Oh great, here we go again. Another blog post about Japanese food packaging design.

But you know what? The reality is that the Japanese kick our butts many times over when it comes to intelligent, fun and groundbreaking ways to wrap something edible. Ok, so there actually are American designers at work behind the scenes
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A trip to Brattleboro, Vermont was just what I needed this winter… it provided a little R&R and an idea that was perfect for Japanify.

Brattleboro put on quite a show for this Californian. It snowed just enough make the dwellings around town look like gingerbread dusted with
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This weekend two designer friends Louise Gaarmann, Tina Ratzer and I threw a “julestue” (directly translated: “christmas livingroom”) which is sort of a Christmas market with things to buy and stuff to snack on– but in my apartment and not in a local
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Since my last post on an early Thanksgiving dinner, I went down to Fort Lauderdale, soaked in a lot of sun, darkened up the way a real Asian guy should look, then came back to a freezing NYC.

I am depressed. I want more sun.

I was going to write about my food experiences
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It’s funny how when you mention Japan and food in the same sentence, there only seems to be two options. You can take the fabulous gourmet-cheering, sushi-adoring, heavenly-graced and experimenting Michelin-guided way. Or, you can choose the back alley into the world of eyeball-abusing, crazed up, disgustingly weird nastiness that
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Sweedeedee Jerky‘s little booth at the SF Underground Market last week was just about to close down by the time I got in– they had SOLD OUT of everything by 6pm! Troy, the master chef behind Sweedeedee Jerky, and his lovely girlfriend
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Found these Scampi Fries at a pub in New Orleans– have you heard of them? They’re from the UK. I thought they would taste like the Japanese Kappaebisen (shrimp chips), but they had more of a zingy citrus flavor than the scampi.

This product does not have a website, but the company did
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A bartender at Royal Street Inn & Bar in NOLA was wearing this shirt: a cute cartoon caricature of a fat man carrying a pie, with the word “Hubig’s” written across in cursive. It piqued my interest– what was this all about, I wondered.

I asked Pat
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I went to visit my dad’s grave yesterday and on my way there, we had to transfer trains at an adorable little station, Surugaoyama in Yamanashi Prefecture, at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

At the kiosk, I spotted a snack named “Unagi Bone” made by
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My mama bought this special gift box of dorayaki at Mitsuwa the other day. I guess they were on sale for half-off ($9 instead of $18- Japanese gourmet snacks tend to be pricey); she’s so friggin’ shrewd!

Dorayaki is a Japanese dessert of azuki (sweet
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