Umami Mart

For the last four years, Sylvan of Peko-Peko catering in San Francisco has been making osechi bento sets for the first of the year. Osechi, as you know from Yamahomo’s annual posts (here and here), are foods that are traditionally cooked for the new year, that are consumed for good luck. There is a special […]

The world is full of burger places. There is one in almost every strip mall in America, and then there are the chains which are often the culprits or the scapegoats of many a country’s poor eating habits. Burgers stretch the gut, go well with less healthy things like milkshakes, chili fries, extra cheese, and […]

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 couple of restaurants offering old school ramen which are alright. But considering there is […]

Now, I’ve always considered myself quite the noodle connoisseur, but I had never heard of the houtou noodle before. Originating in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan, the noodles are like thicker versions of udon, but flat, ribbon-like and looooong. It is served in a miso broth with many vegetables and meats, in a heavy steel pot. Nabeyaki style. […]

I was in Miami for Thanksgiving, listening to salsa music while eating turkey, which was great. Last Thanksgiving, I had a steak in Fort Lauderdale, but this year we had a very traditional Thanksgiving meal, with nontraditional music accompaniment. Since Thanksgiving Day’s meal looks the same no matter how fancy, or tasty it may be, […]

Beet soup by Chef Scott Anderson at Elements Restaurant in Princeton, NJ. Photo by Erin Gleeson.

Teishoku is a pre-set meal — a main dish, always with miso soup and a bowl of rice, and it builds from there according the chef’s seasonal fancies (pickles, tofu, salad, etc). These meals are very popular during lunch, when salarymen and women can quickly run into a restaurant and get a warm, complete meal […]

Before leaving for my big trip to Japan, I knew that the one and only thing I really wanted to eat was unagi. Eel! It is quite a delicacy in Japan, and is pricey as hell. Often they are run by families that have been serving eel for generations. Since childhood, my grandfather has been […]

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 50 bowls of ramen during his month-long stay, I […]

One of my favourite foods is South East Asian cuisine. I confess I wasn’t much of a fan of noodles when I was a child living in Bangkok (I know, what was I thinking?), preferring fried rice over anything else. That’s practically all I ate as apparently I was a fussy eater. My sister, on […]