Japan

Sake Day 2013: Sake is Better Than it's Ever Been

Most designated days celebrating a specific food or drink originated as a marketer's ploy. Not so with Sake Day. In Japan, the first day of October marks the official beginning of the sake brewing season -- a tradition that dates back more than a thousand years. Outside of Japan, Oct. 1 has become ... More >>

JiST Cafe: Great Breakfast and Lunch in Little Tokyo

Right around the corner from Little Tokyo's strip of noodle shops on 1st St. sits JiST Cafe, a breakfast and lunch spot that opened quietly about three months ago. A quick walk from L.A. Superior Court and police headquarters, JiST is a sunny little spot, with exposed brick walls inside and an outdo ... More >>

Sunny Blue: Great Omusubi in Santa Monica Coming Soon to Los Feliz

The last great meal I had in Japan was not the takosembei, crackers made from pressed whole battered octopus that looked strikingly like William Morris wallpaper, or that glorious 1 a.m. bowl of dense, pork-oriented tsukemen, or even the shiokara made by a pony-tailed sushi chef at a tiny bar under ... More >>

Tsujita Annex: Now Open With All-Day Ramen, Umbrellas Awesome Signage

With the dollar-yen exchange rate so good right now, you may be reading this in a Tokyo tsukemen shop. Lucky you. But if you're still in L.A., you might consider heading over to Little Osaka, where the beautiful noodle palace of Tsujita L.A. has recently expanded across the street. Lucky us. A fe ... More >>

What's In Season at the Farmers Market: Loquats The Fruit Hunters, a Rare Fruit Documentary

There are a few people who would argue against calling loquats the first stone fruit of the season. It does have giant pit-like seeds -- anywhere from one to 10 -- enveloped in juicy, peach-colored flesh with a thin, slightly fuzzy and edible skin. Sound familiar? Plant classification is an exacti ... More >>

Japanese Flower Arranging: Live Onstage!

See also: *Takashi Murakami's New Culver City Show *5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week *5 Dance Shows to See in L.A. This Week The North American Sogetsu Seminar is like the Olympics of flower arranging (though, of course, only for North America). Held once every four years in a different North ... More >>

More Events: Fried Chicken Night, Bibigo Anniversary, Dish Crawl Grilled Cheese & Beer Night

Ad Hoc Fried Chicken Night For one night, Bouchon Bistro is hosting a buttermilk fried chicken dinner complete with baby gem lettuce salad, pommes allemand and Parker House rolls. The buttermilk fried chicken is based on the popular ad hoc recipe. WHAT: Ad Hoc Fried Chicken Night WHEN: Monday, Apri ... More >>

Tsujita L.A.: 99 Essential Restaurants 2013

Oguri's Body Weather

Daikokuya Little Tokyo Celebrates 11 Years With $5 Ramen

As Daikokuya prepares to celebrate 11 years of delivering steaming bowls of tonkotsu ramen to the slurping masses, it has been amazing to watch the rest of Los Angeles catch up. There are ramen shops in Torrance for the noodle-obsessed, in West L.A. for those who follow best-of lists, and all over L ... More >>

Ikemen Ramen Opens Today in Little Tokyo

Little Tokyo's array of ramen eateries attests to the dish's versatility -- and booming popularity. There's Daikokuya's rich pork broth. Shin-Sen-Gumi's thin, Hakata-style noodles. The blended soy-pork broth of Men Oh Tokushima. Orochon's super spicy "Special #2." Possibly two dozen types at Mr. Ram ... More >>

Video: Merry White on the History of Coffee in America

Calling all coffee geeks! Today from Smithsonian Magazine comes a video featuring Merry White, author of Coffee Life In Japan, on the history of coffee consumption in America. There's also some cool science in there, as well as smart people saying smart things about our favorite caffeinated beverage ... More >>

Men Oh Tokushima Ramen Opens Today in Little Tokyo

It's October on the calendar and thus theoretically great ramen weather. Alas, theory hasn't quite met thermometer just yet, but when it does, it might be a good time to welcome the belated fall season with a nice bowl of noodles from a new ramen joint (yes, another one): Japanese chain Men Oh Toku ... More >>

Tokyo nights

Five Artsy Things to Do This Week, Including Vindictive Office Supplies

This week, a bathroom in Tokyo becomes an artist's laboratory, a manmade geyser spews in a new video and hosiery makes paintings as awkward and ambivalent as human bodies. 5. Nailing it Chicago artist Dzine grew up in an underground nail salon. His mother, a first-generation Puerto Rican immigrant ... More >>

Kula Sushi: Conveyor-Belt Sushi in Little Tokyo

Conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, or kaiten-zushi as they're known in Japan, are big business these days. You might not think so when plates of sushi are priced at just $2 each, as they are at Little Tokyo's Kula Sushi, the newest and most ambitious kaiten joint to hit the L.A. scene. But arrive on a ... More >>

