Japanese Breakfast in Brooklyn

choi

Ligaya Mishan, Don’t Look for French Toast; . New York Times, June 10, 2015.
www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/dinin ... sburg-brooklyn.html

Note:
(a) "At Okonomi in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this is called an onsen egg, after the Japanese tradition of cooking eggs in the sulfurous waters of hot springs, which keep them at constant low heat — like a primal immersion circulator — until they emerge with the classic ratio of loose yolk and stable white inverted. Here the egg is cooked for 23 minutes at 149 degrees Fahrenheit [65°C] and presented with a stroke of bright-hot shichimi togarashi; the rice gets a pinch of bonito flakes saturated with sake, mirin and soy. Churned together"
(i) okonomiyaki  お好み焼き
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okonomiyaki
("The batter is made of flour, grated nagaimo (a type of yam), water or dashi, eggs and shredded cabbage")

So called. because customers pick what go on top.
(A) For definition of Nagaimo, see (b).
(B) Dioscorea batatas = Dioscorea opposita

Dioscorea opposita
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioscorea_opposita
("can be eaten raw. It is an exception to the rule that yams must be cooked before consumption (due to harmful substances in the raw state). In Japanese cuisine, it is eaten raw and grated"/ "used in the Japanese noodle dish tororo udon/soba and as a binding agent in the batter of okonomiyaki. The grated nagaimo is known as tororo (in Japanese)")
(C) How is tororo used in soba?

tororo soba  とろろ そば
item.rakuten.co.jp/sobanosato/gift-006/
(Tororo is the white stuff atop the soba)
(D) Taiwan does not have nagaimo. The plant is a perennial vine. As you can imagine, the tuber is underground, very long.
(ii) onsen egg  温泉卵
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/温泉卵
, which shows two ways to make it: in the steam (when onsen is too hot) and submerged.  
(iii) thermal immersion circulator
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_immersion_circulator

If you go see it in images.google.com, you will comprehend.
(iv) shichimi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shichimi
(full name: shichimi tōgarashi 七味唐辛子, "seven flavor chili pepper”--where “shichi” = 七 and tō = 唐, both Chinese pronunciations)

(b) Japanese English dictionary
* okonomi  お好み 【おこのみ】 (n): "choice; preference"
* naga-imo ナガイモ 《長芋; 長薯》 【ながいも】 (n): "Chinese yam (Dioscorea batatas)"
* dashi ダシ 《出し(P); 出汁》 【だし】 (n): "dashi (Japanese soup stock made from fish and kelp)"  (出, because the flavors are extracted the ingredients)
* tsukemono 漬物(P); 漬け物(P) 【つけもの】 (n): "tsukemono; Japanese pickled vegetables"
* aemono 和え物 【あえもの】 (n): "chopped fish, shellfish or vegetables, dressed with (miso or other) sauce"
  ^ 和える 【あえる】 (v)L "to dress vegetables (salad)"

choi

(c) “Egg and rice are part of breakfast, which is all Okonomi serves, until 3 p.m. weekdays and 4 pm weekends. After that it turns into another restaurant, Yuji Ramen, run by the same chefs, Yuji Haraguchi and Tara Norvell. This is a case not of split personality but of improvisation. In 2011, Mr. Haraguchi, a Japanese native and fish purveyor, started testing ramen recipes in the back kitchen of Roberta’s in Bushwick, where Ms Norvell was a sous-chef. Together they took Yuji Ramen from pop-up shop to Smorgasburg stall to two counters at Whole Foods Markets in Manhattan. They opened Okonomi last May to celebrate Mr Haraguchi’s favorite Japanese meal, breakfast. When their Whole Foods outlets closed a few months later, they married the ventures but let each keep its name.”
(i) Yuji Ramen
www.facebook.com/YujiRamen
(ii) Yuji Haraguchi’s surname is 原口.
(iii) Smorgasburg | A Brooklyn Flea Food Market
www.smorgasburg.com

