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...
Exactly one week ago on March 26, about 150 people descended onto the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin (just north of SF) for an OPENharvest food and art collective event. The Headlands hosted OPENharvest in a former gymnasium nestled within two...
I should confess that I have never really been a fan of tsukemen (ramen with dipping sauce). Shouldn't ramen be in a piping hot broth, brimming with scallions and chashu (pork) and menma (bamboo shoots)? Tsukemen just always seemed so WRONG to me, despite the fact that...
- THIS IS EVENT IS SOLD OUT - UPDATE 3/29, 8am PDT: There are no more tickets available for this event. The Umamimart Shop pop-up booth will be in session regardless, which does not require an event ticket. Stop by and...
Feeling out of the loop can make you feel old. I was feeling that way on Sunday night when I didn't recognize a third of the bands and artists that took the Grammy's stage. I didn't know when Maroon 5 ended and Foster the People began......
Happy February, everyone! Umamimart turns 5 years old this month, and I thought it would be fun to celebrate NOODLES! We're all fans of noodles here, and there are pages and pages worth of posts, since 2007 (!), dedicated to the almighty noodle on Umamimart....
Aaaah, one of the things I really miss in London is a good bowl of ramen. Now that we've got a brilliant udon-ya for keeps, the next big thing will hopefully be ramen. Unlike in the States, we only have a...
Ramen is all the rage here on both coasts in the US, and it's still going strong in Japan. Strangely though, I didn't eat too much of it during this trip to Japan. Unlike Sam White, the host of our OPENharvest adventure, who had upwards of...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAxQCC8bVxI&feature=player_embedded I spent the weekend with my good friend Naoko in her cabin in the woods this weekend in Nagano. We had a wonderful time catching up, sleeping, going to the onsen (hot springs), reading, and of course, watching tv. This commercial is by far the best thing I've seen...
Ramen, as some of my fellow writers have observed, is totally taking over North America. People are obsessively eating, finding new shops, and eating more. New chains from Japan are opening like once a month here in New York City. Funny thing about ramen is...
I must admit that Washi and I have more-than-healthy appetites and the lunch boxes at the Edible Schoolyard event did not satiate our piggie tendencies. After our pleasant, healthy sandwich meal, we decided to check out the latest the Financial District had...
The Bay Area is a big sprawling wasteland of awesome food, that rivals Los Angeles in its expansiveness. Sadly however, up in the hyped-up food scene of San Francisco ("the city"), no one really talks about the South Bay. San Jose...
My trip to France was my first international experience ever. As much as I tried to prepare, there really is just no preparing for the unknown. From walking a mile underground in between each subway line to the reality of the hotel rooms, everything seemed...
PREFACE Summer Slurp Series, Pt. 1: Nikumiso Udon The one (and only) thing that I miss about the disgustingly humid temperatures in Tokyo is the arrival of cold noodle dishes on menus everywhere. During the hot months of June through September,...
Recently, I had a ramen epiphany in San Francisco. It was at Ken Ken Ramen, a tiny operation that pops up in the Mission every Thursday and Sunday, at The Corner (a coffee shop/ restaurant space). Robert Patterson,...
When I was in Japan last month, I visited the Shinyokohama Ramen Museum. Yes, there is a museum that is devoted to ramen. As kitschy as it may sound, it was actually a lot of fun. The lower level was set up...
Still on a quest to find excellent tan tan men in the Bay Area. Tan tan men is ramen with ground beef and cilantro, in a spicy hot soup-- I used to eat it all the time in Tokyo. Here's a bowl I had last...
Piggybacking on Yamahomo's drunk cooking post, this week's Japanify introduces techniques for making instant ramen that will please drunks. After a long, explosive night of dancing, my husband prepared Sapporo Ichiban instant ramen. An avid eater of Sapporo Ichiban instant...
Over Golden Week I went to Kyushu for some R & R. And when you go to Kyushu, you eat ramen. Hakata is where the original Ippudo and Ichiran are. We decided to go to Ichiran. We arrived at Ichiran (Tenjin location) at 11:50am. Located...
