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.

Ayako and camera

Ayako Fujitani and her new old camera. It shoots 35mm and although film is a dying breed, this is a cool rangefinder. I think it's called a bosley, but I'm no longer sure. Who's going to preserve the film cameras as digital everything takes over? When will film just be cancelled? It's all in the hands of the fans. Meanwhile, we went through Ueno area, and ate some yakitori.

That's spanish mackerel pate!

It looks like I have a blonde mullet in this frame. That's what it would look like with a neckwarmer. If I was Canadian, maybe. Not good. Now flip it to yourself. Imagine you with a blonde mullet. No! Don't rock that. I wonder if the woman sitting behind me would have ever thought her hair would be used so well in the background of a photo.

Yakitori is always good. No... amazing.

Hand it over! This is what a public bath employee used to do way back in the day. If you want to take a bath, this guy lords over the entrance and peeps at the ladies changing.

The flowers are almost gone from the trees.

This is in Ueno park. It's cool how there's tons of vendors dealing up Japanese snacks.

Saigo Takemori in Ueno. I haven't been to this park in perhaps more than 15 years. I'll guess that's a shiba inu.

This isn't good.

This is good. It's awesome how they sell great slices of fruit on the street. Too bad they have to use chopsticks, but the fruit was good. Thankfully, the chopsticks absorb water well, and the fruit sticks! Since fruit is pricey in Japan, you sort of don't get to eat much of it, so when you do it's refreshing.

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.

Nakamura x3 at Columbia College - Mirai sushi

The Nakamura Trio. I'm Nakamura 1, Tad, 2, and Goh 3. This sounded like a joke, three guys who happen to have the same last name on a panel together, but guess what? It worked. We're spread across different disciplines in a way that's perfectly apart, yet similar in worlds that we actually mesh. We can answer the same questions in different ways, with our own experiences. I realize that Goh is all about being real and holding not too much back. I try and do the same. Tad meanwhile has a strong ethnocentric view without being boring - much like his films.

What an interesting poster! I wanted one, and they gave me one, then it disappeared. Hope I can find one, one day. Anyone at Columbia peel one off the wall for me?

About 50 or so came out. ASO Asian Student Organization came out in numbers.

These dudes make cool zines in Chicago. Zines are the heartbeat of publishing. I know there's more photos of us with the folks who came through!

Ryan Yokota - The World is Yours! He's in Chicago now. It's been ages since I've seen him.

I was kidding around saying Tad is the Asian Tupac. I dunno why that keeps popping into my head. Tad played varsity safety for Culver City high school and was the team captain!

We're now at Mirai after the talk. It's one of the better spots in Chicago for Sushi.

It's Alice's birthday! She's a supporter and friend of the film festival.

Fish and Chips + Sawtelle times.

Fried and fried. Fish and Chips gr/eats. Beer battered cod, so it's actually light and crisp. The malt vinegar is a nice touch, and I ate this entirely with my hands. We've been running this special lately and it's been quite fun to have. I can't eat this one too often, but it's good and filling.

Anne Matsushima and Alex Chiu doing the gr/eats. They do a bunch of indie projects, zines, art, and are making a collective of artist on the westside of LA. Motivated! They also dig doughnuts.

It's that season. Cherry Blossoms on Sawtelle. It's awesome how pink they are. I'd get out to the street this weekend to check on them.

A ton of images of Patchwork show at gr2. Tons of great art by great folks.