Shalom Japan has been around quite a while, opening back in 2013. The chefs are a married couple, Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi, and the menu is a collaboration merging their two respective culinary cultures – Jewish and Japanese cuisine. The result, of course, is remarkable. The restaurant remains at hit on tastemaking sites like The Infatuation and they regularly receive the Michelin Bib Gourmand.

This whole dinner began because we had taken our toddler with us to the grocery store, and as we walked through the produce section he was insistent we buy an orange pepper. And then he wanted a yellow pepper. And then a red one. It was like we were writing If You Give a Mouse A Bell Pepper in real time.

I met up with an former roommate at Hill Country Barbecue Market and feasted on meats.

I’ve been to Rolo’s a few times every couple of months and each time I mean to write up the experience. The food is good, but also slightly different each time I visit, making it all the more interesting.

We fried up some eggplant drawing inspiration from Win Son’s fried eggplant recipe, which is to say the result was nothing like the original.