Mame gohan (beans and rice) with English sweet peas, organic radish, negi (green onions) and katsuo bushi (bonito flakes).

INGREDIENTS
Serves 2

1 cup short grain rice (washed)
1 1/8 cup dashi or water
1 cup shucked and blanched English sweet peas
1/2 cup cut and blanched organic radishes
1/2 cup katsuo bushi
2 tbsp thin sliced negi
A dash of soy sauce

METHOD
1. Cook rice in a small nabe pot or in rice cooker with dashi or water. I used a small nabe pot and dashi — add rice and dashi in nabe and cover. Cook over low heat for 15-20 minutes.
2. Blanch shucked peas in salted water till tender and shuck out of outer skin layer.
3. Cut radishes the same size as the peas and blanch in salted water till tender.
4. Once the rice is cooked, add a layer of katsuo bushi on top of the rice, then layer peas and radish, and sprinkle negi on top of the whole dish.
5. Add a dash of shoyu and mix it all together.

Enjoy!!

*Kid Skwid is a sous chef at Spago restaurant in Beverly Hills. On his rare days off, he enjoys riding his bike around LA and going to the beach. Follow him on Instagram (@kidskwid5) to see his gourmet breakfasts at Casa de Kei. 

This squid was swimming around, minding its own business just a couple minutes before this photo was taken. Its tentacles were still moving and all those black spots were flashing on and off while we ate it sashimi style. Then they fried the head for tempura.

I have a confession to make: I am not a fan of potlucks. I’ve always found it to be a lot of pressure and kind of take them too seriously. But bringing a home-cooked dish to a party is not only financially practical for the party host and guests, but also supposed to be FUN, right? Arg.

I actually blame Hideko, my mother, for my fear of potlucks. Every year, there was a year-end picnic at my Japanese school, and all the mothers would bring something to eat. Hideko, who takes great pride in her cooking, would whip up something pretty ordinary (in my household at least), and at the picnic it would always be the first thing that disappeared off the tables. She would get all these compliments from other moms, and she would say something like, “Oh, it’s not hard to make at all!” (Annoying).

While I of course was in awe of Hideko for pulling this off year after year, I was actually always more concerned with the dishes that no one touched. The dishes that mothers had taken time to make, but had gone unnoticed or overlooked entirely. It really takes a lot of talent to pick a sure-shot-Ace dish for parties and potlucks, and my mom had the gift and always made everything from scratch. Not everyone has this gift, and I guess I’ve always been sympathetic to this. I mean, how DEVASTATING that no one would eat what you brought to the party?

My potluck fears were put to the test a few weeks ago when I was invited to Johnny’s family barbeque. The last-minute invitation came via email, to which everyone responded, “I’ll be there! I’ll bring ___!” Oh dear. I always try to get away with simply “making drinks” at their family gatherings, since Johnny’s entire family — two sisters, mom AND dad, all happen to be excellent cooks. But I figured it was time to flex my muscles a little and rise to the Potluck Challenge.

Clearly I’m more like Hideko than I’d like to admit and have too much pride to bring a loser dish to a potluck. So what would I make? I didn’t have too much time to think about it but did browse through cookbooks and Japanify the night before the barbeque for ideas. I remembered I had harusame (bean thread/ cellophane noodles) in my Deep Hole and decided to go to the farmer’s market in the morning to get some colorful vegetables for a fresh harusame salad. The weather would be HOT, especially down in San Jose, and I wanted to bring something cold and refreshing.

HARUSAME SALAD

INGREDIENTS
Serves 4-6 people

2 packets of harusame (I get these smaller invididual packets in Chinatown)
A few carrots and cucumbers
Handful of shiitake
1 egg
1 tbsp sesame seeds
Optional: Ham, wakame (seaweed), green onions, parsley or cilantro

Dressing
2 parts shoyu, sugar, rice vinegar
1 part sesame oil, water
Optional: Fish sauce, lemon juice, ginger

METHOD
1. Soak noodles in cold water for five minutes.

2. Start boiling a pot of water.

3. Slice shiitake.

4. Once the water is boiling, lightly blanch the mushrooms.

5. Fish out the shiitake after a few minutes — they’re redy when the white is all one even shade.

6. Strain and run under cold water. Let air dry.

7. Don’t waste the hot water! I’m sort of obsessed with reusing water when at all possible. Boil harusame in the water you used for the shiitake for a couple of minutes. They don’t need to much time to cook through. Strain, run under cold water, and set aside to dry.

