NakedSushi

I have no idea how this idea formed in my mind, but a few months ago, I decided that I had to have a buckwheat pillow.  After some internet research, I was even more convinced that I needed one.  My usual preference for a pillow is something firm, but not too high, and a buckwheat hull-stuffed pillow sounded right up my alley.

I ordered a twin-sized pillow from beans72.com which I found through Amazon. Strangely enough, their price on Amazon including free shipping was more than their price on the site with non-free shipping, which is why I ended up ordering directly from their site.

When the pillow finally came, I understood why the shipping was so much. Buckwheat hulls are heavy. As many reviewers noted, the pillow came over-stuffed, so I had to empty about 1/3 of the buckwheat out of it. These, I keep in a ziplock for refilling the pillow later, when the buckwheat in the pillow has been polished down.

My first couple of nights on the pillow weren’t as restful as I had expected. This is the first pillow I’ve come across with a learning curve. First, there’s the noise. It’s pretty crunchy when I move my head around it. I think it’s only loud to me because my head is directly on it, but luckily it doesn’t seem to bother Will.

Then there’s the firmness. I’m all for a firm pillow, but this pillow is really firm. Like plopping your face on a mound of sand firm.  I’ve found that if I smush the part of the pillow where my head usually rests down before I actually put my head there, it makes a perfect cavity for where my head would be, while still giving me neck support. It’s awesome. I can move around as much as I want on the pillow and it still seems to hold its shape fairly well.

The pillow also works well for when I want to sleep on my side. It’s hard to explain, but the way the pillow supports the side of my face and my shoulder is really comfortable.

I was afraid that the pillow would be all hype because all the raving reviews I’ve read of buckwheat on The Internets, but here I am, adding to the hype. It really is a great pillow for people who like firmer material. It’s pricier than all the other pillows I’ve owned, but it’s certainly cheaper than some $100 ergonomic foam pillow.

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Maybe I’m burned out on dystopian fiction, but I wasn’t blown away by this book. Each short chapter reads like a vignette with a lot going in it to set the atmosphere and mood, but not much actually happens. It’s not that The Unit is character driven, or even plot driven. It just sort of follows the main character for a short time in her life.

I think the shortcoming for me was that I couldn’t relate to the main character or any of the supporting characters. I felt like I was just watching them through a security camera, with no emotional attachment at all. The fact that the characters just seem to go about their lives not questioning anything that happens to them makes me not care about what actually happens to them.

What The Unit does well is bring up the idea of humane experimentation on people. From what I read from it, the test subjects don’t have it that badly, and it certainly seems like a lot of them freely volunteer for it. This’ll probably never fly in the real world, but in the world of the Unit, it works.

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When I visited Japan, I was expecting fantastic ramen, fresh off the boat sushi, crazy fashions, and crowded walks through Shinjuku. The last thing I was expecting was to be drinking the best drip coffee I had ever had sitting at a tiny, four-person noodle bar, listening to Rastafarian music in a suburb of Tokyo.

Ital Soba is located within a short walk from the Higashi-Kitazawa stop at the Odakyu line. It takes a transfer from the convenient Tokyo JR line, but trust, me, it’s worth it. Because of my initial confusion with maps in Japan (they’re oriented relative to what direction you’re looking in, not north/south/east/west like I was used to) I had to step into a veteranarian’s office to ask directions. A nice man who was waiting accompanied me out and actually walked me to the location. Talk about friendly, helpful locals!

The restaurant itself is tiny and hard to spot if you don’t notice the small Bob Marley card taped to one wall. Owner Koichi Nakajima was just setting up shop, so Will and I thanked the man who walked us there and entered. The interior contained a small bar overlooking the house-sized kitchen and three or four two-seater tables.

With my broken Japanese, we managed to order soba in cold broth for Will and a zaru soba for me. Everything is made to order there, so we got to watch the master at work. There was no rushing this soba. Nakajima first whet our appetites with a plate full of vegetables which were beautiful in their simplicity. Grilled slices of lotus root, sliced burdock root, a seaweed salad, some macerated adzuki beans, the appetizer set atmosphere of the noodles to come.

When the soba came, we were instructed to pick a dipping cup from a drying rack sitting on a stool in the corner. The cups came in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Being able to personally choose one added to the comfortable, home-like atmosphere of the restaurant.

As expected, the soba was cooked perfectly, meticulously, and still retained a nice chew. The dipping sauce, enhanced by the grated radish and freshly grated wasabi, coated each strand of noodle sufficiently without being too salty. Zaru-soba is a simple dish, but it’s exactly that simplicity that shows how much care and attention Nakajima puts into preparing everything that exits the kitchen.

The soba in cold broth was also prepared well, with tissue paper-thin pieces of seaweed lending a welcome umami taste to the broth. Since everything on the menu is vegan, Will slurped up the bowl with confidence that there was on hidden flake of bonito anywhere.

After my bowl of soba, I sat back with a satisfied expression on my face and Nakajima timidly asked if I’d like to try some of his coffee, made from Cuban beans. Coffee out of soba sounded like a strange combination, but if he could make a coffee as artfully as he did a bowl of noodles, count me in. He asked me if I wanted something sour, or had more bitter in it and I chose bitter. It wasn’t until I took a sip of the coffee that I realized I misheard him and he meant ‘butter.’

