Vinita Jacinto told us to close our eyes and taste the sun, moon, stars and earth in the food she had lovingly prepared: saffron-kissed basmati rice and creamy lentils flavored with cumin and turmeric, topped with a dollop of pureed greens (including mustard, spinach, turnip and amaranth).

I had met the chef, who was born in Mumbai, grew up in Calcutta and identifies as Punjabi, when we both worked at the California Culinary Academy. For 7 years, she taught  sustainable, vegetarian, healthy cooking at CCA. I had worked there as an ASL interpreter.

Later I interviewed her for two articles: where to sample breakfasts from different cultures and how to eat with your hands for a sensuous, mindful meal.

This evening’s dinner, a springtime meal to celebrate Punjabi New Year, began with a table spread with a dozen delectable appetizers, incorporating the Six Ayurvedic Tastes. Vinita’s colorful platters tempted the eye as well as the palate. She thoughtfully provided labels, as the array of dishes was new to many guests and included: stuffed eggplant with ginger and garlic, black chickpea balls, and my favorite, spiced Indian potatoes, topped with yogurt and tamarind or cilantro-mint chutney and crunchy sev noodles.

Vegetables included cooked asparagus, spinach and beets and raw radishes, jicama and cucumbers. For a new gustatory experience, Vinita encouraged her guests to sprinkle the latter with “black salt”. She warned us that the black salt (which actually had a pinkish hue), would first give off a scent of sulfur “rather like an elephant’s fart.” I tried it and after a moment’s pause, discovered it did enrich the crunchy cukes with an earthy accent.

Vinita not only nourished her guests with the dishes she had carefully prepared, but with her culinary memories and wisdom.

In the traditional Hindu kitchen, no one enters to cook until they’ve bathed and no shoes are ever worn in the kitchen. You also don’t taste what you are cooking, but intuitively can smell if something is missing. Through touch, the cook passes on her emotions, be it anger or love. My DNA transfers to you – that’s true farm to table cooking.

Her blog, The Spice Whisperer, not only shares Vinita’s recipes, but her poetic side as well, “Some read auras. I read spices.”

Spices, they resonate with me.

You pound them; roast them,

Dry them and toast them.

And they impart their essence to you No matter what!

They heal. They flavor. They whisper through our foods.

Vinita’s newest endeavor is creating customized spice blends for couples, individuals or wedding parties.

Chef Ryoji Arakaki prepares sushi rice at Sushi California on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Berkeley. Photo: Anna Mindess

Have you ever felt at home in a café or restaurant the moment you walked in? My husband and I have been frequenting Sushi California for less than a year, but the night we discovered this cozy Japanese dining spot on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Berkeley, we already felt like welcomed regulars.

We had just returned from a two-week trip to Kyoto, where I took cooking classes while my husband taught at a university. At night, we would wander into little family-run neighborhood restaurants. That immediate sense of shared intimacy with strangers at Sushi California resonated with our best Kyoto memories.

Chef Ryoji Arakaki has been serving sushi and other Japanese dishes to an international crowd of Berkeleyites (including students, professors and Lawrence Berkeley Lab employees) since 1986. We have probably driven past Sushi Cal (as the Chef calls it) on MLK between University and Addison hundreds of times, but with its unassuming name and façade, and its position just below street-level, like a sunken treasure, it is easily overlooked.

Okinawan black seaweed salad. Photo: Anna Mindess

We often come on Fridays to unwind from the week and enjoy the live music — mellow, electric guitar versions of oldies from Hideo Date — as smooth as the buttery hamachi.

Mimi, the gracious server, seats us at “our table” and offers to bring my husband’s favorite sake. On our first evening there, Mimi confided that Chef Arakaki hails from Okinawa and prepares some Okinawan specialties. They are not specifically marked on the menu, but, with Mimi’s guidance, I’ve fallen for the “black seaweed salad” – a refreshing mix of slippery mozuku seaweed, crunchy okra, daikon, carrot, and cucumber in a light vinegar dressing.

Okinawan salty fish- sukugarasu. Photo: Anna Mindess

Another evening, she suggested sukugarasu, tiny, salted fish from Okinawa, served atop tofu cubes to balance their brininess. Usually we look to the whiteboard for specials or ask Mimi, “What’s good tonight?” and have never been steered wrong.

Miso soup (with the addition of clams that provide a deep richness) and crispy-coated agedashi tofu are two of my husband’s favorites. Although the menu includes the usual sushi roll suspects, and I’m not a big fan of rolls (especially if cream cheese is involved), I love the Cherry Blossom roll with delicate shreds of shiso leaves and a sprinkle of ikura.

