Spaghetti with asari (clams), shirauo (little white fish) and arugula at Pizzeria Matsuhisa in Denenchofu, Tokyo. Someday, I will open a wafu (Japanese-style) pasta shop in Oakland.

Drunken noodles at SriPraPhai in Woodside, Queens. From Umamiventure #4 in 2007. The savory hot sweetness of the dish still hovers in my memory.

Photo by Irwin Chen.

Happy February, everyone!

Umamimart turns 5 years old this month, and I thought it would be fun to celebrate NOODLES! We’re all fans of noodles here, and there are pages and pages worth of posts, since 2007 (!), dedicated to the almighty noodle on Umamimart.

The column name “Great UM Noodletown” is an homage to one of my favorite late-night spots in NYC Chinatown called Great NY Noodletown. With roasted birds dangling from the windows, I had many a meals there–both solitary and rowdy–all on the dirt cheap, with slices of oranges always for dessert. Thank you, Great NY Noodletown. You hold a special place in my heart.

To start off the column with a big bang, I give to you Misoya, a ramen chain from Japan that has made its way to Santa Clara, CA. The first U.S. outpost opened in the East Village, NYC (looks like the owner of Totto brought it over). It’s right around the corner from Ippudo, a mega-popular ramen joint, but I hope it’s holding its ground there regardless. Personally, I think Ippudo is garbage and I absolutely cannot believe there are still lines to get in. I mean $15 for a bowl of ramen in a techno-club setting?? No thank you. Yamahomo bitched about it when it first opened. We have not been back since.

Anyhow, here’s Misoya, set in a strip mall right across the street from a hospital in sunny Santa Clara, CA. Welcome to the sprawling suburban nightmare that is my childhood. But you know I love it!

I think it’s hilarious that the South Bay Area (San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Mt. View) has all the awesome Asian eateries, rather than SF proper. [Sorta like having to go to boondocks Queens from Manhattan]. I have to say that it’s testament to the fact that the audience in the South Bay just has higher standards for Asian food. I’ll get a lashing for saying that, of course. But it’s true!!! Dim sum, Viet, sushi. Alright, I admit, the East Bay has superb Korean and Thai though.

Miso. Soul. Japan. Holla!

Don’t you dare seat yourself, asshole.

I always come early enough so there’s never a line. You get a view into the kitchen from the counter.

Hungry. The bowl of rice is FREE! Carbs with a side of carbs, please!

Misoya is known for… wait for it… their MISO ramen.

The miso broth here is komemiso, which is a Hokkaido-style, darker blend with a hint of spice. They put a dollop of the komemiso on top.

Soup is deep and hearty.

Grease bubbles are muy importante.

Noodles are bouncy and squiggly, just how I like.

It is imperative that you order the cha-shu pork ramen. I ordered the regular ramen once, thinking that it would come with the standard two slices. WRONG. That was a sad, sad day.

They boast that this cha-shu is special because of the way it is grilled over an open flame. It is the fattiest piece of pork you will have for the week, but well worth it.

Now this puzzled me: the fried potatoes in my ramen.

This must be a Hokkaido thing? The Tokyo-girl (ok, Saitama) in me shuddered a little bit.

The gyoza were chive-y pork bombs. I peeped a guy in the kitchen making them from scratch.

Delightful!

So I didn’t finish my potato, but did pretty well otherwise.

The ramen was $11, gyoza $4. Not bad!

The ramen at Misoya is a damn fine bowl of noodles. While I will refrain from using declarative statements like “Best in the Bay”, I will say that this is the CLOSEST you will get to the ramen you will find in Japan. This means: hearty, heavy, greasy broth, which is all the rage in Tokyo. Not surprising that Misoya was started in Chiba, which is where I had a great bowl of ramen at Tonikaku, on my last trip.

Washi calls most ramen he has here generally as “California Ramen”. This means an assari (light), clean, broth. Most ramen broths you find in the Bay Area are definitely light and seemingly “healthy”, California-esque. Don’t get me wrong, I like an assari, salt-based broth, but I have to say that my go-to has always been miso.

Misoya is located right across from Orenchi, which is always packed for some reason. Skip the line and just walk across the street! I am happy to have found a great miso ramen, even if I have to drive 45 minutes for it.

I’ll be writing about noodles all month! All year! Forever! Comment below if you have a noodle spot you love. And thank you for supporting Umamimart all these years!

