy tartare, spicy cucumber tartare. Everything was really flavorful, especially with limiting each tartare to a few flavors. D paired this dish with Dagueneau's 2004 Silex which is deliciously crisp and minerally Pouilly Fume Blanc.

Then we had the braised pork belly over a scallop congee. This was so wonderfully cozy and warm. It's a really rejuvenating dish and marinating the rice in a spring onion oil really makes such a delicate difference!

The pork belly was extremely tender after braising it for 8 hours in the oven and then simmered with a soy, rice wine and sugar mixture that added just the right amount of salty and sweet. D decided to open a bottle of 2004 Twelve Pinot Noir from Oregon for this one and the smoky sweetness of the pinot paired perfectly with the braised pork.

Then for dessert we had the chocolate donuts and vanilla panna cotta with an espresso gelee. The pictures didn't turn out that great on this one, but here it is.

I had extra chocolate ganache drops so i decided to put one on top of the donut. D and I love dark and rich coffee so I made the espresso gelee extra dark and the bitterness of the espresso went perfectly with the creamy vanilla panna cotta below it.

All these recipes can be found on chubbyhubby.net which is a highly recommended site for some great recipes!