Umami Mart

Going to a restaurant for Korean tabletop BBQ is a culinary experience everyone should have. Not only is Korean BBQ really accessible for most any non-vegetarian/vegan person, but there are all kinds of fun things happening right at your table: cook-it-yourself meat on a scary-hot grill mere inches away from you! The endless banchan (side dishes)! Those orange-handled craft scissors […]

GyÅ«-don w/ tokyo negi, chive points, tofu and shichimi  RECIPE Serves 2  1/2 lb thinly sliced beef 1/2 block tofu (cut into 9 pieces) 1 stick of tokyo negi (you can use regular green onion or yellow onion) 3/4 cup of beef stock or dashi 2 tbl sake 2 tbl mirin sweet cooking sake 3 […]

Whenever I go see my 92 year-old grandma and have a conversation over tea, she drops all kinds of wisdom bombs on me. And she does it so casually, I never really notice the impact her words have on me until I am on the freeway, driving back to Berkeley. Last week, she said “I […]

Roasted sweetbreads and braised beef cheeks with root vegetable gratin, shallot marmalade, with a Pinot noir reduction at the James Beard House. Prepared by the chefs from Wynn in Las Vegas. Photo by Erin Gleeson.

Lake Tahoe is a bit of a nightmare during the height of the summer. The lake is a dream but South Lake Tahoe is swarming with slot machine hungry tourists from both sides of the border (California and Nevada). We stayed at the Marriot and I had no complaints, especially because we stayed in a […]

Sweedeedee Jerky‘s little booth at the SF Underground Market last week was just about to close down by the time I got in– they had SOLD OUT of everything by 6pm! Troy, the master chef behind Sweedeedee Jerky, and his lovely girlfriend (aka Sweedeedee Marketing Manager) Pamela had graciously saved me a bag. Lucky me! […]

My buddy Tom and I had been talking about going to the infamous Leg of a Beast at Incanto for a very long time. One lazy afternoon while bbqing outside we decided to call and make the reservation. Incanto’s Leg of Beast includes the preparation of an entire beef shank with all the delicious tendon […]

My Meatless Monday: Breakfast: Cereal and a banana. Lunch: Cold udon noodles and sauteed onions and mushrooms. 6pm: I head to the Oakland airport where I gotta pick up Stacy.Driving down the 880, shit I need to pee. Drive for 20 minutes.Oh, there’s an In-n-Out! Cleanest bathroom off the highway!Brake, cut off car in the […]

My very first post about Bay Area food since I’ve moved here! Woo-hoo! Vanessa took me to Anh Hong in the Tenderloin, a popular Vietnamese restaurant boasting “7 COURSES OF BEEF” for only $18.95! Love it!!! From their website, it looks like there are restaurants located all over the Bay Area, and in LA and […]

Living in this overhyped dining netherworld that is NYC, everyone has to have a place that is absolutely their OWN SECRET. It’s usually somewhere on the downlow, waaaay below the radar, somewhere that you hope to god won’t ever get written about in the lame-o Times or blow up on Yelp. This is how it […]