Back in Cupertino, Kuni (my pops) had a huge bag of fuguhire (dried blowfish tails) from Tsukiji market, which he is grills to make fuguhire zake. These tails are from the blowfish variety tora-fugu or “tiger fugu”. Fuguhire zake is a common way to drink hot sake in Japan during the cold winters, at least amongst my father’s generation (ojisan aka old men).

Kuni says that it is becoming harder to find these tails in Japan, and they are generally not for sale here in the States. The tora-fugu variety is of the highest quality.

Also, Kuni has his license to slice blowfish, did you know?

Anyhow, here’s how he makes fuguhire zake for his restaurant, Sushi Kuni in Cupertino.

INGREDIENTS
A couple blowfish tails, and some cheap sake. Kuni emphasizes that you can use run-of-the-mill, non-premium sake here since you are going to warm it up.

1. Pour about a cup of sake into a kettle.

2. Heat sake on stove over medium heat. When steam begins to rise, turn it off.

3. Take fugu tail with wooden chopsticks and slowly sear it over an open fire. If you have a small grill, that is ideal. You could also put them in the toaster.

4. Let it char a bit, but try not to let it burn to a crisp.

5. Grill about four or five of the tails, and drop them into the kettle full of sake.

6. While you are waiting about five minutes for the fugu tails to infuse the sake, make some accompanying side dishes. Like octopus sashimi and morokyu (cucumbers with miso).

Octoporn

The sake is warm and dashi-like, with smoky notes and a hint of the sea. Not fishy at all.

Enjoy!

A great follow-up to the sashimi is nabe (hotpot). A staple meal in every Japanese home during winter.

Add rice at the very end for a hearty shime (ending).

Happy winter! It’s cold and dreary here in Oakland. I hope you’re all hanging in there, I think it’s gonna be a colddddd winter.

Yoko and I have been invited to give a presentation at the world-renowned Pecha Kucha forum next Tuesday 1/24 in San Francisco. The theme is “chaos”, and we will be speaking about our experiences in Japan last year in regards to food and radiation. In the typical Pecha Kucha style, it will be a rapid-fire presentation of 20 slides with 20 seconds per slide to talk. Whew!

DETAILS
Date: Tuesday 1/24
Time: 6pm
Location: SPUR – San Francisco Planning + Urban Research
654 Mission Street (Between Annie + 3rd St)
Tix: $20/ $10 member

Other presenters on the roster for the night include Harley Dubois (Burning Man, Founder), Nicholas deMonchaux (Urban Designer, Professor, UC Berkeley), Jeffrey Tumlin (transportation planner), James Tracy (author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times) and Tal Klement (public defender, SF criminal justice system).

Wait, there’s more! Yoko is in the midst of finishing a documentary on food and radiation in Japan, which she is submitting to the Uranium Film Festival in Rio Di Janeiro, Brasil. Please check out the Facebook page, LIKE it, and stay tuned to all the nuclear happs.

*Photo by Yoko Kumano 

I’ve been obsessed with making this dish for a few months now — it is really satisfying when you are craving noodles, and so ridiculously easy to make. You can usually find nabeyaki udon on the menus at Japanese restaurants, for $12+. This is so easy to make at home, and cheap!

INGREDIENTS
1 pack of frozen udon noodles (if you only have the hard kind, that is fine too)
A few pieces of fishcake (I use chikuwa here)
A type of green (bok choy, napa cabbage, spinach)
Some green onions
Udon/Soba soup base

Optional: Egg and mushrooms

METHOD

1. Fill pot with 3 cups of water:

One requirement for this dish is to have a heavy pot, be it a nabe-style clay pot, or cast iron. Le Creuset works fine.

2. Chop all ingredients

3. Once the water starts to boil, add about a tablespoon of the udon soup base, or homemade tsuyu, to the water. Add the fishcakes to get more dashi, and umami.

4. Optional step: In another pot, boil water and cook noodles seperately

This is a not-so-lazy step that I do because I find the starch element, that Anders had mentioned before in his bacon udon recipe , to be too much when the noodles are cooked in the same pot. But technically if you have frozen udon, you should just be able to put it in directly to the pot where you’re cooking everything else.

I found these frozen Sanuki-style noodles at the Korean market, for super duper cheap. $2.50 for five packs!

It’s not the best udon, but it works fine. We are in a recession, afterall.

5. Dump all the vegetables into your pot.

Let it all come to a simmer.

