Umami Mart

Kayoko, Johnny, and I spent last week in paradise (aka Yelapa, Mexico). Watching whales from our balcony while reading Invisible Man was the highlight of my trip. You couldn’t beat the scenery, but unfortunately the food was not at paradise-level. While on vacation, the subject of chikuwa came up (probably because we were craving it). […]

  I’m always stealing ideas from my family. The latest cooking technique I stole was from my Aunt Judy (who also inspired Kayoko’s Happy Hour post last week), who specializes in making drinks and savory foods to along with it. Aunt Judy had read somewhere that a beef restaurant in Japan was trying to find […]

During my last visit to Tokyo, my grandma sent me home with some store bought, vacuum-sealed beef soboro. It had been a really long time since I had Soboro Donburi, so I was happy to indulge in some nostalgia when I got back to California. Soboro Donburi is typically made up of three toppings on […]

For this month’s Conbini Creations, I wanted to make a recipe using the Youki Shisen Tobanjan, a spicy Sichuan-style chili paste that we carry at Umami Mart. Made with chili peppers and fermented broad beans, tobanjan is often used in mapo tofu recipes, or simply added into noodle soups to add a healthy, warming spice. A small dab also […]

Going to a restaurant for Korean tabletop BBQ is a culinary experience everyone should have. Not only is Korean BBQ really accessible for most any non-vegetarian/vegan person, but there are all kinds of fun things happening right at your table: cook-it-yourself meat on a scary-hot grill mere inches away from you! The endless banchan (side dishes)! Those orange-handled craft scissors […]

Kayoko and I taught a class on how to make Japanese curry from scratch two years ago and the resulting recipe was epic. It delivered great results, but at the expense of toiling in the kitchen all day and collecting a laundry list of ingredients. Who has time for that? Not me. The following recipe […]

I wanted to make something simple and mouthwatering for the Canned Crab Challenge. Sarah’s Snow Crab Jeon is a tough act to follow, so I also wanted to make something that could potentially complement her recipe. So to pair with her protein-heavy dish, I decided to come up with a carb dish. I had tried […]

Jeon is a savory Korean pancake. More like a flat, eggy omelet than a fluffy pancake you’d eat for breakfast, jeon can be eaten any time of day. As a Korean American, I grew up eating lots of jeon filled with all sorts of ingredients, from green onions to fish and oysters, and sometimes, ground-beef stuffed chili peppers. One of the most popular […]

Hi I am back, sorta. I’ve been making a lot of stuff from scratch. I spend half the week in the countryside, with a big-ass kitchen — it’s an ideal setting to be creative/adventurous with my cooking. The other day, I was at H Mart (the very best Korean supermarket with a ton of Japanese items, […]

(Disclaimer: I did NOT see any of the shadows when I was taking these photos. Sorry about this. My pics are usually bad, but these are extra bad…) I love coming up with weird fusions. You will be surprised at how cultural combos work very well, such as the Natto Sandwich, Ramen della Carbonara, Natto […]