Umami Mart

Paris is packed with things like bad service, people who don’t wear color, restaurants with funky bathrooms, people who embody blasé, park benches older than both of my countries, and street food that will screw your brains out, call you lover, and often never call you back. For these reasons, I decided to go there […]

My trip to France was my first international experience ever. As much as I tried to prepare, there really is just no preparing for the unknown. From walking a mile underground in between each subway line to the reality of the hotel rooms, everything seemed to be more difficult than I had anticipated. What do […]

My family and I went on a flying visit to Paris again to rendez-vous with my dad (since he managed not to get his UK visa in time–visa people suck). Last year I gave him a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s memoir of 1920s Paris, A Moveable Feast, which he raved on about until I decided […]

The French are famous for their cuisine and although it seems a daunting task to find the diamonds amongst the gazillion eateries in Paris, we had our trusty mother– with her Japanese travel guides– who took us seemlessly from one good restaurant and bistro to another. She likes to do her research before travelling and […]

You didn’t think we’d go to Paris and go on a sugarless diet, did you? Of course you didn’t. Angelina’s is a famous pâtisserie on rue de Rivoli across from the Tuileries Garden.We went there the first time we visited Paris as a family over 20 years ago where I remember eating a mille feuille. […]

It’s been universally acknowledged that August is the month of sloth. Is that a problem for me? Jamais! My parents are in town and apart from my mother who doesn’t seem to understand the word lazy, the rest of us are fans of the easy life and what’s easier than to hop onto the Eurostar […]

Here’s something awesome that Matt brought back for me from his jaunt in Paris. Looks like just an ordinary jar of cornichons (aka the Gherkin), right? Think again. When you open it up, there is this awesome stick floating in the middle of the jar. What is it for? To pick up the remaining cornichons […]

Here’s a little something my boss brought back from Paris: Raisins au Sauternes- sublime wine soaked raisins, coated in dark chocolate. These are friggin AMAZING. There’s a little sugar crunch as you bite down, revealing a golden yellow raisin, with a faint hint of something… what exactly is it? Dessert wine! Apparently, they come from […]

I’ve just come back from a brief vacation to Paris and Berlin–I rarely vacation, so upon returning I’ve regaled everyone I’ve spoken to with the dreadfully banal, I-see-the-world-anew!-type minutiae familiar to anyone who has attended college and encountered–in the words of one friend tired of my anecdotes–“that annoying kid who studies abroad for a semester […]