Misoyaki Tilapia Fish

This is one of my favorite things to make/eat. It is misoyaki tilapia. I marinate tilapia filets in a mixture of miso, mirin, fish sauce, and a little agave syrup, with some spices such as chipotle, onion, and galanga powder, and then just cook it in a small amount of oil in a pan.

It is based on what in Hawaii they call misoyaki butterfish.  Butterfish is the mystery meat of the sea, it seems, but it most likely refers to black cod.

Misoyaki Butterfish from Roy's Hawaiian fusion place

At any rate, one cannot get black cod in La Crosse, but tilapia is pretty good this way. That night I had genmai or Japanese brown rice (my usual).  When I was in Japan a year ago, eating out all the time, I missed eating lots of veggies and brown rice. Ironically, I suppose, Japan was where I first learned to like genmai, but that was a long time ago when I lived there, had my own rice cooker, and cooked a lot for myself. With the tilapia above, I also had a little green salad with chopped red bell pepper pieces and cashews dressed with sriracha mayonnaise, which I got from the Indochinese Grocery Store a couple blocks away from my apartment. There's a few Hmong groceries in La Crosse, but they never call themselves Hmong for some reason. I also had some pickled/marinated radishes.

There's the kind of mayo I got on the right. I will do a future post dedicated to the Hmong presence in La Crosse, for which I am exceedingly grateful. I will also "review" Hmong's Golden Egg Roll, which just reopened after about a year's hiatus. A preliminary remark: the place has been constantly packed since it started up again about 3 weeks back. There are Hmong and other Asian patrons of course, but it is always about half white people, which kind of does my heart good to see. It is good to see Wisconsin white people--like the guy in a beard and hunting cap I saw there last week with his little son--trying and liking something like what they serve there.

Before reopening--nice sign