9. I HATE julienning or shredding vegetables. I just don’t have the knife skills for it. So I cheat by using my peeler to make ribbons.

This is actually harder than it looks. There’s no easy way out of this. I need to get a Benriner mandoline RIGHT NOW.

10. Same method for cucumbers. If you love to julienne, then by all means, knock yourself out.

11. Make an egg omelette. I used two eggs, but really only needed one.

12. Let the omelette cool down then cut up into small thin strips.

13. Arrange the salad in a nice Pyrex or Tupperware: harusame on the bottom, and the accoutrements on top.

14. Sprinkle some sesame seeds over the salad and chop up some cilantro. I’m really into cilantro these days.

15. Make the dressing to your taste. I found that mine needed some umph, so I added a bit of fish sauce and grated some ginger and splashed in some lemon juice. Bottle the dressing separately so the salad doesn’t get all soggy en route to the party. 

Wrap up the salad in a furoshiki cloth, put cilantro in a separate container, and don’t forget the bottle of dressing!

Ready to go!

Once you get to your destination, ask for a big bowl and mix the salad altogether. There were green onions about to go to waste (sacrilege!) so I chopped and threw them in.

Garnish with fresh cilantro!

I wish this could be filed as Lazyass Cookin, but alas, there are too many steps to this salad. It’s all pretty simple, but kinda time consuming. From start to finish, this salad took about 30 minutes to make.

And I hate to brag… but this was a hit at the party! It was almost all eaten, except for a few strands of carrots and cucumbers on the bottom (of course I checked!). A sprightly salad like this goes a long way at barbecues for meat eaters and vegetarians.

This is definitely my go-to dish for picnics and potlucks this summer. Harusame is awesome and so versatile. Enjoy!

Los Angeles to San Francisco. San Francisco to Tokyo. Tokyo to Sapporo. Plane to train to subway to foot. 33 straight hours of travel and my first meal in Japan made it all worthwhile.

Welcome to すみれ (Sumire). My couch-surfing hosts initially thought my ramen fixation was a cute diversion but quickly realized they were in over their heads. Neither had been to Sumire before, despite it being somewhat famous in Japan. It came highly recommended from a number of sources.

A quick read through my most recent posts reveals a common theme — searching for a proper bowl of miso ramen in America. I’ve given up. Nothing matched those two bowls I had in Japan last year (at Kururi and Eki), not even a shop called Misoya in Manhattan (I was there two weeks ago). It’s like a pro basketball fan trying to watch a high school game.

That’s why I’m in Hokkaido, the birthplace of miso ramen.

Sumire is on the second floor in Sapporo’s bustling Susukino district. Behind the counter was a giant pot brimming with pig parts and cabbage (the waitress said I couldn’t photograph it… I asked her if it was ok in Japanese — I want the whole world to know that I can speak a little, ok?).

And then she brought me this.

This is miso ramen. See how dark the broth is? It’s like the mucous you’d cough up in the midst of the world cold ever. Is that too gross? Not to me. It was delicious. First sip confirmed it. I don’t know jack about miso, the making of it or proper preparation of it, but when it is done right it has an unreal depth of flavor and a caramel-like profile.

Notice the thick layer of clear oil on top to lock in the heat (Hokkaido is like Japan’s Alaska). It works.

It was excellent. There’s nothing else to say. What, do you actually need me to tell you the noodles were fresh and firm and the toppings were top notch? To be honest I actually got a little nervous before taking my first sip — I was worried my memory surpassed the reality. It was everything I hoped for.

America has some good ramen shops and a few great ones. We have access to some pretty legit tonkotsu and shoyu and shio shops. But you haven’t tried miso broth until you’ve been to Japan.

SUMIRE
4-7-48 Toyohira-ku
Nakanoshima 2
Hokkaido, Sapporo
T: 011-824-5655

I seriously did not know anything about Portugal and its inhabitants until I set my boot on its shores in May 2013. Well, apart from the story about Columbus and his New World discovery, but it appears there’s debate whether he was actually Spanish instead, so in reality I knew nothing.

After three days in the country I now know a little more. I was dropping by the country to visit some local factories where I am having various designs of mine produced — visiting the country was a nice, inspiring experience apart from certain culinary shortcomings.

My favourite tree is the palm tree. This variant is less over the top than the LA species, but still super adorable.

