NIKKEI VIEW: The Asian American Blog

Gil Asakawa’s Japanese American perspective on pop culture, media and politics

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Entries Tagged as 'Food & Dining'

Sushi Poppers: is sushi in a tube progress?

May 27th, 2010 · 4 Comments

Wow. As if buying crappy-tasting, unauthentic “sushi” at your local supermarket or Costco wasn’t enough, they’ve found a way to completely commodify sushi — sushi rolls, at least — as a mass-produced pre-packaged snack food. Sushi Poppers are individually wrapped sushi rolls on a stick that you eat like… a Popsicle, those quiescently frozen confections. [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · japan & asia · pop culture

In praise of San Jose’s Japantown — the JA Mayberry

November 8th, 2009 · 6 Comments

Unlike the many Chinatowns that serve as ethnic cultural enclaves in many American cities from coast to coast, and the increasing numbers of districts variously called “Koreatowns” and “Little Saigons,” you won’t find many Nihonmachi, or Japantowns. There are lots of reasons for this, but the main one is probably the Japanese American community’s need [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · japan & asia · places

Oodles of noodles: Ramen has quietly become hip in Colorado

September 30th, 2009 · 6 Comments

Erin and I have always been wistfully jealous of our friends in Los Angeles and San Francisco, for lots of reasons but not least the fact that they can eat killer ramen any night of the week. We have our fave ramen-yas in both San Francisco’s Japantown and LA’s Little Tokyo (“ya” means “shop”). There’s [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · japan & asia

Pronunciation of Asian food: I’m guilty, guilty guilty of mangling

September 4th, 2009 · 7 Comments

Ouch. I stand humbled… and embarrassed. I’ve changed my views on my long-held need to have Japanese words (especially food) pronounced correctly. I was such a purist about it that in the past I’ve even offered a pronunciation guide for often-mangled Japanese words. But tonight, I realized that despite Erin and my interest in and [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american

Why it’s important for me to be part of AAJA and in the company of Asian American journalists

August 26th, 2009 · No Comments

Tak Toyoshima, creator of “Secret Asian Man,” and Jeff Yang, one of the editors of the recently-published book “Secret Identities,” sign copies at the 2009 AAJA Convention in Boston. “Where are you from?” “So, where are YOU from?” “Hi, where’re you from?” I was in Boston a couple of weeks ago, at a convention where [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · media · places

Pho-Yo serves noodles and dessert in one stop

August 9th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Pho has evolved over the years, from its invention in 1920s Hanoi to its popularity in the U.S. today. When the soup, with rice noodles and meats served in a hearty broth, first arrived in the stateside, the restaurants catered to mostly Vietnamese diners, like an exclusive club. As non-Vietnamese discovered pho, the restaurants became [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american

Velly bad old TV commercial for Jerr-O

August 8th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Our friend JozJozJoz came across this TV commercial on YouTube and posted it on the excellent team blog, 8 Asians, with a poll asking what aspect of the commercial was most racist. For me, it might be the fact that the person who posted it to YouTube titled it “Borderline Racist 1960′s Jell-O Ad” and [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · media · pop culture

Boa mashes Asian, Mexican cuisine in cross-cultural menu

July 7th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Since the fastest-growing population in the United States is mixed-race and we live in an increasingly global and multicultural world, it makes perfect sense that a restaurant like Boa on West 32nd would open, and serve a mashup of Mexican and various Asian cuisines. Erin and I got to sample some of Boa’s cooking recently, [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · places

Author-activist Phoebe Eng is next up on visualizAsian.com’s AAPI Empowerment series

June 10th, 2009 · No Comments

Erin Yoshimura and I started visualizAsian.com to interview Asian American Pacific Islander leaders and tell their stories to empower other AAPIs to follow in their footsteps. So far, it’s been an absolute blast. The website launched with a conversation with former Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta on May 21, and this week we spoke with [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · baby boomers · media · places · pop culture

Coke with green tea? In Japan? Say it ain’t so!

