Event Recap

July 28, 2016

Event Recap: Preserving and Cooking with Shio Koji @ Preserved Oakland

by Yoko Kumano

This was our second time teaching the Preserving and Cooking with Shio Koji class at Preserved, a retail shop focused on preserved and fermented goods, owned and operated by our good friend Elizabeth. The shop is full of tools, books, and goodies to help you pickle, brew, jam, and can to your heart’s content. Elizabeth has […]

June 27, 2016

Event Recap: Sakqueso!

by Kayoko Akabori

Sakqueso!, just as the name suggests, was an event we put on pairing cheese with sake. It was loads of FUN! We invited Keisuke Akabori to create a five-course menu and Tim Sullivan of Hakkaisan Brewery to come and pair the dishes with their sakes. Sake and cheese pair very well, wouldn’t you know, since […]

May 6, 2016

Event Recap: Sake Dinner at Camino

by Kayoko Akabori

A motto around Umami Mart is that, “We only work with our friends.” We cherish our community and Yoko and I love being able to source products for the shop by artisans that we know personally, and throw fun parties with them too. I worked as a bartender at Camino restaurant for several years and owe them […]

April 29, 2016

Event Recap: Kayoko’s Cherry Blossom Cobbler Birthday Festival 3000

by Sarah Han

Last Thursday, we celebrated a momentous occasion – Kayoko’s 36th birthday! Collaborating with our friends at Holy Mountain, we threw a party that we dubbed Kayoko’s Cherry Blossom Cobbler Birthday Festival 3000. If you’ve never been to Holy Mountain, you’re missing out. Perched above Hawker Fare’s San Francisco location on Valencia Street, it’s exactly the kind of watering hole […]

April 21, 2016

Event Recap: Tohoku Springs Back!

by Kayoko Akabori

I’m happy to report that we had a successful fundraising event for Tohoku last month. This was our first collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies, and we’d all agree that it was awesome. Despite the massive rain that poured down on downtown Berkeley on the night of March 12, we had about 100 […]

January 27, 2016

Event Recap: 3rd Annual Japan Beer Fest

by Kayoko Akabori

Photos by Hermexial Drexilus When we co-hosted our first Japan Beer Fest in 2013 with our neighbor The Trappist, we had no idea that it would become an annual event. But year after year, it has proven to be more successful and debaucherous than the last. How could that be?!?! We offered 30+ microbrews from Japan […]

November 30, 2015

Event Recap: Stirred Not Shaken at Forgery SF

by Kayoko Akabori

Photos by Yoko Kumano Together with Plumpjack Wine & Spirits, we hosted a cocktail crafting event at Forgery a couple months ago. I remember it as though it was yesterday — it was a warm, late summer day (ehem, late September) in San Francisco, and our guests saddled up to Forgery’s gorgeous bar to take in the […]

November 16, 2015

Event Recap: Mad About Genshu, Our First Sake Gumi Social!

by Kayoko Akabori

Photos by Daniel Metcalf We had our very first Sake Gumi Social last weekend — it was a BLAST! This event was exclusive to Sake Gumi members, held at Ramen Shop’s new bar annex. Yoko and I wanted the event to be informative and lively, letting all the local Sake Gumi members meet and get to know […]

September 7, 2015

Event Recap: Hakkaisan Brewery Sake Tasting @ Alchemy Bottle Shop

by Yoko Kumano

Umami Mart has two connections to Hakkaisan. It was the first sake brewery that Kayoko and I visited in Japan back in 2011 when we went with a group of chefs and artists from the Bay Area as part of a collective called Open Harvest. You can read about our brewery visit here. And then […]

August 20, 2015

Event Recap: 3rd Annual Umami Mart MATSURI

by Yoko Kumano

Umami Mart is all grown up. Although she’s only 3 years old, the lifespan of a business seems to whiz by and feels like it goes by in dog years. So it feels more like she actually just turned 21. It makes sense, as year 3 brought us our very own license to sell beer […]