Umami Mart

We met up for our special SF Umamiventure on a sunny Saturday at Puerto Alegre (PA) in the Mission. This place has been around since 1970 (!). I was excited for a lunch of CalMex delights, but everyone else was unphased. To them, this was just another lunch, afterall. These people in Cali take their […]

After driving around for about 30 minutes trying to decide what to eat (pho? Thai? Burmese? Tofu House?) Alice and CJ took me to the original Osha in the Tenderloin, which everyone says is the best out of the other 5 Oshas scattered around the city now. I guess all the other ones are fancy, […]

They say the sun comes up every morningAnd if you listen oh so carefully The winds that ride on the high timeWhistle in melody And so the people started to sing And thats how the surf gave birth untold To California soul, California Soul– Ashford & Simpson You know what the surf all along the […]

Christi considers herself quite the rotisserie chicken connoisseur, and she had been raving about her discovery of “the best roasted chicken” for months. Naglee Park Garage is a cute little brick house (lots of house restaurants in SJ) near its namesake park, close to SJ State. I would call this place old-school-garage-knick-knacky-cool. There’s even a […]

Alright folks, this post is to debunk your romantic notions of the starving artist. My brother’s bff Yoskay is an awesome painter, living in a fat loft space in Japantown, LA, with fellow awesome artists Tessar and Nate. They all hustle hard so they can focus on their art as much as possible- good for […]

Jamie is always taunting me about these deep fried burritos he gets near his place in downtown San Jose- sounds like the best invention ever, right? (Second to a fried calamari sandwich). So of course he took me to his spot, Casa Vicky, when I got into SJ. It’s literally a little house on the […]

I’m sorta embarrassed to admit it, but seems that I have a Mario Batali obsession. But let me preface this entry by saying that we weren’t even supposed to go to Mozza- we had reservations at Campanile, but my flight got in too late so we had to cancel. Sara said they were being buttholes […]

Can’t go to LA and not go to Koreatown. Best Korean food ever, and it’s a trip down memory lane for me, cause that’s where we lived for 4 years when my family first moved to the States. On my friend Jim’s recommendation, Keisuke, Yoskay and I went to Park’s on Vermont. It was late […]

In LA, I was finally able to meet up with my personal favorite food blogger, Oishii Eats aka Jeni (I hope her name isn’t a secret). I’m embarrassed to say, but in the overcrowded sea of food blogs, OE is the only one that I consistently keep up with- it’s totally unpretentious, easy to navigate, […]

It’s all in the air/ You hear it everywhere No matter what you do/ It’s gonna grab a hold on you California soul… California soul…— Ashford & Simpson It’s in my bones, I can’t shake it off- California is IN me. Took a week off to attend a wedding in San Francisco, and detoured through […]