Back to Kyoto. I’d hoped to get this and another report from the city out late last week but things were a bit chaotic in Delhi. Among all the other mayhem, I also managed to screw up the site design and broke everything and had a panicked half day wondering whether I’d lost most of my images from the last 13 years. Thankfully, the folks at WordPress.com support got me back and running again without much hassle once I managed to get in touch with them. Anyway, here I am now with a report on the best meal we had in Kyoto in July, at Sanmikouan, a soba specialist. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Japanese Cuisine
Tori Shin (Kyoto, June 2025)
Here, finally, is my first report from Kyoto in the summer.
After a week in Tokyo, we took the shinkansen to Kyoto (where we barely managed to disembark before the train continued to Osaka: the missus and I had dozed off and the boys were lost in their devices and the train stops for just a couple of minutes). We were in Kyoto for just three days before heading to Seoul. Our eating out in the city had not been scoped out ahead of time quite as much as our meals in Tokyo had been. We’d eaten lunch on the train—having picked up excellent bentos at Tokyo station—and after a spot of touristing it was time to think of dinner. The younger boy had not been able to eat much at Hinai Stand the previous week and so he put in a request for yakitori. As our plans were to wander the Gion neighbourhood after dinner, I checked Tabelog to see what the yakitori options in the area were and hit upon Tori Shin (or Torishin). After a bit of absurdist comedy on arrival, we had a nice dinner there. Continue reading
Oreno Ramen, Insadong (Seoul, July 2025)
My last meal report from our brief trip to Seoul in July was of dinner at a place we’d eaten at on our previous, longer visit in February/March of 2024: Gwanghwamun Gukbap. This report too features a return, but not to a place I had eaten at in 2024. Towards the end of that trip, after an afternoon’s wandering in one part of Seoul or the other, I had abandoned the family and headed off to Noryangjin Market to take a few of my students whose birthdays had fallen during our Seoul sojourn out to dinner at a seafood restaurant there. The missus and the boys meanwhile, accidentally emerged from Entrance 1 of the Anguk subway station near where we were staying in Insadong, turned into an alley in search of dinner and randomly walked past and then into a ramen restaurant. There they ate what they—particularly our younger boy—described to me as the best ramen they’d ever had. However, they couldn’t remember the name of the place—and since the last days of the program we were on were incredibly hectic, I never chased it down. But when we made our plan to return to Seoul this summer, the younger boy had it high on his wishlist; partly because he wanted me to try it as well, but mostly because he wanted to go back in his own right. So, we took Line 2 to Anguk and emerged from Entrance 1 and without too much trouble found the place again: Oreno Ramen. We were all curious to see what we would make of it after eating ramen in Tokyo just a few days previous. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Tenka Ramen (Minneapolis)
We ate in Minneapolis’ Lyn-Lake neighbourhood a few weeks ago—see my report on dim sum lunch at Jade Dynasty—and were back there again this past weekend. This time we were eating Japanese, not Chinese food, not dim sum but ramen. Tenka Ramen is located just a few doors down from Lake St.’s intersection with Hennepin, not very many blocks away from Jade Dynasty. I’m not sure when they opened; they only flashed on my radar when someone recommended them in a comment elsewhere on the blog. Having recently begun to check out the Twin Cities’ ramen scene in earnest—see my reviews of meals at Ramen Kazama in Minneapolis and at Tori in St. Paul—I’d made a note to check them out at some point. That point turned out to be for Mother’s Day lunch. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Tori (St. Paul, MN)
Another month, another review of a ramen specialist in the Twin Cities. Though our lunch at Ramen Kazama in Minneapolis last month didn’t blow us away, it did make us interested to check the state of ramen offerings more generally in the Twin Cities metro. Here, accordingly, is a report on St. Paul’s premier ramen outlet: Tori. They first opened as Tori Ramen in 2016 on Victoria St. in St. Paul and later opened another location in Northeast Minneapolis. The “Ramen” was dropped from the name at some point when the menu expanded to include more cooked items. Both of those locations are now closed and the only remaining location is the one opened in early 2020 in a restored train car on West 7th St. in St. Paul. This location too is only called Tori, even though they currently only serve ramen. We descended on them for a quick lunch this weekend ahead of some grocery shopping at Dragon Star. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Ramen Kazama (Minneapolis)