On a recent afternoon, Chef Arakaki kindly answered my questions about the path that led him here, as he prepared the sushi rice and laid out the ice and fish for the evening’s service.

He grew up on Okinawa, a chain of islands 400 miles south of the Japanese mainland. Okinawa is officially part of Japan, but has its own language, culture and cuisine. Due to the large American military presence there, Arakaki had an early exposure to, and fascination with, American culture, including rock and roll and cheeseburgers from A&W drive-thrus.

In 1971, at age 19, he wanted to leave Okinawa “because Japan was a small world.” He came to California and got his first job as a dishwasher in a successful Japanese restaurant in San Francisco. But that position lasted only a year. “It was the hippie time and I had long hair,” Arakaki says. “The owner told me repeatedly to cut it, but I ignored him, so after a year I was fired.”

After hanging out in Berkeley, Arakaki moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a gardener for three years. “But LA was too big, too flat and had too many people,” he says. At age 26, he was back in Berkeley, working nights at Yoshi’s as sous chef, making tempura and yakitori. His day job was in the original Berkeley Bowl’s fish market. Those double shifts kept him busy but allowed him to save money for his goal of opening his own restaurant. After Yoshi’s, Arakaki trained at a succession of Japanese restaurants in Marin, Concord, Napa and San Francisco to learn to prepare sushi.

When a friend who had a T-shirt shop on MLK alerted him that a frozen yogurt shop between University and Addison was about to close, Arakaki saw that its counter would make a perfect sushi bar. He admits the reason he chose the name Sushi California, “I was going to have a chain of restaurants, but well, that never happened.”

L to R top to bottom: Steamed clams, Cherry Blossom roll, Agedashi tofu, unagi nigari. Photos: Anna Mindess

Besides the black seaweed salad and salty fish on tofu, Arakaki serves “Okinawan soba noodles,” made with wheat (instead of buckwheat) and served in a soup with pork belly that has been boiled for three hours so it is not fatty.

Chef Arakaki admits that he used to offer other Okinawan classics like goya champura (sautéed bitter melon) but they did not sell well.

What a shame. Not only are residents of Okinawa famous for their longevity, they are noted for healthy aging, low rates of heart disease, strokes and certain cancers and boast the most centenarians (those over 100) in the world. Sadly, the American influence from military bases and ubiquitous fast-food joints are taking their toll on the younger generation who are expected to have much shorter life spans than their grandparents.

Chef Arakaki shows me the framed photographs by the door, featuring some of his most loyal customers. One couple, he tells me, have been coming almost every Friday night for 25 years. Another, who spent many dates at Sushi California, celebrated their wedding rehearsal by renting out the restaurant. One longtime customer whose photo is also in the frame by the door is Albert Einstein’s granddaughter.

Sushi Cal is cozy space with warm orange and yellow walls and 30 seats (including six seats at the sushi bar). It can be crowded on Mondays and Fridays, thanks to the live music. Chef Arakaki used to serve lunches, but after more than a quarter century, he has cut back to dinners only Monday-Saturday and uses the mornings to shop at Berkeley Bowl and Monterey Market.

Awamori: distilled rice spirit made only in Okinawa. Photo: Anna Mindess

All around the restaurant are statues, figurines (even toothpick holders) in the form of Shisa, the cross between a fierce lion and dog that is the symbol of good luck and the protector of Okinawa.

When his rice steamer dings after 45 minutes, and I have finished my questions, Chef Arakaki heats the salt, sugar and vinegar that makes “sushi rice” and mixes it into the cooling rice in his large wooden tub, using his hands and a spatula, just like he’s been doing for 27 years. Time to get ready for another dinner with customers who feel like friends.

Sushi California
2033 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
510-548-0703
Monday to Saturday, 5-9:30 p.m. (Live music Monday and Friday from 7-9:30 p.m. by guitarist Hideo Date.)

A version of this post first appeared on Berkeleyside’s NOSH on April 22, 2013 

My pair of professions straddles two worlds. By day, I work as an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter and otherwise, I’m a food writer. Although these domains rarely intersect, it’s a thrill when they do. In 2011, I broke the news of San Francisco’s first Deaf-owned restaurant, Mozzeria and followed up last Spring with an interview of the owners in ASL.

But there are plenty of Deaf Bay Area food lovers who aren’t chefs, and I recently took a dozen of them–software developers, college professors, actors and retired folk–on an only-in-sign-language tasting tour of Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto through Edible Excursions.

