I am a junkie - a noodle junkie. It is my favorite food and carb of choice. I could probably give up bread, and maybe even rice, but never noodles. This month, I took over for Yoko for our monthly club Sake Gumi, and decided on the theme of Sake...
One of the best parts of being in Sake Gumi is attending our Sake Gumi Social events. We host tastings, dinners, and tours centering around sake education and drinking. To tie in with the past couple months of Sake Gumi (last month, the theme...
In Japan, they call any big, nationwide trend a boom (ブーム). For example, right now cilantro is all the rage in Japan. I'm serious - cilantro on EVERYTHING. So you could say there's a cilantro boom in full force in Japan. It's taken a long while for the ramen boom...
In honor of Hiroshima month here at Umami Mart, I visited Chinchikurin in LA a few weeks ago, where they specialize in its regional cuisine. Namely they serve Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. A popular chain in Hiroshima proper, this is Chinchikurin's first American outpost, that just opened in the...
Living in Japan, I'm not used to spending a lot of money for ramen. But while in NY, I shelled out $20 for a bowl of ramen and I would do it all over again.
An easy and fresh salad using soba noodles, avocado, walnuts, and a few other ingredients that are readily available at any grocery store.
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...
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...
*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!...
*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!...
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...
"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...
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...
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 4x3 block radius, consisting of...
In Hong Kong, one of the places my friend S insisted we try was one of two highly-rated restaurants serving Shanghai crab. Lucky for us, we were at the tail-end of the Shanghai crab season. I love crab but hadn't tried the Shanghai variety before....
By Anna de Castro Just when I thought February in NY could not get any dreamier (and by dreamy, I mean cold, slushy, and awaiting 6-8 more inches of snow), word came that a Bay Area favorite was making its way east,...
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...
Sometimes when I eat out I’ll come across a dish so awful, I occasionally fantasise about bringing the bowl to the kitchen, pouring the contents into the sink and then storming out of the shop, leaving glitter and rainbow dust in my midst....
Soyez le bienvenu au cours de cuisine Française contemporaine. Aujourd'hui nous allons faire un ragoût aux champignons bourguignon délicieux, champignons bourguignons.* And that is the extent of my French lingo skills. Although I use to live in Paris for a while, my French...
