Umami Mart

Last month Johnny and I went on our honeymoon. We pride ourselves on being non-traditionalists, so we avoided taking the trip for a while. And once everything was planned, we didn’t like to call it our “honeymoon.” But it was our first major international vacation since we went to Vietnam in 2013, so it was […]

An annual treat. HOUSE OF PRIME RIB 1906 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94109 T: 415.885.4605

Whenever I go see my 92 year-old grandma and have a conversation over tea, she drops all kinds of wisdom bombs on me. And she does it so casually, I never really notice the impact her words have on me until I am on the freeway, driving back to Berkeley. Last week, she said “I […]

The Smoke House is the sort of place where old-timey execs sip their nightcaps as they wait for their retirement (“I gave the best years of my life to this place”) and where awkward co-workers carry on as if they are passing through town for work, treating their affairs as fleeting, one night romances. The […]

Why are old things, places, clothes, movies, books, more interesting than what’s available to us today? Is it because the grass is always greener? Or that you always want what you can’t have? I’m sure that’s part of it, but it has to be more than that. The authenticity, the history, the credibility? Whatever the […]

My third blog entry on my trip to Ishigaki Island in Okinawa is about beef. Since moving to Japan, I realize just how beef-obsessed the Japanese are. Yakiniku is huge, guaranteeing for really stinky salarymen on packed trains every Friday night. Luckily on Ishigaki Island, there are no salarymen. Ishigaki-gyu (cow) is probably what Ishigaki […]

kayoko (1:51:48 PM): tell me about that steak you had at Diner amira (1:53:19 PM): ahh kayoko (1:51:53 PM): Matt said it was awesome amira (1:53:21 PM): sure amira (1:53:30 PM): absolutely the best steak I’ve had in the States amira (1:53:35 PM): Better than Peter Lugers kayoko (1:52:08 PM): WOW amira (1:53:42 PM): because […]