The best BBQ marathon ever?

Backyard BBQs are usually about hot dog, hamburgers, and maybe chicken. That's what you do on the bare minimum. Sho from Yoshi's in San Francisco does things differently when food is involved. He goes all out. It's not an event to miss. Here's Sams hands making toro sushi. It's obviously amazing. Look at the pink color. Sushi was being made inside the house while a BBQ of amazing flavors happened outside.

Look at the rich orange color of this uni from Hokkaido. The label is below. The package it came in still had the shipping labels from Japan. Uni is usually a lighter orange, this one possessed a deep, rich color and tasted that way too.

The kitchen arena

The ikura was also a deeper orange than what you typically see.

Sam dealing with the ikura

Miles Nakamura and Daniel Wu. What kind of kicks are those?

Sho with the straw hat holding a bag of marinated tongue which was amazing.

Dan Automator on left, Sam the sushi man and friends

Intestines in two flavors and organic chicken.

a larger crew

Dan and Dan

The uni

Travelin' With Yoshitomo Nara

I was trying to help Yoshitomo Nara set up his computer with the system in the lecture room, McCormick 101. I had spoken the evening before without a hitch, and the system and his computer weren't talking to each other the next day. It took a while, but we got it going. I was hoping Nara would do the presentation in English, but he opted to go with a highly over qualified translator - the Head Chair of East Asian Studies. David Howell.

His katsu sweatshirt was too cool. Yabaton. They make their katsu with a miso sauce. It's in Nagoya.

This is more adjusting of the projection. I like how the light hits his face from the projection screen along with one of his paintings. It's a cool shot.

Nara points to the sleeping Tomio Koyama. After getting so excited by the Norman Rockwell painting in the Nassau Inn bar, he crashed out.

Which one did Nara draw?

The snow slowly melted away, and it actually wasn't that cold out.

This is dinner at a campus related place. Good food actually. The Too Cute! conference was coming to a close. The woman, Anne, who did a lot of the work to get the conference going is slightly pictured. I regretably didn't get a photo of myself with her. She's cool.

The group of photos is done until there's a food image. It was quite good.

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?

The Crepe Nazi of Sawtelle is closed

I didn't get to know the Crepe Nazi too well, but his shop on Sawtelle is tiny and recently, it closed down. He's a character, and known to be harsh, not care about customers, but for some reason, people loved the crepes. These are just some of the signs from his shop. Imagine the guy behind these signs.

Ok, I won't!

I guess that's me.

Now we cater!? Only if they bring these signs!

The last

Poor shrimp! Ahhhh. They were on their last legs anyway. I swear I do more than eat when I go to Japan, this is just what happens at the end of the day, after running around, meetings, and so on. There's this place in Nakameguro that's sort of a new seafood type of place. It's built to resemble a fish market, and I swear it would go up in flames in a minute if something went wrong. It's all raw wood and there's tons of it. This spot is close to the station and amazing. I went with the ladies from Dicokick jewelry.

Crab miso. Tasty with that quail egg.

That's a tuna collar. It's huge and might be the best part. Notice is cross over?

I'd like to see if anyone can make this pass in LA.

3 floors cavernous and cool.

This is the poo looking part of a sea snail. Look at the bling!

People in Japan can drink a lot! We were debating from where her outfit comes from.

Ping Pong Playas... There's a secret underground spot in Nakameguro. It's way off the street, and you have to know it's there to know about it. Even the locals don't know. The people who work there shred.

I've been hearing a bit about this place called Afuri. It's a ramen place in Ebisu which is a great food town. It's open until 4am, so it's obviously a dry

That's the simple kitchen. The cool thing is that they make great ramen and their clientele ranges from the dirty and drunk to the fashionable. They make shio (salt) ramen so it's easy for anyone to eat.

From Eel to Chinatown again

That's Nao below, he's been here and there on this blog. But he took me to a place that has perhaps the most celebrated eel dish ever. It's a small spot and they specialize in just eel. Nishimura... It's well known. It even comes in a lacquer box. It's amazing and not as sweet as what you'd get in the US, which makes it a lot more delicate and fresh. In the US, we get eel in a vacuum pack.

We're a temple close by

That's what the front looks like of Nishimura.

This is Kohei and he's got a car. We took a nice drive to Yokohama - Chukagai

We walked by Fukken Ro. The greatest street ever. It's name is to the point.

Then ate at a tiny Chinese place. I want to say tiny and dirty, but Chinatown in Japan is clean as can be.