It’s been almost two years since my last review of a ramen-centered meal in the Twin Cities metro (well, if you exclude my report on El Sazon Tacos & More, which included a bowl of their birria ramen). That last ramen report was from Itton Ramen in Bloomington. We were not terribly impressed. I noted in that review that there is better ramen available in the Twin Cities but it has taken me almost two years to get around to writing some of it up. This is partly because it’s been a busy two years with a lot of time spent outside Minnesota; but frankly, it’s mostly because a good chunk of that time spent outside Minnesota has been in places with far better ramen and so eating ramen here has not felt like a huge priority. When looking for noodle soup here we’re more likely to look in a Southeast Asian direction. That said, Ramen Kazama in Minneapolis is a pretty decent option. I’ve eaten stray bowls of ramen there over the years while running errands in the area; here, finally, is a report on a larger meal with the family. Continue reading
Sushi Chitose (Redondo Beach, CA, June 2024)
I keep saying that I plan to post my write-up of our dinner at Tenant in Minneapolis at the start of June and also my remaining reports from Seoul in February and March—to say nothing of the last report from New York in May; but here again, instead, is another report from our current trip to California (which will end soon). There’s a whole bunch of these reports as well: after a week in Southern California, we drove north for another week and are now back in Seal Beach for a few days before returning to Minnesota and we’ve been eating out a lot everywhere in the state. I’d rather make a small dent in the pile of reports from these meals before getting back home and finishing up with that older backlog at leisure. Here, therefore, is another report from Los Angeles’ County’s South Bay, and it features sushi. Continue reading
Tomizo Ramen (Gardena, CA, June 2024)
As I’ve said on numerous occasions before, my mother-in-law’s move from Koreatown to Seal Beach a few years ago has been a paradigm-shifting experience for us—one that is still ongoing. My first 10 years in the US were lived in Los Angeles—first by USC, then in West LA, then in Santa Monica, then West LA again, and finally in that stretch of Olympic Blvd. between Robertson and La Cienega that doesn’t really have a name (or at least not one I have ever known). And when the missus—raised in Los Angeles proper—and I returned to LA on our annual visits after we first left in 2003, it was to her mother’s house in Koreatown we came and which was our base. My general experience of Los Angeles County until a few years ago was thus largely contained in the polygon formed by the 10, 405 and 101 freeways (with a major exception made for the San Gabriel Valley). It’s not that I never ventured out of that sprawling zone but that was my Los Angeles, my Southern California, and also to a large extent, the missus’ as well. Continue reading
Sushi at Momokawa (New York, October 2023)
Due to all my time being sucked up by the last bits of planning for the off-campus program I’m about to leave on in another few weeks, I’ve fallen further behind with my backlog of restaurant reports from our travels earlier this year. I still have a few reports from Ireland to come. I’d hoped to get at least one of those out this week but didn’t get around to it—the remaining reports are all quite image-heavy. And so here instead is another of the meal reports from the quick trip the missus and I made to New York in mid-October. I’ve already posted a report on our first lunch on that trip, which featured sushi at Gouie, in the Market Line at Essex Market. That was, on the whole, a decent meal, we thought. We ate sushi again for lunch the next day, this time up on the Upper East Side before a visit to the Met to take in the Manet/Degas exhibit, among other things. I’d asked around for recommendations and Momokawa seemed like a good bet. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Sushi at Gouie (New York, October 2023)
Here is the first of a few reports from New York City. The missus and I were there for a whirlwind trip a couple of weekends ago. She is on sabbatical, it was my midterm break and with kind friends willing to supervise the boys in our absence, it was a rare opportunity for the two of us to get away together. We had a packed couple of days, hanging out with friends, visiting museums and, yes, eating. It’s only the eating that I am going to document here. First up, is our first lunch, which featured sushi. Living as we do in the sushi wasteland that is Minnesota, we always look forward to eating sushi when visiting cities with better sushi scenes. That’s not to say we were looking to spend huge amounts of money eating a bromakase meal somewhere. A casual lunch spot with good fish served in the form of lunch special combos was what we were after. Looking around for spots in the general vicinity of where we were going to be that morning and afternoon, I hit upon Gouie at the Market Line, the basement food hall at Essex Market. I made what turned out to be an entirely redundant reservation and we met a friend for lunch there right as they opened. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Izakaya Hachi (Costa Mesa, Ca, December 2022)
