Umami Mart

Takikomi Gohan (mixed rice) is one of those comfort foods that fills the kitchen with an earthy aroma. I love cooking this in the winter and coming home to the flavors of shiitake mushrooms and hijiki. I also throw in mushrooms that happen to be in season for an extra layer of flavor. Matsutake mushrooms […]

Autumn is my favorite season. I love the foliage, the chill in the air, the shift in sunlight. In Japan, it is a great time of year to EAT! Mushrooms, grilled sanma (saury), shinmai (new rice), persimmon, and satoimo (Japanese taro) abound, and certain dishes begin to pop up on menus that signal the change in season. Japan is a place […]

– A friend recently posted on Facebook, “Anyone else wonder why the Millbrae BART station always smells like chocolate chip cookies baking? Not that I’m complaining …” It’s true, you really can’t complain when you smell something good on BART. Apparently, my friend is not the only one who’s asked that question. Well, it turns out […]

Many of you are well aware of my noodle addiction. I like all noodles: soba, udon, ramen, linguine, naengmyun, pho, any and all of it. Fried, boiled, in broth. Cold soba is probably the only food that I crave all of the time — and it is always the first thing I eat after being […]

Soyez le bienvenu au cours de cuisine Française contemporaine. Aujourd’hui nous allons faire un ragoût aux champignons bourguignon délicieux, champignons bourguignons.* And that is the extent of my French lingo skills. Although I use to live in Paris for a while, my French never stayed inside my head. So now my French consists of rather non-mentionable phrases […]

Last month, MOTO made a surprise appearance for our one-year anniversary party. With not one hair out of place, he casually sauntered into our shop and helped us dress into our summer kimnonos. On his last day in California, we had dinner at my house. While preparing for our temaki dinner, Moto showed me how […]

I am really into pulverizing food lately. In addition to my daily dose of fruit smoothie in the morning, I’ve also been experimenting with finely chopped foods. Chopping things can only be a pleasure if you have a really sharp knife, which is why I’ve been religiously sharpening my knifes this past month. If you don’t […]

Dried mushrooms are fashionable. They are packed with umami, and don’t contain any artificial crap. By drying them, mushrooms are concentrated with nutrients and all the good stuff. Mark Bittman wrote about the greatness of dried mushrooms. Pre-packed dried shiitake are found easily at Asian grocery stores, but majority of them are made in China. […]

Taking half an hour out of my schedule to slow down and warm up has been possible these past few weeks thanks to this simple soup. The arrival of matsutake mushrooms is here and I couldn’t be more excited. This year at my local market, they have sorted the mushrooms by #1s and #6s. If […]

Forager, alert! Mushrooms are everywhere right now. I was in Santa Cruz recently and met a forager who showed me all the edible mushrooms he’d found on his walk and gave me tips on how to spot them. Often they are just little bumps under leaves… who knew!? Most of the ones he pointed our […]