6. The stove should be on medium. Add noodles.

Again, you can pre-boil the noodles, or just add the frozen pack directly into the pot, at this point.

7. Add egg.

8. Cover the pot, with all the ingredients boiling.

9. After about three minutes, open the lid.

It’s done when the egg is cooked to your liking.

All in all, this took about 15 minutes, including prep.

Add grated daikon if you please, and a heap of green onions. If you have any ten-kasu (tempura flakes), sprinkle some over. Serve in little bowls.

This is the perfect dish to keep you and your family warm during the winter months.

I was fortunate enough to peek into the Peko Peko kitchen this last weekend, while they were preparing all 40 boxes of their highly coveted annual osechi bentos. What a crew! Sylvan had about five people working the kitchen — peeling, dicing, de-shelling 40 Dungeness crabs… wow.

Sylvan and his right-hand chef Yuko took me through one of the dishes in the bento, tataki gobo. Tataku means “to strike” in Japanese, and that is exactly what we did to the very tough gobo (burdock root). Then, we simmered it and dressed it in a sesame-vinegar sauce.

Gobo is eaten on New Year’s Day, to symbolize deep roots, hence, stability, long life and perseverance. With gobo popping up on many menus in the Bay Area these days, I thought this would be a great recipe to have on Umamimart.

INGREDIENTS
1 gobo root
5 cups dashi
6 tbsp mirin
6 tbsp soy sauce

Dressing
2/3 cup white toasted sesame
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp usukuchi shoyu (light soy sauce)
3 tbsp rice vinegar

METHOD

1. Peel gobo and soak in water. This is to keep it from discoloring.

2. Strike the gobo with a heavy object.

3. Make dashi.

 ”
In Sylvan’s kitchen, we use freshly shaven bonito.

Briefly boil bonito in water

Strain

Make your own dashi using Yoko’s definitive Japanify guide.

4. Meanwhile, put gobo in water and vinegar for 3-4 minutes to get rid of the aku (scum) and keep it from discoloring

5. Add soy sauce to the dashi

6. Strain gobo from the vinegar, and put into the dashi mixture, and add mirin

Put the gobo on low heat for about 30 minutes. If you can, use a wide pan so it sucks up much of the liquid. You can even use a drop-lid or make one with foil. Turn off the heat after 30 minutes and let the gobo cool down.

7. For the dressing, use a suribachi if you have one, to grind the sesame (if not, just grind sesame separately).

8. Add sugar.

9. Grind together

10. Add the soy sauce and vinegar. Mix together.

Should be wet and sticky

10. Add the gobo, once it has cooled. The gobo should have a nice crisp to it.

11. Mix lightly with a paddle

Make sure the dressing covers the gobo liberally

12. Plate!

Gobo is full of fiber, and this is a fantastic, simple way to prepare the tough root vegetable. I love the tartness from the vinegar married with the sweetness.

But the gobo dish was only one of the many dishes that the Peko Peko crew prepared for the osechi bento.

The bentos would be stacked in three tiers, in cedar boxes hand-made by Sylvan

Sylvan’s master plan


Clockwise from top left: grilled pork in orange marmalade, kurkinton (chestnut + sweet potato mash), homemade kamaboko (fishcake) with fresh wasabi, kuromame (black beans)

Sylvan somehow wrangled up some perfect, fresh wasabi roots from Oregon. Each bento got one, as garnish for the kamaboko.

WOWWWWWWWW!!!


Clockwise from top left: dashimaki tamago (egg omelette), tatuskuri (candied toasted anchovies), steelhead roe in a yuzu cup and kazunoko (herring roe), tataki gobo, gindara no kasuzuke (black cod marinated in sake lees), kombumaki (kombu roll).

And the main event…

Photo by Yuko Sato

All the crab meat had been pre-picked, then mixed with namasu (daikon, carrot, persimmon vinegar salad). It was very impressive.

A nice, abundant surprise under the crabface. 

Gorgeous! Photo by Yuko Sato

Photo by Yuko Sato

Happy 2012 to all!

To celebrate the new year, I hosted a last-minute dinner last night with a few close friends. What was on the menu? Okonomiyaki! It was a mellow evening of cocktails and sour beers to accompany the famous Japanese savory pancake.