Here is my penultimate restaurant report from our trip to Southern California in December. It was not our penultimate meal—that, unfortunately, was our less-than-great sushi meal at Koi—but it was one of our better meals, even if it took us deeper into Orange County, to Costa Mesa. (I’m still in denial that on our trips to L.A we are now based in Orange County.) Izakaya Hachi does have a Torrance location as well but the Costa Mesa branch is an easier drive from Seal Beach on a week night. It was a rainy week night, as it happens and so we were in the mood for some good izakaya food when we arrived. Luckily, Hachi did not disappoint. Continue reading
Itton Ramen (Bloomington, MN)
I recently got a tip from a reader about a new’ish ramen place in Bloomington. Ramen is big in our family and so we were glad of the news. While there is good ramen to be had in Minneapolis and St. Paul, it’s would be very nice to have some a bit closer to us. And so on Saturday we showed up at Itton Ramen with a couple of the friends we often eat out with. As I also like to support small restaurants, I would love to tell you that we found it to be an unsung gem. But, alas, that was not our experience. While the meal, on the whole, was not bad per se, it was more than a little underwhelming on most counts. Herewith, the details. Continue reading
Koi (Seal Beach, CA, December 2022)
Only a few more reports to go from our Southern California trip in December. We ate sushi at Nozomi in Torrance the day after we arrived and we ate sushi at Koi in Seal Beach two days before we left. One meal was a little more expensive than the other and one meal was not as good as the other, by some distance. Alas, the more expensive meal was the less good meal and that meal was this dinner at Koi. It was not bad per se—and, again, it was far better than anything available in Minnesota—but we were left wishing we’d just gone back to Nozomi for one more meal. Continue reading
Sushi Nozomi III (Torrance, Ca, December 2022)
Lunch at Sushi Nozomi was supposed to be our first meal in Los Angeles this December, to be eaten on our way from LAX to Seal Beach. But Sun Country screwed us over and we ended up eating dim sum instead at the new Torrance outpost of Lunasia (a meal that was good but not as good as I’d expected it might be). Nozomi is an altogether more reliable prospect though and I am pleased to report that our eventual meal there—lunch the next day—was just as good as we’d hoped it would be. The price, however, was not what we’d hoped/expected it would be—more on this below. But first let’s get to the good stuff. Continue reading
Josui Ramen (Torrance, CA, December 2022)
Back to Southern California, back to the South Bay, back to ramen. As I’ve noted before, when my mother-in-law moved from Koreatown to Seal Beach, we lost easy access to the best Korean food in the United States but gained easier access to what is probably the most extensive Japanese restaurant scene in the US in Torrance, Gardena and environs. Japanese cuisine is probably our family’s easiest call when eating out all together: whether it’s sushi, ramen, or izakaya food, the boys are always into it and it’s easy to find things that everyone enjoys. Consequently, now that we are 20 minutes from Torrance and Gardena, we eat Japanese food a lot on our visits to Southern California. Indeed, on this trip it was the cuisine we ate out most. This visit to Josui Ramen in Torrance was not the first of those outings but it’s the one I’m reporting on first. Continue reading
A Farewell to Kiriko (Los Angeles, June 2022)
My penultimate meal report from our Los Angeles trip in June is of what was probably my favourite meal of the trip, and definitely the most melancholy. Favourite because, well, sushi and particularly the lunch sushi omakase at Kiriko has always been excellent (see here and here). Melancholy because a few minutes after finishing and pledging to once again start eating regularly at Kiriko on our Los Angeles trips we discovered that they were only two weeks away from closing for good. We kicked ourselves for our years of neglect—though I should add they did not close due to lack of business; rather, due to exhaustion borne out of the stresses of the pandemic. Well, as sad as we are to see Kiriko go and to know we won’t be able to eat there again, it was a wonderful last meal. That’s something. Continue reading
Hakata Ikkousha Ramen (Los Angeles, June 2022)
Here is a quick report on a quick meal on our Los Angeles trip in June. I’ve noted before that my mother-in-law’s move to Seal Beach a few years ago has meant a major adjustment to our Los Angeles life. We are no longer in the heart of Koreatown, no longer a short hop to Thai Town—and quite a bit further away from the San Gabriel Valley. There are, of course, compensations. These include proximity to the beautiful and numerous beaches of the South Bay; and from a food standpoint, we are now much closer to Artesia for Indian food and, above all, much closer to Torrance and Gardena for Japanese food. As a result, our Japanese food intake has risen sharply on recent trips. On our previous trip we enjoyed lunch at Jidaiya Ramen in Gardena; here now is an account of another ramen meal just a little further away on Western Ave. in Torrance. Continue reading