Umami Mart

In the spirit of March Madness, the heaven-sent blog LA Taco has posted their Elite 8 bracket for Taco Madness 2009. Since college basketball’s Elite 8 commences tonight I thought it would be appropriate to post an expert breakdown of the Taco Madness match-ups by my friend and taco maven Ignacio “Nacho” Garcia–the man is […]

There’s a little Korea-town in the Akasaka section of Tokyo, just a little side street filled with Korean-owned and operated restaurants. Here, my friend Maho took me to one of her favorite spots, Ton-chan. There are a few Ton-chan’s scattered all around Tokyo- it is bbq, but they specialize in pork (ton, in Japanese means […]

To celebrate the end of our film festival last week, my coworkers Ryo, Chisa and I bolted onto a 20 minute bus ride out of Manhattan to King Spa Sauna in New Jersey for a night of hot tub relaxation. It mainly caters to a Korean clientele, and for about $100, you get a hard-core […]

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 […]

I’m from Monterey, California (home of the world-famous — and deservedly so — Monterey Bay Aquarium) which is one of the most beautiful places on earth (the breathtaking landscape was featured in Hitchcock’s masterpiece Vertigo), but the problem with the beautiful places on earth are that they are usually turned into tourist traps — everything […]

Since Japan is very close to Korea, the Korean food is leaps and bounds better than anything in the States. The ingredients are close to Japanese food as well, so that alone guarantees better Korean cuisine. Although in comparison to the food I actually ate last summer in Seoul, I can attest that the Korean […]