Yakaniku - Our first attempt at Japanese BBQ!

We've been meaning to try and attempt to make Japanese BBQ at home of awhile now. There's a few restaurants in Orange County that serve yakiniku. Tsuruhashi in Fountain Valley, Manpuku in Costa Mesa, and our ultimate favorite restaurant of all time, Anjin in Costa Mesa. We wanted to eventually re-create this unique style of dining in our own backyard. So my husband and I were off on a journey to find the necessary items to do this. Luckily, my sister-in-law had access to a beef wholesaler that provided us with cuts of boneless prime short ribs and prime outside skirt. I went to our local Japanese market, Mitzuwa to look at our selection of marinades/sauces. I'm still learning and really don't know the difference between "dare" and "tare". But I asked one of the employees, and these are what they recommend...

From left to right...
1. Daisho - Yakiniku Dori Ninniku Shoyu (I used this marinade for the meats)
2. Daisho - Yakitori Sauce (I used this marinade for the chicken)
3. Ebara - Yakiniku Oen-Dan Baisen Ninniku Fumi (I used this as one of the dipping sauces)

We decided to do a mix of yakiniku and yakatori for our bbq consisting of the dishes shown below....

1. Boneless Prime Short Ribs & Prime Outaide Skirt (marinated in Daisho Yakiniku Sauce)

2. Chicken Skewers w/Green Onions (marinated in Daisho Yakitori Sauce)

3. Jumbo Tiger Shrimps (marinated in a light olive oil and fresh chopped/crushed garlic mix)

4. Bacon Wrapped Asparagus, Bacon Wrapped Enoki Mushrooms, White Button Mushrooms, Zucchini, and Onions.

After prepping all our dishes, we were ready to cook and eat! My husband bought 2 japanese grills made of clay at Mitzuwa. We also bought the Japanese charcoal to use with the grill, since we've heard that the flavor and smell is so much better! It also lasts longer too! After numerous attempts to light the charcoal, we finally got it going!

We also cooked some white rice to go with our meal. There is a big buzz going around right now about a brand called Panda Rice, so we decided to give it a try! We bought it at our local Asian market. The rice cooked beautifully, tasted creamy, had great texture, and complemented the meat so wonderfully!

Here is our backyard table set-up! Sorry for the ugly tablecloth! It was on clearance at my local Target and it was all I had at the time! We also had to custom make some wood planks to put the grill on because we were afraid that our glass table would not handle the hot heat from the clay grills.

We loved the results of our homemade yakiniku and yakatori! We will definately do this again and maybe add some more grilling items! Can't wait for summer to come! :)