japanese
TagAnatomy of Ramen: Ramen Noodles from Scratch
Cooking for another person is an act of love. It requires an amount of time and effort that I’m completely unwilling to put in if I were cooking for just myself. It’s not that I don’t personally deserve an amazing home cooked meal all the time, it’s just that I’m perfectly okay with eating all of my kitchen failures: the burnt pork, the soggy sweet potato fries, the unsettlingly chewy chicken.
Cooking for someone else means you’re willing to give up a sliver of your soul. I…Continue Reading
Japanese Kit Kat + Giveaway!
On my trip to Japan, I made it a point to collect every flavor of Kit Kat I found along the way. I went on an epic vacation scavenger hunt for these things, walking into supermarkets, convenience stores and souvenir shops stuffing my purse with chocolates that ended up melting into green tea and cheesecake-flavored goop.
There have been over 200 absurd-sounding flavors of Kit Kat chocolates in Japan since 2007, each version representing the local flavors and palate of the …Continue Reading
Anatomy of Ramen: Soy Sauce Eggs (Shoyu Tamago)
After returning home from a pretty bankrupting trip to Japan, it was difficult to fathom not going back. It felt like someone I loved had gone away forever. It was the kind of vacation experience you talk to people about in an overly emotional way while their eyes glaze over in boredom. No one ever understands, but that’s okay.
In an insane effort to retain my memories from Japan, I scurried around Miami shopping at every Asian and Japanese market I could find to purchase t…Continue Reading
Drunken Dragon: Korean BBQ in South Beach
Each year, Miami is gifted with an improved highway system, another two thousand-floor condominium and sometimes even a statue of a Pegasus killing a dragon. Building these things seem to take a really long time in this city. Sometimes it takes so long that businesses in the line of fire are forced to shut down due to lack of foot-traffic (RIP Umami Burger.)
So when I heard that Drunken Dragon had opened up smack-dab in the middle of construction hell on Alton Road and 14th…Continue Reading
N by NAOE: Finding Love in a Bento Box
Just across the Brickell Key bridge and behind a guarded residential gate, lies a hidden, unmarked room full of Japanese treasures. If you arrive just before the six and nine-thirty seating times, you’ll spot a small woman peeking outside a black tinted door waiting to snatch disoriented patrons inside for their meal. Some people are here because they heard it was the best Japanese restaurant in town, others are here to try to recreate the Jiro Dreams of Sushi documentary the…Continue Reading
Andalumami Salad Recipe (Avocado, Tomato, Surimi and Miso)
When I traveled to Spain on my honeymoon, I went absolutely ape-shit on the concept of tapas the second I stepped foot in the country. Eating forty-five meals a day and mid-day naps were within the realm of what was socially acceptable, and I was prepared to integrate into the local culture ASAP.
I must’ve been on my tenth meal and ready for a siesta by the time I walked into this one tapas bar in Seville, a city in the Andalusian region that’s as rich in architecture as it…Continue Reading
Raw Fish and Me
It’s our second date. I’ve never been to a sushi restaurant but I’m not really thinking about what it’ll be like, or what I should order. A lifetime of eating at the same rotation of Cuban and Chinese restaurants makes me feel empowered to order rice and some variation of conservatively saucy chicken anywhere I go. Instead, I’m making sure my boobs look great in this shirt and cursing myself for missing a strip of hair on the back of my leg.
I.
After we arr…Continue Reading