For any reader who does not travel much to the E.U., Portugal is a costal country next to Spain in the lower left part of Europe, nearly sitting on the top of Africa. Currently, Portugal is struggling with huge unemployment numbers and a very bad economy and growth rate.

And I must admit there’s quite a contrast between Denmark and Portugal — it feels like travelling back in time, maybe 30-40 years before any actual modern design movements took over. It seems the whole country is behind with everything, even style and fashion. Interior stores are filled with old world, heavy, dark wood furniture, candlesticks with lots of gold and embellishments, unhealthy food with lots of sugar, caffeine and fat. Also people wear drab, conformist clothes that overall is not very modern or trendy.

And I did not spot one gay person in this Catholic country. Maybe they’ve all fled?

I was the only gay in the village…

How beautiful is this decay? LUV AHT!

But as depressing as some aspects of the country are, the flipside is that so much beauty and quaintness grows from the trees and ruins. You don’t find this level of charm in many other places — by 2013 most of what once was has vanished. Traces of the old world have been demolished, and replaced with cheap apartment buildings and soulless, standard box architecture. It’s a luxury to experience the romantic soul of decay which you find in the Portuguese countryside and coastal villages (especially for an American, I would imagine, as their country is still so young).

I also know now that the country loves their tiles.

There are houses decorated with tiles everywhere and at first I wondered, “Why did they turn their kitchens inside out?” But then I got with the program and started to understand the beauty of the many crazy-colored, vibrating, unique houses all over the cities and countrysides. In the old days, tiles were specifically designed for each owner’s house – putting their personalities, creativity and riches on public display.

Village building.

I bet there have been quite some nasty competitions about who decorated the prettiest house in the village back then. Lots of bitching, I assume.

The station building in the small coastal city of Aveiro, about three hours on train from Lisboa, the capital of Portugal:

Even the hotel’s breakfast lounge had tiles!

I also discovered that there is a reason the Portuguese kitchen isn’t very well known. It’s quite a culinary bore, I’m afraid to admit.

First of all, there is basically sugar in everything. Meat, coffee, cakes, bread — it’s a 24/7 sugar rush! So you sit down at a café and watch bag after bag of pure white sugar being poured into the world’s smallest servings of coffee at the neighbouring tables.

In Copenhagen people drink caffe lattes or Americanos with a little milk. But these miniature coffees are not espressos — they’re just very foamy, very sweet small cups of coffee. And in many cafes there’s just a machine like the one in airports and really depressing public offices where you insert a coin in return for a cup of pure sadness. Kinda the same here. With more sugar. I should have taken a picture of those small fuckers, but I didn’t.

Sweet, sticky, foamy coffee in an unusally large serving — must be because it’s a hotel serving tourists.

I did not catch a glimpse of dark bread, wholegrain or rye bread. People seemed to inhale a constant dose of white bread, sugary cakes and machine coffee.

Breakfast: The Aveiro Palace Hotel offered a well assorted breakfast buffet, proudly featuring almost all kinds of sugary food: white breads, white toast, jams, honey, marmelades, sweet cheese, sweet coffee, juice, sweet Dannon yogurt, sweet orange/raisin bread, fruit salad and more.

I am invited by the friendly waitresses to try a Portuguese breakfast speciality: fresh cheese with orange jelly-like marmelade. Eaten together!

It tasted ok, the fresh cheese is neutral/weakly sweet, while the jelly is pure sugar. Not something I want to integrate in my morning ritual from now on, but fun to try.

I found the jely-like marmelade in the local supermarket. Zero points for sexy packaging:

All over the cities and villages, there are small cafeterias with lots of cakes and pastries on display — it seems that the country proudly boasts several traditional recipes of the same flavor: sweet eggs.

I bought two different traditional pastries in the bakery close to my hotel: a long, super flaky little finger of pastry with some orange-yellow cream inside. I think it’s called Pastéis de Vouzela.

It was already falling apart when I opened the paper bag. Absolutely no taste apart from sugar.

I also spotted it at the airport:

For dessert I opened the other paper box to reveal a circular, orange brown medallion like pastry in a silver foil cup.

Large versions of it were on display in the bakery window called Páo de Ló de Óvar (and the small ones I bought on the right):

Orange on the inside — tasted of sugar, slight hint of eggzzzzz…..zzzzz…

Pizza: Visiting the local “It’s Nice” pizza restaurant  in the city of Aveiro where I stayed.

