Kitchen with a View

Some friends organized an informal cooking competition, money was pooled to reserve a cooking classroom in a community hall near Shinjuku and provide several bottles of wine. This space is pretty nice!

This kitchen included cookware, flatware, serving dishes and trays, utensils, and some fancy cooking knives.

All with a view from the 11th floor.

You might think, at first glance, that this is salt. Sorry, guys, it's actually a shaker of MSG that someone bought because they thought it was salt. It was not used in food prep this day, but look how happy and friendly it is!

One of our chefs mentally prepares. Or he might just be hanging out before the people get back from the grocery store run to get some last-minute items like butter and olive oil. And salt.

The wine consumption counts as audience participation, right? We were an excellent audience.

Our other chef is ready to start!

This stove/oven may be smarter than all of us.

It has a pop-out control panel, for starters. Oh, and it talks.

Meat is seasoned and beat into submission with pointy objects.

But you can't escape the paparazzi, now matter how fast you chop.

Stuffed peppers.

Spiced broccoli.

Seasoned mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus (this was my favorite dish, those potatoes were amazing.)

Garlic shrimp.

French toast.

Meat and pasta dish.

There was also chili, but I didn't manage to get a photo. Not all of these dishes were made by the same person, but most were. There was a pretty clear winner to the competition. But I think we all had a good time, so the competition itself was kind of a minor part of the day.


Random rooftop woman sculpture approves!