Kitazawa Seed Company will be unable to join our event this Saturday. But Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm will be here to talk about planting, and garden upkeep. Please join us! Spring is rapidly approaching, and that means seed season! What...
Our next photo exhibition will be by the lovely and talented Aya Brackett in a show titled Home is Oakland, Home is Japan. Professionally, Aya's food photography has been published in The New York Times, Monocle and Bon Appetit, and for...
Based in Brooklyn, NY, Kelly Geary is the founder and chef for Sweet Deliverance, a thriving subscription program where she prepares healthy, delicious home-cooked meals out of her CSA shares. All with fresh and organic produce, she charts out each...
It's chilly out! Come by on Thursday for a bowl of udon, hand-pulled by Sylvan Brackett of Peko Peko. He will most likely be serving the soup with roasted duck and mushrooms. Sylvan's udon are some of the best I've...
Popuphood is turning 1yo! We're so thrilled to be a part of this great community for its first anniversary. To celebrate, we're throwing a wine party! Our good friend Cory is the co-proprietor of Selection Massale, an East Bay-based...
Happy Hanukkah everyone! We're throwing a celebration this Wednesday on the fifth night. Our good friend Rabbi Jack Prosnit will be here to light the menorah and hang out with us. And of course, there will be food + drinks --...
We are super jazzed to host our first music show! Yup, Umami Mart is turning into a venue for one night on Tuesday 11/20 for Oorutaichi, a free-form, improvisational electropop artist from Osaka. Inspired by The Doors and The Residents, Oorutaichi...
We are more than a little excited to announce our first art show with long-time Umami Mart contributor Erin Gleeson. A year ago, Erin started her photo and illustration blog The Forest Feast, after moving to the California woods from...
Our great friend (and twice-Umami Mart writer) Lizzy Boelter is popping up at Umami Mart with her mobile kitchen Grease Box this Friday. Lizzy makes super rad soul food of her native Louisiana, all gluten-free! And lucky for us, Lizzy does not...
Our great friends and talented ceramicists Rie and Jay of Atelier Dion have designed cups for Umami Mart! Please join us this Thursday to celebrate the launch of our teacups, in three different designs. Of course, Rie and Jay will...
Umamiventures are BACK! The last field trip was at the TCHO factory back in March 2011, remember? Wow, it has been WAY TOO LONG. For years I have been trying to organize an event with a honey producer, and the...
As you may have heard, there's a highly anticipated ramen shop coming to Oakland. Our good friends Sam, Rayneil and JJ are the masterminds behind Ramen Shop (that's right!), opening in Rockridge. The opening is still a few months away,...
Throughout the years, we've been asked to present more events highlighting shochu. Well, here's the event that you've all been waiting for! Generously sponsored by Takara, we'll be tasting four different kinds of shochu: imo (sweet potato), mugi (barley), kome (rice)...
That's right, we be grillin' balls this Friday! Our good friends Koichi, Ryoji and Steven of YATAIYA will be making yaki-onigiri (grilled rice balls), and serving them alongside some house-made tsukemono (pickles). They are irresistible, smoky flavor-bombs! If we're lucky, they'll have other...
Guess what? MOTO is coming to Umami Mart! How lucky we are! Our resident macaron maestro will be here with us this Thursday night, armed with his little pillows of sweet macarons that he has finally mastered over the last few...
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...
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...
My most recent obsession is making anko (sweet bean paste) from scratch. As I wrote in my strawberry daifuku post a couple of weeks ago, using bean paste as dessert doesn't really exist in the west. But I am trying to find ways to...
- 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...
Yoko and I have been invited to give a presentation at the world-renowned Pecha Kucha forum next Tuesday 1/24 in San Francisco. The theme is "chaos", and we will be speaking about our experiences in Japan last year in regards to food and radiation. In...