(d) “Okonomi’s breakfast could be considered a small-scale version of the reservation-only, nine-course $100 omakase お任せ dinners that Yuji Ramen offers on weekends. The daytime ichiju-sansai menu, ranging from $15 to $17, includes rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, a choice of fish and two amuse-bouche-size sides. (The onsen egg is an additional $2, and essential.) On a recent visit, the miso soup was infused with fennel and spring onion, freeing it from the usual dominance of salt. No spoon is provided, a hint to drink it straight from the bowl. The bonito flakes atop the rice are first used in making the soup, which explains their amplified flavor. Likewise, kombu 昆布 from the dashi broth is repurposed for tsukemono, pickled vegetables that depending on the season may be purple cabbage, radishes, half-moon of carrot and brief splits of asparagus, mildly soused on rice vinegar and yuzu 柚子.”
(i) For “ichiju-sansai,” see Japanese cuisine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cuisine
(The phrase ichijū-sansai (一汁三菜 "one soup, three sides“)
(ii) For spring onion, see scallion
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scallion
(“Scallion, green onion, and spring onion, are colloquial names * * * for various Allium species. All of the Allium have hollow green leaves (like the common onion [ (Allium cepa L) (Latin 'cepa' = onion)]), but these are used while they lack a fully developed root bulb”)
(ii) For dashi and tsukemono, see (b).
(iii) “half-moon of carrot”: carrot cut cross section and then divided into two halves
(iv) “brief splits of asparagus, mildly soused on rice vinegar and yuzu”

souse (vt)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/souse
has a different etymology, pronunciation, and meaning from the noun “sous.”

choi

(e) “Among the sides are often a cube of omelet, creamy with soy milk, dashi, white soy and a fillip of sugar, baked until bronzed on top and bottom, for a moment of resistance before it’s all velvet, and a stack of blanched broccolini leaves with a tiny scoop of shira-ae, mashed tofu puréed with dashi and dotted with sesame seeds”
(i)
(A) white soy = white shōyu 醤油, or Japanese white soy sauce  (which is actually yellowish)
(B) soy sauce
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soy_sauce
(3.2 Japanese, 3.2.1 Varieties: shiro (白, "white"): "shiro soy sauce uses mostly wheat and very little soybean, lending it a light appearance and sweet taste. It is more commonly used in the Kansai region")
(ii) fillip (n): "a trivial addition : EMBELLISHMENT <showy fillips of language>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fillip
(iii) blanch (vt): "to put (food items) in boiling water or steam for a short time"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blanch
(iv) broccolini
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broccolini
(v) “shira-ae, mashed tofu puréed with dashi and dotted with sesame seeds”
(A) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cuisine
("Shira-ae (白和え) adds tofu (bean curd) in the mix" of aemono 和え物)
(B) See (b) for aemono.

(f) “One recent special: sashimi of sea robin. * * * What arrived in a dainty glass bowl were blushing petals of flesh, anointed with rhubarb and shiso and showered in chive blossoms, [which were] little purple winks.”
(i) sea robin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_robin
(Sea robins have six spiny "legs," three on each side)

* Sea Robin. Real Monstrosities, Sept 30, 2012
www.realmonstrosities.com/2012/09/sea-robin.html
(ii) chive = Allium schoenoprasum
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chives
(iii) shiso  紫蘇
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiso
(The green leaf can be chopped up and used as herb or condiments for an assortment of cold dishes)

(g) “the quiet dining room * * * feels almost atemporal. Chopsticks rest on oyster half shells and worn stones [as support, perhaps on the tables]. Ukidama, pale green-blue glass orbs once used as Japanese fishing floats, sit on a sill, bound in rope.”
(i) atemporal (adj): "independent of or unaffected by time : TIMELESS"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atemporal
(ii) For ukidama, see glass float
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_float
(“In Japanese, the floats are variably known as ukidama (浮き玉, buoy balls) or bindama (ビン玉, glass balls)” where bin = 瓶)