June 23, 2014
Instead of reaching there via a Wardrobe route, Nagoya is about a two-hour bullet train ride from Tokyo. It is the third most populous city in Japan, with 2.3 million people living within 11 square miles. Car geeks may know Nagoya as Toyota HQ. Gamblers may take note that it is where pachinko was born. […]
June 16, 2014
My trip to Kyoto was awesome for many reasons. Temples, new friends, raw nature, or scenes like this one, just three boys feeding hawks like a flock of seagulls. Despite its rural look this is in the heart of Kyoto. And there was this: My couchsurfing host just happened to live within walking distance of […]
April 30, 2014
It’s no secret that I have a massive man-crush on Ramenate, a ramen blog written by a guy named Nate. For the longest time I didn’t know his name and thought the blog was pronounced ramen nah-tay, like French. He’s one of the rare bloggers whose writing holds my interest regardless of the subject matter […]
April 9, 2014
On Sunday, April 6, my picture and story was in the Kanagawa edition of the Yumiuri Shimbun, one of Japan’s three biggest newspapers (yes only the local Kanagawa edition… but still). Read it here if you can read Japanese. If not you can look at my picture and Google Translate your way to such gems as: […]
March 28, 2014
Japan is noodle crazy. Each station in each town of each prefecture have their own noodle specialty. Being noodle fiends ourselves, Kayoko and I researched some of the regional noodles of Niigata prefecture before setting foot there last month. As soon as we arrived, we noticed a lot of ramen and soba. We wanted to […]
March 21, 2014
Oh Ichiran. I was very anti-you for a long time because of your bizarre seating arrangement. It just seems so weird that we, the customers, have to sit at a private booth, in silence, without speaking to the chefs — instead ordering by placing our ticket next to a sliding wooden curtain and filling out […]
March 5, 2014
By Anna de Castro Just when I thought February in NY could not get any dreamier (and by dreamy, I mean cold, slushy, and awaiting 6-8 more inches of snow), word came that a Bay Area favorite was making its way east, to shed a bit of light on our blustery season. Ramen Shop Oakland […]
February 19, 2014
We made it! After a restless 16 hours of travel — I read this month’s New Yorker (excellent expose on Amazon and its monopoly on the publishing industry) and Vanity Fair (The Hollywood Issue! Rupert Murdoch’s marital betrayal!) cover to cover, whilst listening to Howard Stern — Yoko and I have touched down and are […]
February 12, 2014
My new neighborhood in Tokyo is called Yayoicho, just a mile west of Shinjuku, one of the biggest entertainment and nightlife spots on planet earth. It’s like Times Square, only if New Yorkers hung out there all the time instead of clueless tourists and touts. My part of town is pretty suburban, with a cluster […]
October 30, 2013
Last week a reader asked if I had tried Chibiscus. Apparently it had been compared to Tsujita — a bold statement. I promised I’d check it out. I assumed it was the random shop that opened on Sunset Blvd earlier this year around the same time as Maki Maku on Hollywood Boulevard. I tried it […]