October 10, 2016
Living in Japan, I’m not used to spending a lot of money for ramen. But recently, while visiting New York – Brooklyn, to be exact – I shelled out $20 for a bowl of ramen and I would do it all over again. I would hand over, without a second thought, a sum of money enough for 2.5 mammoth […]
August 29, 2016
There are ingredients that I always keep in stock in my kitchen; they are my daikoubutsu (favorite foods). Without them I feel like I have no fall-back option when sipping on sake or wine. Two of these ingredients are avocado and nuts. I regularly incorporate both into sauces, dips, and salads. They are really handy when […]
June 8, 2015
It’s kind of embarrassing, but I really didn’t do any research about Chengdu before touching down on the tarmac. The only reason why I picked Chengdu was because I wanted to eat spicy noodles (not because of the cute pandas) and I kind of just took the path of least resistance from there. Direct flight […]
June 1, 2015
Many of you are well aware of my noodle addiction. I like all noodles: soba, udon, ramen, linguine, naengmyun, pho, any and all of it. Fried, boiled, in broth. Cold soba is probably the only food that I crave all of the time — and it is always the first thing I eat after being […]
May 20, 2015
*Yoko is in China for 10 days! And with no access to Facebook or Instagram, she is sending us photos the old school way — via postcards. We’ll be featuring these snapshots from Yoko in Chengdu and Shanghai all week here on the blog. Enjoy! – Kayoko After a long trek from Chengdu (taxi, plane, […]
May 19, 2015
*Yoko is in China for 10 days! And with no access to Facebook or Instagram, she is sending us photos the old school way — via postcards. We’ll be featuring these snapshots from Yoko in Chengdu and Shanghai all week here on the blog. Enjoy! – Kayoko Another hot and humid day is an opportunity […]
June 23, 2014
Instead of reaching there via a Wardrobe route, Nagoya is about a two-hour bullet train ride from Tokyo. It is the third most populous city in Japan, with 2.3 million people living within 11 square miles. Car geeks may know Nagoya as Toyota HQ. Gamblers may take note that it is where pachinko was born. […]
April 28, 2014
“I talked to a local old man who turned me on to a place around the corner, Po Jai. I remember it [from] when I was groggy and wandering. It was the place with the cops and locals. He told me to order his favorite, khao soi chai. Sold! Breakfast was settled. Now I have to […]
March 31, 2014
I’m not ordinarily a breakfast person, I’d rather get an extra half an hour of sleep instead. However, if I’m going to have breakfast, I want it to be special. And in Hong Kong, we were only looking at two options: congee and wonton noodle soup. The thing I love about Asia is that you […]
March 24, 2014
One of the joys of working in Old Oakland is Chinatown. We’re only steps away to a wonderland of dirt-cheap eats and one-stop grocery shopping. It has taken us over a year to mine through its dense 4×3 block radius, consisting of restaurants, noodle shops, meat shops, pastry shops, trinket shops, electronic shops, meat shops, […]