Umami Mart

By the time you read this, Yoko and I will be in Niigata, Japan, a prefecture three hours north of Tokyo, on the west coast, the side of the Japan Sea. It’s also directly west of Fukushima City, home of the Daiichi Power Plant. We will be visiting a sake brewery, as well as harvesting […]

Ramen, as some of my fellow writers have observed, is totally taking over North America. People are obsessively eating, finding new shops, and eating more. New chains from Japan are opening like once a month here in New York City. Funny thing about ramen is it used to be really difficult to find recipes, but […]

I must admit that Washi and I have more-than-healthy appetites and the lunch boxes at the Edible Schoolyard event did not satiate our piggie tendencies. After our pleasant, healthy sandwich meal, we decided to check out the latest the Financial District had to offer in terms of ramen. Thanks to a tip from my brother-in-law […]

One of the surprising things about London is that you can get very good, cheap Thai food in pubs. My friends and I call them Thai pubs, but they’re just normal pubs serving Thai food cooked by Thai chefs instead of the usual pub fare such as roasts and chips. One of the best kept […]

PREFACE Summer Slurp Series, Pt. 1: Nikumiso Udon Summer Slurp Series, Pt. 2: Hiyashi Chuka (Cold Ramen) The one (and only) thing that I miss about the disgustingly humid temperatures in Tokyo is the arrival of cold noodle dishes on menus everywhere. During the hot months of June through September, I would convince myself that […]

We’ve been very lucky. Since last summer, we’ve had a bona fide udon-ya (shop) right here in London. Serving sanuki udon (a type of udon from the Kagawa region of Japan) that is prepared in-house, Koya boasts chefs that trained at the famed Kunitoraya in Paris. Proper udon and one even my extremely fussy Japanese […]

PREFACE Summer Slurp Series, Pt. 1: Nikumiso Udon The one (and only) thing that I miss about the disgustingly humid temperatures in Tokyo is the arrival of cold noodle dishes on menus everywhere. During the hot months of June through September, I would convince myself that I deserved a daily reward of a big bowl […]

The one (and only) thing that I miss about the disgustingly humid temperatures in Tokyo is the arrival of cold noodle dishes on menus everywhere. During the hot months of June through September, I would convince myself that I deserved a daily reward of a big bowl of cold noodles for surviving each hot day. […]

Recently, I had a ramen epiphany in San Francisco. It was at Ken Ken Ramen, a tiny operation that pops up in the Mission every Thursday and Sunday, at The Corner (a coffee shop/ restaurant space). Robert Patterson, who grew up in Japan, no longer wanted to travel all the way to San Mateo (or […]

When I was in Japan last month, I visited the Shinyokohama Ramen Museum. Yes, there is a museum that is devoted to ramen. As kitschy as it may sound, it was actually a lot of fun. The lower level was set up like seedy downtown Tokyo in the 1960’s  (下町 or Shitamachi), with a bunch […]