I ordered a vegetarian pizza and it was very good — crispy on top and lots of veggies and cheese.

Not enough flavor and spice though, it had a slightly anonymous in flavour.

Aveiro is “Portugal’s answer to Italy’s Venice,” it says on the city’s website. Lots of large, hand painted gondolas stretch along the canal, offering hourly tours around the city — almost like Copenhagen’s Canal Roundtrips. It’s quite beautiful even though it feels like a floating tourist trap. I didn’t have time for it this time but probably will when I visit again.

Local café near the coast — I’m taken by the sweet assistant from one of the factories I’m visiting.

She orders a miniature coffee with two bags of sugar and another Portuguese speciality which I don’t remember the name of.

It’s a kind of breadish cake with no flavor except a slight hint of eggs. Not bad if you dip it in chili or any other sauce or condiment, but I don’t think you’re supposed to do anything but eat it plain. It became a ball of dough in my mouth, I couldn’t finish it.

Later we had lunch at a local seafood restaurant with a view across the coast. It’s early in the season, not many peeps were hanging out in the cool wind and harsh waves of the Atlantic ocean.

I ordered Monkfish in garlic which comes with greens and potatoes. The fish tastes a little of char and fried, but not too much. The rest is a disaster.

But everyone is super friendly.

Ocean view!

Ice cream dessert: cream from a tube, caramel sauce from a can and ice cream from a box, bleh.

Local carpenter’s frontyard:

I visit the local supermarket which I always find to be fun, to spy on how the local, affordable groceries are presented and consumed.

All milk and eggs are kept on a shelf, not even refrigerated!

Breakfast Cereals: there were like 10 different kinds just from one brand. Sugar here, sugar there!

Dried fish.

Seriously, I don’t have words for how badly this smelled within a 10 meter range. Must be a real hit with the shoppers since they are displayed this way.

One evening I needed something a little healthier than sweet bread and heavy meat, so I went to the only sushi place in town.

It only takes one look at the sloppy, sad nigiri to realise the restaurant is not owned by Japanese people. I missed my local Japanese sushi dude.

Lunch next day at a small, local cafe. Grilled sandwich with tuna, cheese and pineapple (!). Quite good, but again slightly flavourless.

Cortado at another café.

I always bring reading material with me when eating alone in public, or I get bored to death. Or worse: strangers start talking to me. (Mostly old ladies, unfortunately).

Last night in Aveiro, the peaceful river and my hotel.

And then back to Copenhagen.

Plane food: sadness on a tray:

Portugal is quite an affordable outing, and I am told that driving along the country’s coast line is incredibly beautiful — visiting old villages and enjoying the warm breezes at small secret beaches. But you might bring a picnic basket, or seven, if you want to make sure to enjoy your meals. Am I a food snob? Not at all. I just like good, fresh food and so far I haven’t been able to find it in Portugal.

Since I’m probably coming here again at some point to check up on production, I will now prepare my visit to know where to go for a good Portuguese time!

One of the things we were told we must do in New York was to have brunch. On the recommendation of my brother-in-law, we booked a table at Beauty and Essex to meet up with some of my sister Yuki’s university friends who now live in New York. They last saw each other five years ago and I hadn’t seen them in 15, so amidst all the catching up and general yakking away, we tucked into some rather lovely dishes.

But first things first. We were warned that Beauty and Essex had some unusual decor and looked like a night club but after a very late night drinking, we walked up and down Essex Street unable to find the place. We asked a helpful New Yorker who pointed us to what looked like a vintage shop.

When you walk through the little doorway, you are greeted by what can only be described as a gorgeous reception room with a beautiful staircase.

With white. furry. walls. Oooh, don’t you just want to stroke it?

That led up to a sumptuous lounge.

We didn’t eat there but were led into a dark and plush back room lit by a lovely skylight.

We all oohed and aahed over our beautiful surroundings. There were gaggles of Sex and the City-like women, families, couples and lots of friends catching up.

We ordered a selection of dishes to share. We were recommended the vanilla beignets by a friend so said we had to get them.

Small, fluffy and dusted with sugar and one each wasn’t enough. These were quickly followed by soft and bouncy lemon blackberry pancakes with sweet ricotta. We saw lots of people ordering these.

Grilled cheese, smoked bacon and tomato soup dumplings. The tomato soup was saucy and packed full of flavour. This was probably my favourite mouthful. Shame it was only a mouthful as I could have eaten a whole bowl of this.