June 6th, 2009 · 3 Comments

Consumer culture in Japan is where you’ll see the collision of Asian and American tastes. More than in the U.S., Japan is where East mashes West. You can get shrimp Filet-o-Fish sandwiches at McDonald’s, or pizza with seaweed or squid, and spaghetti with salty plum sauce. So I supposes I shouldn’t be dismayed at the [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · japan & asia · pop culture

A pronunciation guide for Japanese words including “panko,” “udon” “sake” and “karaoke”

April 10th, 2009 · 33 Comments

While we’re on the topic of pronunciation, I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, since Wendy’s began airing TV commercials for their new Premium Fish Fillet Sandwich. The commercials seem to have stopped, but the sandwich is still available at select locations across the country. The commercial got Erin, our son Jared and [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · japan & asia · pop culture

Cooking and culture: Korean soon doo bu, kimchee and the magic of YouTube

April 8th, 2009 · No Comments

Erin and I made soon doo bu jjigae, a Korean stew for the first time the other day, and had a blast cooking it up. Food is a foundation of culture, so we love enjoying different cuisines from around the world. People who follow our Twitter tweets that are marked “#twEATs” which are copied to [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american

Okole Maluna brings Hawai’i to Colorado

March 1st, 2009 · 7 Comments

We drove an hour north from our house last night, to dine in Hawai’i. Well, not exactly Hawai’i, but an outpost of Hawai’i, in the most unlikely place: On a quiet Main Street corner in Windsor, a typical small, old-fashioned mid-western town on the plains of northern Colorado. Definitely not a tropical paradise, although inside [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · places

Update on ramen at Bento Zanmai in Boulder

January 10th, 2009 · 2 Comments

We returned to Bento Zanmai today and got some good news: the shop, which operates out of a tiny food court on The Hill in Boulder, just across the University of Colorado campus at 13th and College, has extended its hours. The joint used to close up at 6 on weekdays and 3 on Saturdays. [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american

Bento Zanmai in Boulder hits the ramen spot

December 15th, 2008 · 2 Comments

OK, I can stop whining. I’ve been on a ramen hunt for a couple of months. But I’ve finally sated my jones, with a trip top Bento Zanmai on the Hill in Boulder. Unlike Los Angeles, where a row of ramen shops take up most of a block along Little Tokyo, and San Francisco’s Japantown, [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · places

Peking-Tokyo Restaurant, a Chinese-Vietnamese success story

December 14th, 2008 · No Comments

Erin and I had dinner tonight at a restaurant we hadn’t visited in a couple of years — it’s been too long. Peking-Tokyo Restaurant is located in the southern part of the suburb of Lakewood, across town from where we live. Back a decade ago, when we both worked a few blocks from Peking-Tokyo Express, [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american

A Taste of Tokyo on Colfax Ave.: Taki’s Restaurant

December 11th, 2008 · No Comments

I’m having leftovers for lunch as I type. Really good leftovers: ramen from Taki’s Restaurant, an inventive, unique and funky dive of a Japanese joint on E. Colfax Avenue and Pennsylvania in downtown Denver’s Capitol Hill district. It a block from the state Capitol, and three blocks from my office. Ramen is relatively new to [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · japan & asia · places

Part-Asian American Super Cr3w wins ‘Best Dance Crew’ title

August 22nd, 2008 · No Comments

Super Cr3w, the Las Vegas-based group of b-boys that includes Asian Americans, has won the top honors for the second season of producer Randy Jackson wildly popular show, “America’s Best Dance Crew,” on MTV. Congrats to the six-man group. We took a break from incessant Olympics viewing to watch the live MTV season finale program [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · asian american · music · pop culture

Garrett’s Popcorn, a Chicago treat now available at O’Hare

August 1st, 2008 · No Comments

A Chicago institution since 1949, Garrett Popcorn Shops make incredibly tasty cheese popcorn and incredibly crunchy-sweet caramel corn. And, they sell the two flavors as a “Mix” (the first mashup??) that’s a bagful of heaven. OK, somewhat expensive heaven, but hey, did you think the pearly gates would come cheap?

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Tags: Food & Dining · places

Lunching at the Bagel Restaurant & Deli, Skokie Il

July 22nd, 2008 · No Comments

The Bagel is a boisterous, old-fashioned kosher deli in the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, where Erin and I eat every time we visit Chicago. I always order an egg cream, a soda fountain fave from New York that I’ve never been able to order in Denver. Erin’s favorite is the Mish Mash, a gigantic [...]

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Tags: Food & Dining · places