By Yuji Matsumoto1. Cold or HotMany people think that high quality sake should be enjoyed chilled, but that is wrong. Compared to not needing to worry about the temperature for the better quality sakes, it is better to really chill the poor balanced sakes on the contrary. For one guideline, if it is...

By Kosuke KujiTokyo Station that is located in Tokyo which is also the center of Japan.Tokyo Station has been newly born and changed with a large scale renovation construction in recent years and Japanese sake is being offered at different locations so there are more opportunities to try Japanese sa...

By Aya Ota “Takumi Taco”, a fast food eatery in New York which serves unified dishes of Japanese and Mexican, the two trendiest cuisines, has become the talk of the town. The tacos in which various Japanese ingredients are used as an accent are getting a lot of attention from New Yorkers who are fle...

By Keiko FukudaThe Pacific Square is a shopping mall in Gardena which is a city where many Japanese and Japanese Americans reside. After the recent change of the Japanese grocery store there, which has been reborn as “Tokyo Central & Main”, a small pork buns shop that used to be located at a corner ...

By Aya OtaThe “Zuma” group has opened 10 contemporary Japanese restaurants all over the world in the cities such as Hong Kong, Istanbul, Dhaka, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, and Rome since they opened the first location in London in 2002. In the United States, following the first location in Miami in 2...

By Elli SekineIn the May, an anticipated and well talked-about true authentic Japanese restaurant called “Hashiri” opened in downtown San Francisco. Mr. Ikuo Hayashi, the CEO of an IT enterprise, “Digital Garage, Inc.”, and also the owner of “Hashiri” of Daikanyama, Tokyo, had an idea of having a fi...

By Keiko FukudaLately, more and more restaurants are adopting a popular concept called “Farm to Table”. As it says literally, “Farm to Table” is a method of cooking knowing exactly which farms the ingredients are from. “necco”, a Japanese restaurant near Westwood is one of those restaurants which us...

2016 International Wine Challenge Sake JudgingBy Yuji MatsumotoI have been a judge of IWC Sake division for 5 years and since 2011, I have been serving this organization as a Panel Chairman. This year was our 10th anniversary since we added sake in the International Wine Challenge so the venue took ...

The 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake Part 3By Kosuke KujiI received a phone call from Master Sake Brewer Morikawa in "Kouro" of Kumamoto prefecture a few days...

The world presented by the top non-Japanese sushi chef in the U.S.By Elli SekineI found out about the owner/chef Tim Archuleta through a Japanese TV program. He was appearing on a program about gourmet foods I accidentally watched when I was visiting Japan. The program was featuring non-Japanese sus...