Umami Mart

Aloha from Kauai! Yoko, Washi, Johnny, Keisuke, Jay, Rie and I have been lucky enough to spend five nights in Hanalei Bay — a picturesque town on the North Shore, surrounded by staggering mountain ranges and captivating turquoise waves. It’s truly paradise here and we are having a blast ringing in the first week of […]

Recently I took a trip to Southeast Asia, starting off in Thailand. I decided to make the trip up as I went. I didn’t even have a place to stay when I first arrived — a challenge when you land at 10pm. But my first post back has nothing to do with Thai food. Rather, I’d like to […]

On an early morning off the main drag in Luang Prabang, Laos, Pasaneyom Coffee Shop is bustling with regulars. Pasaneyom offers the breakfast essentials: porridge, coffee and donuts. They keep a big vat of water going over the fire, and the coffee pots over that to keep things HOT and economical. I went to this […]

*Johnny Lopes is based in San Francisco and is currently traveling through Southeast Asia for two months. Follow what he’s eating on his Flickr feed.

By Johnny Lopes Khaosan Road, Bangkok; Backpacker Mecca. The street gets stupid busy at night between fellow travelers and merchant hustlers. You can buy everything from new suits to a ride to a local ping-pong show. As an amateur photo-journalist project, I went out in the early morning to seek out the silent streets — I […]

Awabi (abalone) is a luxurious clam. When it is eaten raw, it tastes faintly like the sea, but its crispy texture is what stands out the most. It is delicious, but almost impossible to find on sushi menus as they are so hard to obtain due to strict California laws. On the Northern California coast, […]

Chilled ikura and uni chawanmushi (steamed egg custard) at Sushi Kuni restaurant. *Photo by Johnny Lopes 

Uzuzukuri is one of my favorite preprations of sashimi. Kuni (my dad) would make this for very special occasions growing up, usually New Year’s Day or Thanksgiving. It is so gorgeous that you almost feel bad eating it. But not that bad. The word usuzukuri derives from 薄い (usui, or thin), meaning fish that is sliced thinly. […]

The Umami Mart Shop popped up in Old Oakland for five days last week inside Piper + John General Goods, located on the charming brick road of 9th Street. It was a great success! We launched on the bustling “First Friday”, which is a huge sprawling art party throughout Oakland every month, thrown by the […]

It’s been a while since Umamimart has put on a big event. Honestly, our Gift of Food benefit last April for Japan set the bar so high that I haven’t had the chutzpah to do anything since. So Umamimart took a long hiatus from events. Too long. But that all changed a week ago, when […]