New York pretzel with shaved NY strip, mustard aioli and crispy shallots.

I was expecting a pretzel in the Bavarian style (big and loopy) but this was a dainty but tasty morsel.

Lobster tacos made with beer battered Maine lobster, red cabbage slaw and jalapeño crema. Nice and pricey but wasn’t that fancy.

Fried chicken biscuit bites with tabasco honey butter and red cabbage slaw.

I’ve never had chicken and biscuits together before so wanted to try this. Very tasty but I wouldn’t have minded having a whole biscuit to myself.

Braised short rib huevos rancheros with sunny side up eggs, black beans and cotija.

I love huevos rancheros, something which we sadly can’t get easily in London, and this was a fancy verson that was the spiciest of our choices. I shoveled this down fast.

Even though we shared everything between the six of us, we were pretty stuffed by this point. But we all have a separate stomach for dessert, right? So we ordered one portion of molten chocolate bread pudding with hazlenut ice cream which was HUGE. And delicious. We finished it pretty quickly considering how we kept protesting how full we were.

Although almost everyone around us was drinking cocktails and champers, we were a little fragile and jet-lagged and opted for teas, coffees and juices. However, the cocktail list looked interesting and I’d definitely try one next time. The price was pretty reasonable for such a fancy joint working out at about $30 each including tip and we were really full.

By the time we left the place at around 2:30pm, the place was heaving with a huge queue. One bonus was that if you went to the ladies, you were offered a glass of free bubbly. A good way to keep customers waiting happy.

BEAUTY AND ESSEX
146 Essex Street
NYC 10002
Tel: 212.614.0146

Photos by Josh Urich, The Joy of Drinking

We did it! We signed a lease! After six months of free rent with Popuphood to see if we could “make it” in Old Oakland, we have proven to the world, and to ourselves, that the world is in need of a shop dedicated to Japanese bar and kitchenware.

Yoko and I hosted a party to celebrate our achievement and invited all our friends, old and new. So many people showed up! It really made me giddy to see so many familiar faces. In just six months, we somehow created a community around Umami Mart, in real life! We’d been online for so many years and it has been such a thrilling, eye-opening experience to get people together in our shop for events and just talk with customers about where to go to EAT! As I walked around the party bumping into our “regulars”, I was overjoyed that people in the Bay Area have responded positively to Yoko and my vision for a space centered around Japanese food and drink culture. How totally RAD!

A house full of friends, loyal Umami Mart readers and customers

Jonathan Yaffe, a friend of Yoko’s from Tokyo

Cory of Selection Massale pouring bubbly. Flutes provided by Camino restaurant. Thank you!

James and Yoko

A toast for Umami Mart and our community! Here’s to the next two years in Oakland!

The main event was the eyeball filling for our daruma. Tomo, Yoko’s cousin, had gifted us a daruma when we first opened in August. As tradition goes, we filled in one eye while making our wish. Our wish was to sign a lease! So this was a majestic moment to fill in the other eyeball.

James and Devin, who were instrumental in helping us realize and build out our shop space.

Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm. We’ll visit her farm soon!

Kishi, who keeps our blog and online shop running in tip-top shape

Mike, our mailman. He’s always taking care of us and making sure our online orders go out daily. We seriously would be lost without him.

A beautiful cactus arrangement given to us as gift by Mike of Oaktown Blooms. It’s still alive!

I had a quick interview with Theresa Adams of Oakland North. She has been a supportive of us from the beginning, it was great to see her at the party. Read the full article here.

Betsy of East Bay Urban Bees. Our Hive Tour Umamiventure last October was a great success, and we look forward to doing another one soon!

A few days before the party, Cory emailed me to say that he’d be “Sabering” a bottle of wine. WHAT IS THAT? I had to look it up. It’s where you take a knife and seamlessly slice off the top part of a bottle of bubbly. Check it out!

Kampai!

Yoko and me with two quintessential Umami Mart shop items: the Arhoj travel mug and the gold shaker.

These were both products included in our debut collection of our online shop back in 2010, and continue to be very popular items.

Of course I am most grateful to Yoko for taking a risk and pursuing Umami Mart with me. If she hadn’t said, “Hey, why don’t we open a storefront?” a year ago, who know what we’d be doing today. A world without Umami Mart in Oakland? How boring! Cheers, Partner!