Gyoza Eating Contest Returns to Little Tokyo: Grab Your Chopsticks Loosen Your Belt

Think you could eat 264 gyoza in ten minutes? That's the record the world's best competitive eaters will have to beat to snatch the title from 2011 champion Pat Bertoletti at this year's Day-Lee Foods World Gyoza Eating Championship in Little Tokyo. Two of the biggest superstars in the competitive ... More >>

Nisei Week Karate Exhibition

Japan Tsunami Debris Headed Our Way, L.A. Sailing Expedition Reports

Yes, the debris from Japan's March, 2011 tsunami is coming to L.A. And a locally based ocean explorer says he knows exactly want's headed our way: An 8 feet by 5 feet fishing boat, an inflated truck tire, about 200 pounds of tangled fishing net, 6 large fishing buoys and several buckets and crates. ... More >>

Marijuana Juarez Boxing Match Pits Latinos Against Asians in Girl-Fight Race War

Boxing has been upstaged by the hotter, younger sport known as mixed martial arts. But it's not down for the count yet. Some savvy marketers have turned an upcoming L.A. bout between two chicks into a race war pitting a "Mexican beauty" against an "Asian queen" in a match being called "Fists of Hop ... More >>

Ramen Red Alert!: Menya-Iroha Coming to Gardena, Kotoya to West L.A.

If the recent boom of Japan-imported ramen chains in Southern California is the cross-cultural cousin of the 60's British Invasion -- which feels like a fair comparison lately -- then round up the screaming fangirls, because the Beatles have just landed in Los Angeles and Gardena's Murakai Market is ... More >>

Top 5 Anime Series You Need to Watch Before Anime Expo

See also: Coverage from Anime Expo 2011 Anime Expo will take over downtown Los Angeles once again beginning on June 29. For four days, anime fans, often dressed in elaborate costumes, will gather at the Los Angeles Convention Center to check out the latest shows from Japan, take in a few concerts a ... More >>

Gottsui: A Review A Brief History of Okonomiyaki

That new metro stop whose opening you've been awaiting: not complete. Those suspension-shredding chuckholes on your street: not filled. But there is still good news. It's not as hard to find good Japanese okonomiyaki in Los Angeles these days as it once was. Even a hardened cynic must admit that's s ... More >>

Fried Chicken Flowchart: Where to Go for Fried Chicken, American and Otherwise

In our last handy food flowchart, we tried to point you in the right direction for those times when you just need a bowl of phở to comfort your soul. Today, our flowchart helps you navigate the city when you're in search of another type of comforting soul food: fried chicken. And because sometim ... More >>

12 Best Highlights From FoodEx, Asia's Largest Food and Beverage Exhibition

Reporting from Tokyo, where just last week FoodEx, the largest food and beverage exhibition in Asia, welcomed more than 73,000 attendees over four days. Samples were flying off the tables, gobbled and chugged ravenously, as suppliers and distributors from around the world wooed potential clients. We ... More >>

Locals Unite for 1-Year Anniversary of Tsunami In Japan

It's been one year since the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In recent weeks, restaurants around town offered sake specials, discounts, raised funds and much more. On March 10, public appreciation event Japan Endless Discovery at the Grove, organized by the Consulate-General of Japan in ... More >>

Sake Fuels Japan's Recovery A Few Local Events

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of the March 11 catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that so terribly damaged Japan. Food-safety issues and scares -- particularly around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor -- remain in the news. Although Japan's traditional sake brewers were h ... More >>

Japan Airlines Teams Up With Yoshinoya: Beef Bowls at 40,000 Feet

Eikichi Matsuda opened Yoshinoya in 1899, in a fish market outside Edo Castle in Chuoku, Tokyo. Over the following century or so, the company expanded well beyond fish markets in Japan and, starting this month, its presence will extend to the skies. From now until May 31, Yoshinoya will offer its ... More >>

Tsunami Debris at L.A. Beaches? Don't Expect to Surf Into a House

Surfers call getting covered by a wave and riding inside its tube "getting shacked." That could have a whole new meaning is some of the debris from last year's disastrous tsunami in Japan -- houses, cars, boats and all -- hits our shores. Near the eve of the one-year anniversary of the disaster, t ... More >>

Spend Valentine's Day With Hello Kitty, at Hooters Japan

Headed to Japan this week? Hooters Tokyo location is offering a Valentine's Day special through next Tuesday: Two promotional ice cream desserts called the Volcano of Love and the Rock of Love, and the first 1,000 customers to order either will get a collector's edition pin of Hello Kitty as a Hoote ... More >>

L.A.'s Idea of Japanese Food vs. What Japanese Really Eat

Our Venn Food Diagram series has studied the people of Thailand, Armenia, Vietnam and most recently California, comparing what they actually eat with what Angelenos believe they eat. In this edition, we turn our attention to Japan, looking past ramen and sushi to see what foods Angelenos have left t ... More >>

