Umami Mart

It’s snowing. And it’s going to snow all through the night. It’ll snow through the show I’ll be playing tonight in Asagaya. So I’m staying in until then. On my stroll back home this morning from Hatagaya, I stopped by the supermarket with a strong urge to make me up a hot bowl of soba. […]

With such a ramen frenzy going on in New York right now (a cute little “guide to ramen” column in Time Out this week; buzz on Eater about yet another Hakata-style rameneria opening in Greenpoint in the fall; the ramen war that Setagaya ignited with Momofuku before they opened a couple months back, etc), I […]

It probably reached the usual 96 or so degrees F in Tokyo yesterday. On days like these, it’s hard to tear yourself away from the air conditioning vent. But at around one o’clock, this was achieved knowing that food adventures were to be experienced. Upon flipping through Brutus’ issue on parks, there was a review […]

Aya: Hey Tmonkey, boo tmonkey: hey have you recovered from The Banquet? Aya: um I don’t even know what you’re talking about because I’ve had my memories from Friday night removed from my brain. tmonkey: nooo ok the movie was painful but the ramen at Setagaya! Can’t forget that! Aya: hmmm seem to have a […]

It all started with this recipe in 101cookbooks, which I love, but whose hype I had never succumbed to until one day last weekend, when I decided to make Aya a bon voyage lasagne (my girl loves her some lasagne) before her trip to Wiener-ville. It’s a masochistic lasagne, a fact we learned later in […]

Honestly, there’s nothing better than waking up late in the morning with your honey and spontaneously going to Jindaiji – a charming little town in Western Tokyo famous for soba (buckwheat noodles). I realize that this is way after the fact (we went a month ago), but that is the downside of waiting until your […]

(Editor’s note: This post was co-written by Aya and Tmonkey. All opinions and typos are theirs.) Aya: I am always hungry. But Tmonkey, you are always always hungry. What’s up with your metabolism? Tmonkey: I burn a lot of chi doing kung-fu. Also my massive brain controlled by alien maggots requires about 3 times more […]

Over the weekend, I spent some time in Nikko which is about three hours away from Tokyo. Most people go for the gaudy shrines – wooden and painted in bright red and gold reflecting Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu’s glory. Anyhow, the weather wasn’t very agreeable – so there was nothing else to do except…EAT! Turns out, […]

Since Japan is very close to Korea, the Korean food is leaps and bounds better than anything in the States. The ingredients are close to Japanese food as well, so that alone guarantees better Korean cuisine. Although in comparison to the food I actually ate last summer in Seoul, I can attest that the Korean […]