Thanks always to all of our readers, writers and customers who make Umami Mart such a thriving community. Online and off! We appreciate you!

*Special thanks to Josh of The Joy of Drinking for coming and taking all the photos!

More and more these days, I’m starting to feel like a grown-up. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I am a business owner, or if it’s the hipster kids who walk around without a care in the world (who I can’t connect with at all), or if it’s the pop culture references that I don’t get (although when have I ever been hip to pop culture references??), or if it’s cause I just turned 33 — the age Jesus was when he died for all of our sins. While I’m not ready to die, let alone for all the ills of humanity, I do sense a shift in my thinking these days that feels like I’ve entered another stage of my life.

I think back on 10 years ago — I had just moved to NYC and was barely scraping by on a meager paycheck as an office assistant at an architecture firm. What’s more, I was also interning at an art magazine, fantasizing about getting an “in” into the glamorous art world of New York. What would I say to that 23yo Kayoko? Never stop dreaming! I loved my time in NY and don’t regret it one bit. But my 20s were definitely a time of indulgence, world travel, and not so much focus. But where would Umami Mart be without NYC?

Fast forward 10 years later, and while I’m overjoyed at the fact that Umami Mart is now a growing business (never stop dreaming!), I’m actually not making that much more money than when I was 23. While many of my friends are now home owners (Go Yoko!), mothers and fathers, corporate executives and successful career people with plush 401ks and full medical benefits — I am just starting to grasp the reality of being a Financially Responsible Adult. This means it’s not just about “making rent”. I’ve always been okay at saving money, but I never really took retirement or home ownership very seriously. Or kids… I still don’t know how people do that.

So I’m trying to take my finances more seriously now that I am Jesus’ death age. The other week, I looked at my credit card statement which told me that I had spent over $600 total in restaurants. On my income, that’s just crazy, and can basically never happen ever again.

Well, that’s solved. So I’ll cook more, ok! Another thing I cut? My American Express card. It was great when I was an avid traveler (I was stuck in Madrid once without an ATM card and the Amex office saved me), but I never used the points for anything, and all the while they charged $100 every year for “membership”. Dumb. I hate any kind of “fee” with an undying passion.

I had 14,500 points to use before canceling the card. With it, I got an 8-inch All-Clad frying pan.

It was a New Year resolution of mine to start collecting good cookware. It is invaluable and I need to stop being a cheapass and start paying for nice equipment in the kitchen. This is a great start. All-Clad, All American!

The first thing I made in the pan was of course a fried egg.

It’s a little on the small size, but it’s a start. And the pan looks great next to my kettle!

I have to say that it is SO NICE to have a pan that distributes heat evenly. And it was pretty non-stick which was a relief. However, I have a question for you All-Clad fanatics: How do you clean the oil from the pan once it cools? The sides get all gummy and gross.

As one chapter closes, another begins. Here’s to balancing budgets, saving for the future, and cooking at home with the first All-Clad addition to Kayo’s Kitchen!

Ebi Chili is the best example of a dish that has been Japanified. It was originally created in the 1950s by a Chinese immigrant in Japan, taking cues from Sichuan-style cooking. It’s a shrimp dish that has a little spice and a little sweetness, perfect for the Japanese palate that typically can’t handle serious heat.

I remember loving Ebi Chili as a kid. My mom didn’t make it, so it was a special treat when we went to a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo and it’d end up in front of me.

The plump shrimp in the bright, red sauce delights me to this day. Shrimp, lightly fried and then drowned in sauce — how could it not be good?! And I absolutely love how Japanese foods unapologetically use mayonnaise and ketchup as ingredients in recipes — Ebi Chili is no exception as one of the main ingredients is ketchup.

Kayoko’s mom, Hideko-san, gave me the essential Ebi Chili ingredient, jiuniang. It tastes similar to amazake and provides depth to the Ebi Chili dish. It is made by fermenting glutinous rice with a starter containing yeast and koji (aspergillus oryzae), which is pretty much how you make amazake as well.

Making shrimp is a pain in the ass, plain and simple. It totally grosses me out when shrimp in restaurants aren’t deveined. You HAVE to devein them, or else you will gross yourself out knowing you are eating tubes of shrimp shit. But there is a reason why, once in a while, I’ll set aside enough time to prepare shrimp. And that reason is that it’s freaking delicious.