Saturday Event: Walk and Eat in Little Tokyo

Visit Little Tokyo, and -- even if you're a rabid manga fan or karaoke maniac -- your trip will likely involve food. Perhaps yakisoba, fried noodles topped with bright red ginger. Or okonomiyaki, a pancake cooked with a variety of savory ingredients. (The name literally means "what you want.") A ... More >>

A Little Tokyo Christmas Goes to Vegas

Bullet Train Fantasy or Fiscal Nightmare? Californians Turn Against $100 Billion High-Speed Rail Plan

A bullet train cruises past Mount Fuji in Japan.​We had our doubts about this multi-billion, high-speed-rail utopia that would plow through homes, farmland and towns. Now you do too. Don't get us wrong. Prove we need it and we're there. But with the cost of a ticket doubling to an estimated t ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews Tsujita L.A.

Ramen and Tsukemen at the city's new noodle lover's paradise

Late Night in Little Tokyo

Anne Fishbeinthe invisible restaurant critic​Dear Mr. Gold: I was wondering if you had any ideas for a place to eat after 10 p.m. in Little Tokyo or downtown. We're meeting a group of people for dinner after a movie, and we wanted to try something outside of the normal sushi/ramen/izakaya stuf ... More >>

Tsujita L.A.: 99 Essential Restaurants 2011

Q & A With Far Bar's Jimmy Smith: Little Tokyo's Craft Beer Scene, How Beer Brings People Together Little Tokyo's Beer Week Coming Out Party

Far BarJapanese craft beers available at Little Tokyo's Far Bar ​For decades, Little Tokyo has been a destination for its history, food and art venues alike. But in the last year, Little Tokyo has put itself on the radar for another, more unlikely offering--craft beer. And as the second half o ... More >>

We Heart Performing for Japan Reunites Cowboy Bebop Cast and More

Dianne GarciaStephanie Sheh, who organizes We Heart Japan events, at Meltdown Comics in March​Days after a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, Los Angeles-based voice actor Stephanie Sheh, known for her roles on popular series like Bleach, FLCL, Naruto and The Melancholy of Haruhi Su ... More >>

Gyoza: Daikokuya vs. Tokyo Cafe More on the World Gyoza Eating Championship

T. NguyenDaikokuya's gyoza​ The annual World Gyoza Eating Championship descends upon Little Tokyo this Saturday, August 20th, an event in which tiny 100-pound Sonya Thomas, a.k.a. the Black Widow, and others will attempt to eat as many gyoza as inhumanely possible in 10 minutes. As the eaters ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews the Flying Pig Cafe

Brick's Picks: Great Sax

Japan Tsunami Debris Could be Headed to California by Late 2013

Look out.​Debris from Japan's March tsunami could reach our shores by 2013, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury-News. The problem is that scientists aren't sure exactly when or where it will hit: The stuff could strike anywhere from California to Washington late next year. Macabre ... More >>

Yellow Magic Orchestra Play First L.A. Show Since '79

Japan 6.7: Earthquake Strikes Country Again, Prompting a Tsunami Alert That Doesn't Cover California (So Far)

The last time.​As if Japan needs any more shaking or waves, a 6.7 earthquake hit the east coast of Honshu, Japan today, prompting a tsunami warning for that area, but not for us. According to Associated Press: The U.S. Pacific Tsunami warning center said that it did not expect a destructive ... More >>

X Japan Releases first U.S. Single 'Jade' on June 28

​X Japan's U.S. fans are a patient bunch. You've waited almost two decades since the band initially formed for this moment. You may have heard about the influential Japanese rock group's L.A. video shoots back in January of 2010, caught the acoustic benefit show in July of that year, the Lolla ... More >>

California Girls on The Wane Because of Japan Radiation? Study Says Nuclear Release Could Mean Fewer Females Born in Golden State

Katy Perry, a limited resource.​Yes, we still wish they all could be California girls. But thanks to radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, there could be less of them. And more boys. A fascinating study out of Germany correlates release of radioactive material and ... More >>

Yoshiki News: X Japan Drummer Composes Theme for New Buddha Film, Launches SiriusXM Show

Kevin Scanlon​ On May 28 Tezuka Osamu no Buddha: Akai Sabaku Yo! Utsukushiku, the long-anticipated big screen adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's manga Buddha, will be released in Japan. This is a big deal for a lot of reasons, primarily that Buddha is an acclaimed work (it even won Eisner Awards in ... More >>

Japan's Sake Brewers Want You To Drink Up

True Sake/Sven WiederholtA selection of premium sake from Tohoku at True Sake​Need a reason to feel good about drinking? Japanese sake makers could use your help. Hit hard by the twin natural disasters of earthquake and tsunami, what's really impacting these often small, family-run enterprise ... More >>