Itadakimasu!

So on Sunday night the diminished book club - there were just 3 of us - met chez moi. As I have mentioned before, I wanted to cook "Japanese" food. Well, I tried my best, even if it wasn't up to Japanese standards and I don't even pretend it was. I even prepared Japanese and other Asian snacks:

The meal started with miso soup, which would of course have been served at the end of the savoury dishes had it been an authentic Japanese meal.

The second course were maki (filled with avocado, cucumber and pickled Japanese plum, shiso ume):
The main course was udon noodle salad which I adapted from this recipe.

The dessert was my own creation, because I wanted to make something with matcha: matcha Crème brûlée. I used lactose-free milk and cream because one of the girls is lactose intolerant. I was pretty pleased with the result as the matcha flavour was very subtle and you could still taste the creaminess of the dairy ingredients.

They say that the good thing about Asian cuisine is that it is so light. Weeeell, it sort of depends on the quantities and I have to say we were pretty full last night.