Gastrolust

Last week, I stumbled into Dallas in the midst of seven flights in four days. After being in Bowling Green (OH) and Johnson City (TN), I was ready for finer dining. Remembering that Top Chef: Seattle (given the feeble coverage of our city, I call it Top Chef: Supposedly in Seattle) had three contestants from [...]

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Welcome to Okashii Okashi. This column will periodically look at Japanese snacks (okashi), typically sweet, that are strange and amusing (okashii). For the inaugural Okashii Okashi column, I turn to Meiji, the Japanese confection company which says “We make the world a little sweeter.” Walking through Viet Wah, I spotted little containers of Yan Yan [...]

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It’s been fun watching the evolution of Mutsuko Soma since the closing of Chez Shea left the chef shopping for new options. She had a (buckwheat) seed of an idea to start serving handmade soba, and saw success in a variety of pop-ups, including the ones I attended at Sushi Kappo Tamura and Miyabi Restaurant [...]

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Yesterday, Serious Eats posted my roundup of “10 Terrific Tofu Dishes in Seattle.” An excerpt: I probably wouldn’t have connected the words “tofu” and “terrific” twenty or thirty years ago. Before I’d been exposed to the wide array of Asian cuisine, tofu was merely a meat substitute that I considered bland and boring. Now I [...]

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At first glance, that platter of sushi that Hajime Sato serves you at Mashiko in West Seattle looks like any other. But take a closer look. And listen to the man as he explains what you’re eating. While you won’t find bluefin tuna or unagi (eel) here, you will find fish that’s a little different, [...]

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Southcenter’s certainly a far drive for Japanese food if you live in Seattle. But with Miyabi getting good reviews (and intrigued that Miyabi on 45th will soon open in Seattle, centered around Mutsuko Soma’s house-made soba dishes, possibly including–of interest to Sexy Feast–bukkake soba), I finally made the trip. The sushi bar was busy, and [...]

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As far as I know, Shabu Chic (behind Viet Wah in the International District) is a one-of-a-kind restaurant in Seattle, the only place doing shabu-shabu meals. Shabu-shabu is a variant of the hot pot dining you can find at a number of area Chinese restaurants, but instead of totally immersing the meat with other ingredients [...]

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Several months ago, I reported about former Chez Shea chef Mutsuko Soma and her desire to bring a soba restaurant to Seattle. She did a pop-up at Sushi Kappo Tamura, serving zaru-soba as part of a multi-course lunch to showcase her handmade buckwheat noodles. Soma’s pop-ups continue, with the latest at Miyabi Sushi in Tukwila. [...]

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A stroll through last weekend’s Dragon Fest in the Chinatown-International District gave me a first opportunity to try the Tokyo Dog food truck. Recall that last year, Gourmet Dog Japon’s takoyaki-like Kabuki dog taught us a lesson about dressed wieners. At Tokyo Dog, the common feature on the three Japanese dogs is the butter teriyaki [...]

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This week, Serious Eats posted my round-up of best ramen bowls in Seattle. An excerpt: Showa is a fun little izakaya with a funky little kitchen that serves up some surprisingly excellent ramen. The secret has something to do with blended pork fat that yields an aspic-like quality when cooled. (Chicken and clams also contribute [...]

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