Chicken wing stuffed with pork dumpling

Although my sewing projects are moving along too slowly to be an interesting blog post, I seem to have plenty of food experiences to share.

Today we celebrated a friend's birthday at her favourite Japanese restaurant, Izakaya Ju. Described as a "Japanese bar and grill", it is similar to the better-known Guu Restaurant. (That's darling Caleb eating shredded nori with his hands.)

Different than the typical sushi-Japanese restaurant, the menu had things like soba noodles, grilled meats on rice, grilled skewers of pork belly, black cod, pork cheek, etc. The most amazing of all: chicken wing stuffed with pork dumpling.

At first, we thought it was a typo. "Chicken wing" was on the first line and "stuffed with pork dumpling" was on the second. Perhaps these were two separate menu items?

Nope. It was actually a chicken wing where the bones were removed from the middle wing and then stuffed with a pork and chive dumpling. It was fantastic.


I also ordered a hot soba noodle dish with grilled duck breast and leek...

... which I split with Jess who ordered a garlic soy marinated tuna sashimi on rice. Both were fantastic.

Sometimes it's nice to get some authentic Japanese cuisine and to try something different than sushi. Even the wasabi was a real grating of fresh japanese horseradish, not the stuff in a powder or tube!



I will have to work up the motivation this summer to brave the long lines for Guu so I can compare Japanese Izakaya food!