It was the first time I would be making okonomiyaki, but I figured it would be easy enough. I borrowed a rad table-side hot plate from the parents (which I do not plan on returning, suckas!), and went on a quick trip to the local Korean supermarket (a awesomely cheaper alternative to the Japanese market) to get all the necessary ingredients and toppings.

Prep was minimal — the biggest pain in the ass was slicing all the cabbage. But nothing was too time-consuming or labor intensive.

Two types of pork belly: American, and “skinless black pork” from Denmark. (For Anders)

Vanesa demonstrating the wonders of nagaimo (mountain potato, not to be pronounced “na-gay-mo”, haha)

The batter itself is not unlike pancake batter. It consists of about 1 cup flour, 2 eggs, and 300ml water. Add a bot of nagaimo here. I cheated and also used some pre-made okonomiyaki mix, which you can buy at the Japanese market.

Mix all your desired ingredients into about a cup of batter. We had shrimp, squid, OYSTERS, enoki mushrooms, tempura flakes and of course, cabbage.

Stir so all the ingredients are coated in batter.

Lay the batter onto a hot, well-oiled pan.

Flaten out evenly. You want the pancake to not be so big you can’t flip it, nor too thick that it won’t cook through.

Add pork belly.

Flipping the pancake can be difficult. I ended up having to cut the pancake into several pieces to be able to flip, which is fine, but not ideal.

When done, slather on some kewpie mayo, Japanese “sosu” (okonoiyaki sauce tonkatsu sauce is fine) or and sprinkle some beni-shoga (pickled ginger) and aonori (green seaweed).

Yoko brought yakisoba, a necessary accompaniment to okonomiyaki.

Eat!

Happy new year everyone! Let’s make 2012 the year of Okonomiyaki!

*Photos by Johnny Lopes and Yoko Kumano

As 2011 draws to a close, I am not thinking about the Mayans. Rather, I am trying to decide what I will be eating over the weekend. PRIORITIES, people!

I’ll be working on Saturday evening (apocalypse be damned!), but I’ll have all the accouterments ready to ring in the new year with Johnny and a bowl of toshikoshi soba as soon as I get home. With a bottle of bubbly of course!

Toshikoshi soba is always eaten on New Year’s Eve in Japan. Toshikoshi roughly means, “to kill off the year”, and so you can start the new year with a clean slate. “Why soba?”, I asked my mother. Hideko thinks the soba represents living hosoku, nagaku (slenderly, long). She hung up on me before I could ask any more questions regarding this matter of living “slenderly”.

I bought this fancy shin soba (new soba) in Nagano prefecture, when I was there in November. Nagano is well known for their soba. The notion of “new soba” is interesting — essentially, it is soba made of newly harvested buckwheat. Shin soba is quite a specialty in Japan, as the Japanese love anything “new”.

I figure December 31 will be a good time to break open the seal (erm, before it expires).

Yes, the strands of soba are slender and long.

It is a treat to have fresh soba, as I usually eat the hard stuff throughout the year. I’ll be making Yoko’s soba tsuyu (dipping sauce), and eating the soba cold. Traditionally, toshikoshi soba should be served warm, but I prefer mine cold. That’s how Hideko usually served it, anyhow. Although zaru soba (cold soba) in the winter time is pretty blasphemous.

Photo by Yoko Kumano

Happy new year, Martians!  Thanks for all your support in this last year. Umamimart will turn 5yo in 2012. Wow! I look forward to sharing more food adventures with you in the new year.

*Top photo by Yoko Kumano 

Danran, a little sushi spot in the Sakurajosui station in Tokyo, is no stranger to Umamimart. Yoko introduced us to the place in 2008, and Tmonkey reported on it again later that year. Yoko took me to Danran for the first time several years ago, and I very much looked forward to visiting again on my last trip in October.

The place had not changed a bit — the master, his wife, and her brother, all greeted us with warm smiles as we happily retreated from the autumn rain. The small space was brightly-lit, and the wood interior gave off a cozy glow.

Naoko, Yoko and I sat at the counter of Danran, laughing, chatting and catching up, over wonderful food and drinks made to order by our hosts. We never looked at the time, and when it was time for us to say farewell, there was no one left in the restaurant. It was midnight. We had been there for something like six hours.

The photo above was one of the first dishes presented to us by the Master. It is stewed fish eggs, probably tai (snapper) or hirame (fluke). The lightness of flavor, with the bounciness of each fish egg, is just delightful.

This was one of my most memorable meals of 2011. Please take a look at the rest of our meal.