I am ecstatic to announce that Yoko and I will be opening a real-deal brick and mortar store in Oakland, California!!! This all happened very quickly for us and these last few weeks have been filled with meetings, many trips to...
We all have those comfort dishes that are close to our heart, and transport us back to childhood when biting into whatever it may be. For me, a bowl of chicken udon from Gombei always makes me tear up with nostalgia. Originally a little...
We're proud to present an event with Cask (a delightful beverage shop in SF) and Suntory (proprietor of Yamazaki, Hibiki and Hakushu whiskies), for an intimate seminar on Japanese whisky and tasting for Father's Day. WHEN: Sunday June 17 at 1pm or 5pm...
When it comes to matters of eating out, I am pretty inflexible. Since I will travel long distances for good food, I get pretty upset if I don't get what I had originally intended. By nature, I am quite stubborn (classic Taurean trait), and I...
Do you guys all know my pops? His name is Kunio, and he is a sushi chef. Classically trained as a tempura chef, he was offered to transfer to Los Angeles where Inagiku, the Tokyo restaurant he worked at, was opening a location in the iconic
Mr. Thad Vogler needs no introduction. He is a leading barman in the Bay Area and beyond, who opened Bar Agricole in San Francisco in 2011....
Gochi opened quietly in 2005, in a little non-descript strip mall on the back roads of Cupertino. It was actually a bit traumatizing for me -- they bought out a nasty dive bar called the Peacock Lounge where my friends and I used to go when visiting...
The Forest Feast heads to the city for an evening! San Francisco is just 45 minutes from our little cabin in the woods. Last weekend my husband and I attended a benefit for the San Francisco chapter of Meals on Wheels which was a delicious showcase of the Bay...
Here is Part Deux in our Tokyo-SF Bartender Salon Series. Meet Monsieur Tomokazu Kai, bartender at Heuga Bar in Gifu, Japan. Mr. Kai won the 2011...
The Umamimart Shop has been invited to be a part of Magasin Général, where Bay Area independent designers, hand-crafters, shop-keepers, jewelers, and artisans will come together for a two-day shopping event popping up at Fort Mason in San Francisco. It was so kind...
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...
Remember when Yoko and I went to Japan last year with the OPEN crew? God, it seems like forever ago. We had so many rad, eye-opening opportunities, like rice harvesting in Niigata, visiting farms in Nagano and organizing a line of pop-ups on...
On Sunday 3/11, the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Northern Japan, Yoko and I helped organize a cross-cultural exchange between bartenders from Japan and San Francisco. Held at Prizefighter Bar in Emeryville, it was an intimate gathering of old friends, and new. Tomokazu...
I woke up to an email this morning with the subject line: "You're so ahead of your time!" Bryan's good friend Rob was informing me that March is National Noodle Month, and forwarded me this article about the celebrations in LA. So what the...
Sakura's noodle report from Bangkok earlier this week had me craving for a bowl of bah mee nam here in the Bay Area. I scoured the city's Thai restaurant menus but did not find anything comparable to Sakura's favorite noodle dish. But, fear not, as an awesome...
I love the pucker-your mouth tartness of naengmyeon--cold buckwheat noodles with cucumbers, hard-boiled egg and pickled Asian pears, doused in a chilled vinegar broth. Like craving ice cream when it's snowing out, I do love this during the cold winter months. Thanks to Chungtech for introducing...
Pho ga dac biet is a special chicken noodle soup at Ao Sen, my favorite pho joint in the East Bay. They serve boiled chicken on the side, bone-in and skin-on, with a florescent orange ginger sauce. It is comforting when you are sick, and...
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....
