The end of Tokyo - great food. Hanaya Asagaya

Neighborhood spots. The tasty of the tasty. I had omakase type of dinner at Hanaya in Asagaya. You get the drift. Great foods, amazing presentation. Nice people. This type of spot has your back when you want something really nice to eat. You can't go there daily, or, can you? It's not out of the control pricey, but at the same time, it's not super inexpensive. There's plenty of nice spots to eat in this area, this is just one of them. Toro and uni above.

a small fish and eggplant dish.

porco rosso

egg tofu and daikon with ikura

This is the drinker set of snacks.

daikon and gobo

The next day. cat #1

cat #2

cat #3. This cat looks really beat up, but I really like the cat's face. I hope this one recovers fully by the time I come back to Japan.

Yasukuni shrine images will end out this blog post.

Except for this image. I really like how the caramel box is integrated perfect into the handle on the train. Someone was thinking.

Donut man - the strawberry payoff...

Every year I post the same pic, nearly. Donutman in Glendora. Yes, they rock the strawberry donut. This time, I put the red colorful and tasty donut at the end. Instead I'll show a pic of the guys making the donuts. See the round rings? Yes, those are going to be good. While we sleep, there's someone there making more donuts. It's to good to know that there are people working while some of us are not.

The long ones are called Tigertails. Not typical of any shop, this is a favorite here. I'd suggest it.

The sugar donut, which was once my favorite fell off the rack. I think I liked the crunch of the sugar.

It's all of it's glory, this is a great tasting donut.

The cat and the horse.

We hope into a tiny restaurant in Ebisu and there's 4 cats inside. The cat pictured above is 23 years old. It's the oldest cat I've ever seen or maybe heard of. When it walks down the main walkway in this tiny restaurant, it's meowing, I suppose sort of gaining as much attention as she can, literally defining what a "Catwalk" is all about. This restaurant was quite good, and I wonder if the cat's been getting fed special food. This wouldn't happen in LA, or in many other places in America, yet, the food was still good, and seemed quite safe and clean. Things like this make Tokyo, Tokyo.

The cat does look for attention when walking down the aisle. It's funny to see how people react to the cats.

I love seeing Japanese restaurants do this. They have these bowls of their small veggie dishes out ready to serve.

Definitely not proud of this one: but I ate horse. It ends up being pretty good, but in the end, I'm way over it. What's the difference between eating horse, cat, a cow or a pig? Nothing. We're all in the same gang - mammals. But I still won't eat this again.

Then it's back to gyoza. This was amazing and who knows what was in it.

Sushi Sake and Shibucho

Sashimi at Shibucho in Orange County is an amazing ride. Take a look at the quality. First off it's far. Costa Mesa from LA isn't a laughing matter to eat dinner. The spot isn't in the most remarkable place. It's next to a cell phone shop that's open late, and a liquor store. But what they serve is top notch. I'm not going to say, this place is better than that, but this one ranks high. The difference regardless? It's cheaper.

The red in the upper left corner is Sujiko. It's Ikura (fish egg still in the membrane sac) and soaked in soy sauce.

Nikogori is fish jelly! Totally good and a tiny snack.

Shiokara is a salty squid.

Uni Kasu Zuke

Kazunoko Kombu! The few things listed above, are what you may get when you have a good relationship with the chefs. They start bringing out their home brew. It helps to drink a ton, because if you're drinking a soda, they won't bring this stuff out. It's reserved for sake drinkers since these small snacks exists to taste with sake.

Ayako F. samples a sake.

Abalone

Geso sushi. How often do you even see this?

Shibucho is no nonsense. If you look confused, the main chef will say, "No California Roll, no spicy tuna roll. This is sushi." It may seem condescending and plenty of people write bad reviews on the place, and it's not because of the quality, it's because there's no "Avocado covered rainbow, mixed with shrimp tempura upside down with Sushi paper roll". It's serious and how you might find sushi in Japan.

Tamago sushi - notice the rice, barely under this brick of egg?

Goh Nakamura and The Invisible Cities at gr/eats - The Unofficial 2009 JetBlue Music Tour

Our first show at gr/eats featured Goh Nakamura and The Invisible Cities. We closed up at 9:15, then rearranged tables and chairs and lo and behold, a nice intimate space emerged. Of course having a nice rented monitors helped. Everything sounded great. About 20 or so people filled the room nicely. The tour is called Follow Your Whim, as seen at followyourwhim.com There's video, live feeds, tweets, and more. Our space isn't the biggest, but for an event like this, I couldn't be happier. Maybe we'll do something again soon. Here's more of his tour stops at his site, gohnakamura.com.

Sadie Contini, Han Wang, Gary Chou, and Goh Nakamura

Food time Otafuku and gr/eats

It's still tough to beat soba at otafuku. I can hear about places that shuffle you in and out quickly with their handmade soba, but why is it never as good as this place? The rest of their food is great too. It's izakaya style, and might be one of the better in SoCal. Otafuku. The soba above is seiro with plum. Of course okra is quite great with soba.

The box of uni is always great here. Uni isn't uni.

I threw in the tilapia pesto from gr/eats. It's good too.

gr/eats in Rachael Ray

It's been a little since gr/eats got some press, and here's one for the ages. Everyday with Rachael Ray!

Here's a link to a blow up of the article. Visit gr/eats if you get a chance.

I grew up eating tofu burgers thanks to mom and these meatballs are an incarnation of that! Years later, it graces the pages of Rachael Ray.

gr/eats paella

The paella at gr/eats... I haven't had it in a while, and it's a sure winner. Flavors busting out all over, the seafood is almost too much, with a squeeze of lemon, it brings out everything you need. Pretty good commercial... meanwhile, the below is the specials menu. Tons of things to get.

Peaches

Peaches, donuts, and there you have it, peach donuts. It's back in season. The Donutman himself said that it's a tougher season since each peach has to be peeled by hand. So get on it. From my area it's only 45 miles. donutman!

Hiyashi Chuka, Cold Noodles.

That's the hiyashi chuka at gr/eats. Yes, it's good. It's there as a special nearly every day. Luckily, I had it when it was warm out, but it's cooled down just a bit in SoCal, but it's still good in the summer.


That's Mr Romanelli with his 1920 Friendship Quilt Cap. Part of his new clandestine line. Check out the hiyashi chuka at gr/eats while you can.

Sushi in the OC Ushi no hi

Shibucho Sushi might be one of the best places around. Of course a large percentage of you think sushi is all about the fried rolls, or combinations of fish to make one gigantic roll. It is those things now, in a hybrid USA, but there's also the simple and I'd say, more pure. Sushi Shibucho is one of those places. It's not too pricey compared to others who load you up with sushi pieces with a variety of sauces and styles, this one gives you sushi that's clean and simple, and therefore, super rare. Above is a few orders, from Spanish Mackerel, squid, octopus, red snapper, and abalone. Each piece was nothing short of amazing. Shibucho on Yelp.


This is battera. It's Osaka style boxed sushi. It's mackerel with a pickled gourd on top. I think this is the best I've ever had.


Ushi no hi. Read up on it. That was the actual point of this post. In old times, and with old school folks you actually don't eat the eel. It's an animal that you worship in a way. Eels have whiskers and some think it's a reincarnate of some sort. Here's a better article.