Umami Mart

Here’s a fun accompaniment to U N I F O R M B E H A V I O R’s flan choux discovery. One morning my mom enthusiastically proclaimed to me, “Kayo, try this now, it’s delicious.” I admit this frightened me a bit, as my mother is never so apparently excited about anything, let […]

One of my most recent discoveries in Tokyo is Mangetsu, a tiny place that has a maximum occupancy of eight, one-minute from Hatagaya station that specializes in gyu-tan, or beef tongue. I will post on their many beef tongue dishes in the near future, but this post concerns Mugi-toro meshi – a barley rice bowl […]

The Canned Crab Bar is guilty of false advertising. I almost forgave them for not serving any canned crab while dining on fresh, juicy crab legs and seafood-cream pasta… until I saw the bill. We walked into the Canned Crab Bar located in a tiny alley in Yoyogi-uehara expecting canned crab. But instead the only […]

Since moving away from my beloved town of Shimokitazawa, I make every excuse to cruise by the neighborhood just to check out the latest shop openings. As it is only a 10-min bike ride away from my current residence, I go there to run my Muji errands and to meet up for coffee with colleagues. […]

My father has one sister and four brothers- all of who are in the restaurant business. The Akaboris are destined to work with food, what can I say?? My brother just spent some time in a hoity-toity restaurant in Barcelona, and I just started a job at a Spanish restaurant in Menlo Park. As LOST’s […]

After getting drunk on a bottle of white wine Saturday night, I made a drunk-person purchase at 7-11. Placed side-by-side in the soda refrigerator were Shiso Pepsi and Green Tea Coke. The Green Tea Coke was on sale for 125 yen, marked down from the standard soda price in Japan of 150 yen. This was […]

After making my umeshu and bottling it up for indulgence in October, I became restless. I wanted to make more while I waited for three months. But this time I wanted to try another fruit. After discussing it over with a veteran Japanese fruit liqueur-maker (my ex-coworker), she suggested I try biwashu (“biwa” is a […]

I’m finding all these pictures from my Japan trip that I never blogged, so please excuse this outdated trip down memory lane. I went to a kabuki show in Asakusa (in Tokyo) and afterwards, my family took me to feast on dojo, a small eel-like fish prepared in various ways. The whole experience was right […]

Last weekend I moved to a new apartment with my boyfriend. To properly celebrate our cohabitation I invited fellow Umamimarter June to our home last night. After picking June up at the nearest train station, we stopped by 7-11 to stock up on the night’s booze and munchies. After selecting our spirits, we were tempted […]

Here’s something totally weird that my little friend Kota was munching on during dinner one night. It’s called HAKIRA (assuming that’s a shortened Japanese word for “sparkling teeth”) and it’s for teething toddlers to chew on to prevent a certain bacteria called Streptococcus mutens, which causes cavities. According to the tag line, it’s for adults […]