Hello, friends. Thank you so much for visiting my blog. You notice all the images, except for the cover images of my previous blog posts, are blocked now. I've been using Photobucket as a hosting service for the images in my blog contents, and they suddenly changed their terms of service, and now the photos cannot be seen unless I pay them $399/ year for upgrade service. I was surprised to find what Photobucket has done to my blog, to say the least. It totally felt like my blog photos were taken as hostage for ransom of $400. Then, I found there has been huge anger from the users of Photobuc ..read more

The short 1 week back home was about to end. As usual, before I left for Narita Airport, Tomoko and I had soba lunch. I had yamakake soba, hot soba noodle with grated yam topping. Flight going back home was United. Their service was especially nice this time, after all the widely criticized incidents happened. I came back to LA safely. While fighting with jet lag, I unpacked everything. I brought back many old photos and albums. This photo is from dinner at my grandparents' house back in 1978! Donabe always gathered our family. Happy donabe life ..read more

On my final evening in this stay, I got to join a special wine dinner with Tomoko. My long time friend and wine mentor, Etsuko (she is now a renowned wine journalist in Japan) and a wine importer hosted a special wine dinner for Terroir Al Limit with the winemaker Dominik Huber. It took place at Argile, a very stylish modern French restaurant in Ginza. The first segment was a lecture by Dominik himself. He is a very serious wine maker and he talked for a long time! Finally, we had a toast with a beautiful L'Origan, Cava Brut Nature. The amuse was carpaccio of prawns with caviar, shiso ..read more

In this very short stay back home, I could still manage to get together with some of very good friends in Tokyo. One night, I got together with Isako and Akiyo, the 8th generation sisters of Nagatani-en, the donabe producer. They took me to this super cute and hidden wine bar in Gakugeidai-mae. They don't have a written wine list, so I was welcomed to dig in their cellar. I was like a kid in a candy store. I found a lot of gems, such as rare to find natural wines from Italy. Lardo, followed by carrot and fig marinade salad.   All the dishes were made by the owner, Teshima-san ..read more

Tomoko and I had some errands to run in Urawa, then we bumped into Annual Unagi Festival. Urawa is famous for unagi (eel) and boasts dozens of unagi specialized restaurants in the city. The mascot character of Urawa City is Unako-chan (eel girl, created by late Yanase Takashi, the famous cartoonist who created Anpanman), and the city host a big eel festival every year. We stopped by after running an errand, to check out what's going on. Grilled skewered eel was so good. Oden. Eel masters. There were so many other vendors besides unagi, too. So, we enjoyed a little bit of ev ..read more

This time, because we had a lot of family stuff to take care of, I spent a lot of time with Tomoko in Urawa. I love the neighborhood and it has a nice gourmet scenes. Our "go to" soba place. On a warm day, I enjoy their cold bukkake soba with grated mountain yam. A cute bistro is within a walking distance from my sister's home. I loved the octopus ragout spaghetti. A new soba and duck izakaya. We had small dishes to share. All so tasty. I loved the miso bagna cauda sauce for the steamed vegetables. The grilled Saikyo-miso marinated oysters were so huge and so plump. Duck ..read more

Every time I go back to Japan, I go to see Mikizo-san at Ichirin. His seasonal kaiseki dishes are to die for. Tomoko and I were excited to experience early summer treats. Cold Akita shin-junsai with shrimp in dashi gelee. Shiro-kisu (dried overnight), shiro-zuiko, and tsuruna in clear soup. Mako-garei and its guts (kimo) from Miyagi. Honmaguro from Okinawa. Kogiri nasu from Hamamatsu, akamiso & goma, Abashiri kegani, Miyazaki soramame (simmered once in dashi) shira-ae, usuimame from Kyoto karatsu uni, kanagawa kamasu sushi, Kyoto sazae, ayu kanro-ni. Summer limited edition ..read more

I had another trip back to Japan last week. I took ANA fight. I liked the braised mackerel in soy ginger sauce. Back in Urawa. Dinner at a local sushi restaurant with my sister, Tomoko. The wild-caught oyster from Wakayama was so huge and so good. Sake, tako, massive shirako...feeling good to be back home as always. I think I had almost 20 pieces of sushi. It was so hard to stop ..read more

The latest issue (Issue 10) of a popular culinary website, Cook's Gazette, is all about Japanese food and its culture. And, they have a special article about DONABE. It's a wonderful story featuring our donabe, Nagatani-en, and myself. Please check it out! Happy donabe life ..read more

My donabe chicken sukiyaki, ready to serve Last Sunday, I had a pleasure participating in a big charity event, hosted b American Liver Foundation. The event was titled Flavors of Los Angeles, and many talented chefs from popular restaurants in LA gathered to cook for the guests in this event. The chef chair of the event was Chef Kevin Meehan of Kali, one of my favorite restaurants in LA! I teamed up with my friends and super talented chefs, Kuniko (formerly the head chef at Hinoki & The Bird) and Shiho (partner/ chef of Sweet Rose Creamery) to offer 5 courses for 12 guests a ..read more