The Umami Reader: The Japanese Wiener Obsession

- Hot diggity dog, check this out! Kayoko is quoted in a recent article written by Jonathan Kauffman for the San Francisco Chronicle on Japanese hot dogs. Kauffman reached out to Umami Mart for any tidbits we could give on the All-American-meets-Japan food mash-up, which has recently been showing up on more menus in San Francisco and the Bay Area at large (check out my blog post about eating Japanese-style hot dogs at Doggy Style in Alameda). Kauffman asked if J-dogs were actually Japanese in origin, and Kayoko being Kayoko gave this gem of a quote: "They are definitely obsessed with wieners in Japan." Truth. (San Francisco Chronicle)

- If you read nothing else this week, feast your eyes upon this restaurant review of Le Cinq, Paris. Written by Jay Rayner about the Michelin three-star Parisian restaurant in the George V Hotel, this is a deliciously scathing treat for those who crave a heaping side of snark and laughter with their food critique. (The Guardian)



- David Chang wrote this Guide to Outfitting Your Kitchen for GQ, where he writes that there are only a few kitchen tools you should actually spend a bunch of money on – everything else you can buy on the cheap. TL;DR: The tools he says to go big on include a donabe or alternately, a Dutch oven, nice copper pots, a stainless steel pan, a cast iron skillet, a good wood cutting board, and three knives: a chef’s knife (maybe something like this MAC Santoku knife?), a paring knife, and a ten-inch serrated bread knife. Last but not least, he says to get a good pepper mill. Note to self: Hide Trader Joe's Black Peppercorns with built-in grinder should David Chang ever visit my house. (GQ)

- The recent local brouhaha over the impending North Oakland "artisanal" beer garden run by Golden Road, a once-craft beer company that's now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the issue of the little brewers versus the big beer corps. Boston Beer Company founder Jim Koch (the guy behind Samuel Adams beer) penned a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, where he explains how the 2008 merger that created two mega-beer corporations, AB InBev and MillerCoors, is making it extremely hard for independent craft beer companies to survive. Craft brewers, Koch writes, can't compete when it comes to "promotion, visibility, shelf space, and marketing support," and are either struggling to make it, or are being bought by AB InBev and MillerCoors. Koch argues that unless something changes with antitrust enforcement by the Department of Justice, this might be the end of an era for makers and lovers of craft beer. (New York Times)



- It's a trap!: Two crafty entrepreneurs in South Central, Los Angeles, have used Instagram to create a full-fledged catering business. Malachi “Spank” Jenkins was a chef, who started posting photos of the food he made on Instagram. His hungry friends wondered how to get a taste, and soon, with the help of his friend Roberto "News" Smith, started marketing and selling food through the photo-sharing app. The Trap Kitchen posts photos of what's on their menu and then diners call or text for pick-up or to arrange a delivery. Brilliant. (Buzz Feed)

- ICYMI, salad-in-a-bag company, Fresh Express, recalled some of their products after two Floridians say they found a decomposed bat in their salad greens bag. The bag in question was the Organic Marketside Spring Mix sold exclusively to Walmart. As someone who's found a live bat in her bed before, this story makes me a little batty. (NPR)

- Online gourmet grocer, Good Eggs, has rebooted once again. You may remember that the San Francisco-based grocery delivery service, which specializes in high-quality, local produce, meats, and other specialty foods, had to close down its operations outside of the Bay Area in 2015, just two years after its founding. In these last two years, Good Eggs has been working on tweaking its business for a comeback. The new iteration of Good Eggs will feature more variety (that is, more everyday, less-fancy foods),  same-day delivery, dinner kits, and, eventually, alcohol. The company is hoping that these changes will attract a larger customer base beyond its core of bougie artisanal shoppers. But will this new version of Good Eggs be all that is cracked up to be? (SF Chronicle)



- And finally, meet Sumiko Iwamuro, an 82-year-old Japanese woman living in Tokyo, who's a dumpling maker by day and a techno DJ by night. (Now This)