Little Tokyo – JANM and Imagawayaki

Little Tokyo – JANM meeting today, we met up to talk about this cool show that’s coming up in the early summer that’s about Japanese American landscaping, which for me more or less means, an exhibition about the JA gardeners who’ve changed the way people look at yards in Southern California. What was I doing there? Suggesting things to hopefully make the show better. It was informative and hearing words from a humble “gardener,” to landscape professors to curators made this interesting.

Imagawayaki. It’s a little disc of red bean. The outside is like a pancake, but a bit tougher, inside is warm red bean. One of the coolest things about Little Tokyo is that they make this in the little walk through area among new and older businesses. It’s cool to see a person making it in the window. You walk in one step and get it fresh. Before she passed away, and while she knew she was ill, my grandmother went there. Imagawayaki are sort of heavy and big, and although her appetite wasn’t great then, I think she knew it was the last time she’d have one. She finished the entire piece.

I stopped by here to pick up some manju. You can easily pick it up at the local Japanese markets, but there’s a great feeling to get it from the company’s flagship store.