Umami Saturday

After last night's Szechuan carrot soup, I had noodles on the brain. I didn't just want any type of noodles, I wanted udon noodles with a very specific type of sauce containing mushrooms and greens. In D.C. this wouldn't have been a problem. We would have bopped on down to Raku or Nooshi and I would have been a happy lady. However, since we don't know Portland very well we decided our best solution would be to make them ourselves.

I researched recipes on several of my go-to cooking sites/books and narrowed the choices to the perfect noodle dish. We rode our bikes down to Safeway for ingredients, but they didn't have shiitake mushrooms or udon noodles. Lame. So, with backpacks full of other stuff, we stopped by Fred Meyer and Trader Joe's for the remaining key components. While at Fred Meyer, we picked out the perfect beer for the evening -- Sapporo, our choice beverage for Nooshi (and homemade) happy hours.

The noodles hit the spot. I made a few notations to adjust the recipe, which will involve more mushrooms, greens (perhaps some carrots) and more of that delicious sauce. Otherwise it was delish and we're going to make it again really soon. As we ate our noodles in the awesome bowls that Jesse's parent's gave us for our wedding, with the chopsticks we purchased in San Francisco, I felt that we were very authentic as well.

We were all about the umami taste buds tonight. I'm pretty sure savory is my favorite because I could eat these noodles all night and not think twice about tasty sweets hanging out in our kitchen. Jesse's weakness is definitely the sweet, which is why I have to hide the remaining 5 carrot cupcakes, otherwise I won't get any. Perhaps, with more scientific research and voluntary testing, one day we'll discover beer taste buds. I'm pretty sure I have a very well-developed set.