Like the noodles, great care was put into preparing the coffee. Nakajima delicately held the top of the chemex filter over a mug as he slowly poured a steady stream of boiling water onto the grounds. It took a few minutes, but the brew that I sipped blew my socks off. It had a strong, rich aroma and tasted incredibly smooth, without any hint of astringency or acridness. I always complain that brewed coffee never tasted as good as it smelled, but I think this came damn close.

Even though it was a difficult to find, a bowl of noodles (or two in Will’s case), a fantastic cup of coffee, and getting to watch a master at work, is definitely worth visiting Ital Soba in my books.

Ital Soba (cash only)
4-32-26 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku;
(03) 3485-7785
open for lunch and dinner (closed Tues. and the 3rd Mon. of the month)

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After the end of Catching Fire, I, like most readers, said, "Nooooooo" because it would be months before Mockingjay would be released. Luckily, the months-long wait for the final book of the trilogy is definitely worth it. The ending was satisfying and it’s interesting to see how each character grew through the books.

My only complaint is that some of Katniss’s traits seemed too idealized, like she wasn’t a real, human person. An example of that is her sense of right and wrong. It never falters. Are there really people who are that good?

The third book was an emotional rollercoaster and a ride that I’d happily take again.


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I’m still going through my Asia trip photos from May. At least now, I’ve made it to the Japan pictures.

On my first night in Japan, after finding our hotel, which just so happened to be less than a two-minute walk from Shin-okubo station, I was famished. It was late enough that I didn’t want to take the JR anywhere, so I wandered around the busy street looking for something to eat. Luckily, just across the street was a ubiquitous ramen-shop and I finally experienced first hand just how in the future Japan was.

Right by the door is a vending machine, but instead of snacks or drinks in a display case, there were pictures of different types of ramen.  Not knowing how to read Japanese, I just went off the picture. Most of the bowls were in the $7-10 price range, which is about what I’d pay in LA for ramen. After putting my coins in and pressing a button, a ticket was released from the machine, which I was instructed to give to the chef behind the counter.

Because it was so late at night, I was only part of the handful of people sitting around the ramen counter.  It felt silly to hand my meal ticket over to the cook instead of just telling him what I wanted, but I assume this makes it easier when the restaurant’s really busy.

In no time, a bowl of ramen was set in front of me in all its glory.  My first meal in Japan and it was one of my favorite ways of starch delivery: noodle soup.

The broth was rich and porky, the noodles were chewy but not underdone, and the various vegetables and wood-ear mushroom were seasoned perfectly.  One spoonful from the bowl made me wonder, maybe what they say about Japan and ramen was true: you can wander into any random ramen-ya and get a great bowl of ramen.

Even though I was starving, the bowl was massive and I was stuffed by the time I made it halfway through the noodles. To my astonishment, another customer, a slender, young Japanese man asked for a second bowl of noodles to dump into his bowl!  I bow down to you, ramen noodle eating master.

The weather was warm and the rats were hot which meant one thing: bath time!  They’re still deathly afraid of baths, but I don’t know why considering how well they know how to swim instinctively.

A few months ago, Shojin, a vegan restaurant in Little Tokyo introduced vegan ramen on their menu.  Our first attempt at trying this rare bowl of soup was foiled when we unknowingly arrived during their sushi night. Apparently, no ramen was to be had on sushi night.

A week later, we made sure it wasn’t sushi night and tried again.  I tempered my expectations a little, telling myself that there’s just no way a non-meat version of ramen could compare to the broth at Daikokuya, a stone’s throw away, so I shouldn’t even think about the comparison.  I would think about vegan ramen as a completely different species as regular ramen.

I ordered the sesame ramen, which from the description on their menu, made me think it was Shojin’s attempt at a milky, rich broth.  Unfortunately, the richness came from soymilk and tahini. The broth just didn’t have the same mouthfeel as a slow-simmered pork broth, but that wasn’t the soup’s only short-coming.  That would be reserved for the overwhelming flavor of tahini.  I had expected a slight nutty taste like that of sesame oil, but the broth tasted just like watered down tahini with a bit of bitterness.

Will ordered a more traditional ramen, which I believe was the spicy miso ramen.  It was a Japanese level of spicy (not spicy at all) but the broth was a great deal better than mine.  The miso lent the broth the much-needed umami flavor. The broth wasn’t too shabby for a vegan ramen broth.

Although Shojin didn’t make the ramen noodles from scratch, I was glad that they cooked them well. The noodles were chewy, plentiful, and managed not to get too soggy.  The vegetables (mainly kale) were a great addition too.  What was blatantly missing from our bowl though, were the pickled slices of bamboo which often comes with ramen.  I don’t think there was anything un-vegan about pickled bamboo. I was sorry to see it missing. Our bowls also came with a few slices of seitan ‘cha-siu’ which I could have done without.  The texture was good, but the slices weren’t seasoned well at all.

Shojin’s ramen isn’t going to be luring any omnivores through its doors, but considering they’re the only place I know of that serves actual vegan ramen, it’s worth going for the vegetable-inclined.

Shojin
333 South Alameda Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013-1735
(213) 617-0305