Umami Mart

The 25th Umamiventure took place at Hida Tool and Hardware in Berkeley. After writing about sharpening Carbon and Stainless Steel knives on Umamimart and receiving a lot of questions, I thought it would be good to take these questions to the source. Chika, the knifemaster, at Hida Tool and Hardware. Chika has been working with […]

Today is National Donut Day! I woke up this morning in high anticipation for this and walked over to my local donut shop, Colonial Donuts. Love me a glazed donut first thing in the morning. According to Wiki, this day was created by the Salvation Army in 1938, to commemorate the ladies who served donuts […]

Last month, I took a relaxing trip to Pt. Reyes with one of the best books I have read this year, the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was another one of my favorites this year). Although I felt like I kind of knew what Pollan’s deal was from hearsay, […]

I was greeted with a pleasant surprise on April 19 when I opened my Gmail account. There was to be a debut release party for an organic natto product the next day at San Francisco’s Ozumo. This almost felt like when I heard the news for the release date of the latest Pavement album in […]

Every time I would go to someone’s house in Tokyo, they would likely offer me sencha before I even settled onto my zabuton or chair. Sencha is made by steaming green tea leaves, shaped into thin rolls, dried and then pan-fried or fired to lock-in the flavor. Pretty common in the U.S. as well, most […]

This Umamiventure report, a love letter to ramen from the old world to new, is written by special guest writer Wen, originally posted on her blog, We Eat Everything. All photos by Wen. A recent New York Times article about exploring Tokyo via its ramen shops left me desolate, homesick, and hungry. I whined to […]

After seeing how well the chefs (at Konohana, the sousaku-ryori restaurant I worked at last year in Tokyo) and the housewives in Japan take care of their hōchōs (Japanese cutlery), one of the first things I did when I moved back to the U.S. was to get a knife sharpener for my carbon-steel hōchō I […]

Went to see guitarists Bill Frissell and Marc Ribot at Yoshi’s the other night. What an awesome duo! But aside from the music, of course the quintessential question was, “Where should we eat before the show?” I helped brainstorm a bit with Ron (because that is what I do), and we decided on the Home […]

Finally made it out to The Alembic, a bar on Haight Street in SF– it’s a spot that has been buzzed about extensively for their cocktails and gastroeats. I believe it is related to Magnolia, the brewpub right down the street. Yoko, Washi and I enjoyed ourselves at the bar– with their awesome cocktail list, […]

Just got these pics by She-Rene, who I ran into outside at the SF Underground Market a couple weeks ago. I confess I never made it inside where the market was being held. I showed up to this discreet warehouse, on a side street in the SOMA district, and the line literally snaked down the […]