As usual, I always buy my shrimp with heads. All the lovely head juice is so useful when I want to pump up the umami in my miso soup or sauces.

INGREDIENTS

1 lb of shrimp (head on)
1 shallot or 3 stalks of green onions
1 tbsp of ginger
3 close of garlic

Sauce
2 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp tobanjan (find at any Asian market)
1 tbsp sriracha (if you like spice)
1 tsp honey (or 1/2 tsp sugar)
3 tbsp sake
3 tbsp jiuniang (you can find this at Chinese markets, or make your own amazake)

METHOD

1. Separate the shrimp heads from the tails. Peel the skins from the tail.

2. Devein the shrimp.

3. Sprinkle with a tablespoon of baking soda. Coating each shrimp with baking soda and then submerging them in ice water ensures a crisp shrimp. In Japanese this texture is referred to as puri puri (similar to the word “bouncy”).

4. Dunk in ice water set aside for 10 minutes.

5. Mince the shallots, garlic and ginger.

6. Once the 10 minutes for the shrimp are up, raise them in a collander and pat dry with paper towels. Then coat them with potato starch.

7. Add about 1/4 inch of oil to a frying pan and fry the shrimp, about 1-2 minutes on each side.

8. This is when you realize it was so worth it to take all that time to devein the shrimp. Set the fried shrimp aside on a paper towel.

9. Mix the jiuniang, tobanjan, honey, ketchup, sake and sriracha together.

10. In another pot, heat some oil in a pan. Add the ginger, shallots, garlic and shrimp heads and saute on med-hi for about 3 minutes or until you start to smell the aromatics and the shrimp heads start to turn pink. Turn the heat down to medium.

11. Then add the ketchup mixture to the heads.

12. Add the fried shrimp and stir well for a couple minutes.

13. Serve hot with fresh white rice.

I’ve often felt like Japanese culture is a hotbed for reinterpretation and appropriation. Even though new inventions get all the attention, I think reinterpretation is just as important in this post post-modern world. Because, without reinterpretation, Ebi Chili would not exist. And Ebi Chili is just as important as the iPad to me.

After weeks of cold and rainy weather in Madrid, I headed to Huelva (in southwestern Spain) to meet up with my friend Lucía from London. We were both starving for some good weather and Andalusian food.

We stayed in Ayamonte, a charming, small village in the edge of the Portugal border, beside the Guadiana River. Narrow white streets with geraniums pots and marshes welcome you to this fisherman’s town of never-ending beaches and pine forest landscapes.

Our local friends told us that some of the restaurants in town don’t need to go to the fish market because the families own their own boats and they catch the fish themselves. So we went to try one of them!

We headed to Restaurante El Contrabando and ordered a tomato and anchovies salad as appetizer. It had lots of garlic and olive oil, delicious!

We also tried coquinas a kind of clam typical of Huelva. They cook the clams with white wine, parsley and little garlic. So toothsome.

Later, we also saw these guys catching the clams on the beach!

Another west Andalusian recipe: cazón en adobo (marinated dogfish):

Cumin, bayleaves, oregano, garlic and sweet paprika are the spices used in this recipe. The dogfish is marinated in vinegar and water for eight hours and then is breaded with flour and deep fried. The result is an irresistible crunch!

Deep fried calamari strips:

After several desserts (cheesecake, three-chocolate cake and cream cake) we were ready to have a walk on the beach and think about our dinner in the Portuguese town of Monte Gordo.

In Monte Gordo, the chosen restaurant was O Infante, a traditional seafood restaurant with live music and a really warm atmosphere. Their specialities are the zapateiras (king crabs)…

… And the espetada (skewers of shrimps and monkfish). So good!

The small squids were also exquisite:

Our friends wanted to play a joke, so they told the waiter that it was my birthday. They served me an amazing fig cake with a candle and sparkler on top, while the entire restaurant sang me happy birthday!!

Happy indeed.

RESTAURANTE EL CONTRABANDO 
Paseo de las Palmeras, 13, 21409
Isla del Moral, Huelva
T: 959 47 71 72 

RESTAURANTE O INFANTE
Estrada Nacional 125
Castro Marim (Monte Gordo exit)
T: 0035 1 281 956 817

*Marta is from Andalucia, Spain and loves the sea, travelling, photography and anything that stimulates her curiosity — like having conversations over good food! And of course, siesta. She will be based in Edinburgh for the next two years, eating lots of “tatties” (potatoes).