Umami Mart

I’m finding all these pictures from my Japan trip that I never blogged, so please excuse this outdated trip down memory lane.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 […]

Cooking time: 5 minutes. The Japanese have perfected the art of lazy cooking. Instant ramen, instant white rice, instant consomme, instant miso soup complete with tofu and green onions. Where do you think I get it from? So the other day, I found some shrimp in the freezer and decided to pair it with chili […]

I’m about to post a meal I made with shrimp, but before I do, I thought I should do a little shrimp deveining tutorial. It’s so easy to pass up the fresh, shell-on shrimp in the seafood section of the grocery store, since the thought of deshelling and deveining is such a pain in the […]

Seeing as votes are largely being casted for “boobies” for the Umami Vote question “What would you like to see more of on UM?”, I tried searching for something boobie-related to blog about. But blogging about chicken boobies just seemed kind of boring. So forgive me for not being able to fulfill the demand for […]

It was my birthday yesterday!!! I know, I know- when you were little and imagined life at 29, you always wanted to be single, jobless and living with mom and dad. I’m making dreams come true over here! So how could I have lived these last 29 years never having stepped foot into a Red […]

I’m still hopeful that winter will make its curtain call as scheduled, despite the seemingly unrelenting frigidness of late. So to get through this late-stage frostiness I knew some hearty comfort food would be in order, and homemade chowder fit the bill. I used a recipe I had for Portsmouth Seafood Chowder from BG’s Boat […]

I had qualms about blogging the Homo Sausage. Was I really a near 30 year-old woman with the humor of a 7 year-old boy? Yes. Was Umami Mart too sophisticated for a juvenile post such as this? Yes. But then again, maybe not. I met Homo Sausage last week at my friend’s party. Someone had […]

Moms have the best recipes. This one for salmon pate has been a hit (gone in under an hour) at both parties I’ve brought them to. I have only made it twice but it’s so simple and reliable that it’ll become a regular in my limited recipe repertoire. Ingredients: A)2 green onions chopped1/2 cup of […]

I know I’ve done many lobster postings, but I had to do it again. Thanks, or due to the economic crisis, no one is buying lobster these days. Lobster used to be a status symbol (really?) for the rich. They are not cheap, and if you have them at restaurants, they are pretty pricey. It […]

Caroline and I made a version (via Ming Tsai’s recipe) of Ikan Bakar, a Malaysian/Indonesian dish, for dinner last week. It was our first time cooking skate, although I’ve enjoyed it in Chinese and French preparations. It’s a really cheap fish ($5/lb at the Blue Moon stall in the Greenmarket on Wednesdays!), but offers good […]