I’ve been leading Edible Excursions tours of San Francisco Japantown for the general public since last summer, and recently added ASL–only tours for members of the local Deaf community. (Because ASL is a separate language, with its own grammar, one can’t speak English and simultaneously sign ASL.) Since the Berkeley culinary romp was my third ASL tour, I knew from experience that I would be breaking a rule of politeness in Deaf culture and added the following warning during my intro speech in front of Shattuck Avenue’s Cheese Board.

Due to our tightly planned schedule tasting tidbits at nine places in three hours, I explained that I was going to have to rush the group from one spot to another. In Deaf Culture, despite the advances of email, video phones and texting, face-to-face communication in expressive ASL often has top priority and thus it is considered rude to interrupt signed conversations. In the interest of maximal food appreciation, however, the Deaf foodies replied to my rudeness tip-off with amenable nods.

Saul’s deli delights, photo courtesy Alyce Reynolds

With that, we headed to Saul’s Deli, where a table was already set with glasses for what proved to be our first guessing game of the day. I told the group that this straw-colored soda was house-made, as was common in the heyday of New York delis in the early 20th century, when this flavor was touted for its health benefits. What is it? Ginger and vanilla were the first guesses. I shook my head no. Finally, a member of the group with a sensitive palate guessed correctly: celery seed soda.

Then, we were joined by Saul’s owner Peter Levitt and over succulent house-smoked pastrami sandwiches, he explained Saul’s mission to serve  locally made deli fare, as opposed to the former practice of flying in deli foods from New York.

Imperial Tea Court, photo courtesy Alyce Reynolds

Next, we ambled over to the Epicurious Garden complex and entered the regal Imperial Tea Court for a lecture on the history of tea with seven kinds to sniff and one to taste.

Chocolate heaven at Alegio, photo courtesy Ken Arcia

The most popular stop on the tour–not surprisingly–introduced the group to “the best chocolate in the world,” accordingly to Alegio’s co-owner Robbin Everson, which grows only on Sao Tome, a tiny island off the coast of West Africa. The series of nibbles of bars from 100% to 73 1/2% cacao was revelatory and sublime. Thanks to Everson’s expertise, the guests delighted in having all their questions answered. Two of the most surprising discoveries: Hershey’s bars contain only 10% cacao and there is no caffeine in chocolate–instead a stimulating compound called theobromine produces a different set of effects on the body.

On our way out of Epicurious Garden, we made a quick stop at Soop for some warming Thai Red lentil soup and I explained that owner Marc Kelly serves Swedish yellow split pea soup every Thursday to honor his Swedish mom’s national tradition.

Monica Roccino of Local Butcher, photo courtesy Ken Arcia

After a short walk down Shattuck Avenue, the group assembled in a large semi-circle (with sign language, everyone needs to be able to see) in front of The Local Butcher Shop. While they munched on the sandwich of the day, pork with onion, cabbage and BBQ sauce, I interpreted a fascinating lecture about whole animal butchery from co-owner Monica Roccino, after which she entertained questions. “What’s the most exotic meat you carry?” one person asked. Perhaps the questioner was hoping to find ostrich or reindeer on the menu. But Roccino explained that she and husband Adam’s commitment to local ranchers means that they only use animals raised within 150 miles, so the most exotic meat she could come up with was squab (pigeon).

Cheese Board pizza slices quickly disappear, photo courtesy Kim Aronson

In front of the Cheese Board Pizza Collective, I told the group how this worker-owned collective was inspired by an Israeli kibbutz, while they scarfed down the flavor of the day: zucchini, onions, mozzarella, feta cheese, and basil pesto.

After a shot of caffeine and history at the original Peet’s Coffee which started the gourmet coffee movement back in 1966, the group was more than ready to mellow out across the street at Vintage Wine, where owner Peter Eastlake described the three wines the group was about to sample from Healdsburg’s Preston Winery. But as I began interpreting in ASL, I had a momentary brain-freeze as I realized that common terms in the wine world, such as: “full-bodied,” “thick, round texture,” and “floral notes” were not the kind of phrases that usually come up in my daily courtroom interpreting. Thankfully, several Deaf guests were clearly wine connoisseurs and knew exactly what Peter was talking about. Reverence for the grape, it seems, transcends language.

And with a parting sweet scoop of gelato from Lush back in Epicurious Garden, the Deaf tour guests reflected on the satisfying aspects of the day: one enjoyed learning the history of many places she has frequented throughout her years as a foodie, another appreciated “discovering these awesome hidden gems in Berkeley and the stories behind them and learning about them in ASL,” and a third was so overcome with the delights of the day, he admitted, “I’m sign-less!”

Related Information:
Edible Excursions’ Gourmet Ghetto tours Thursdays and Saturdays  (stops may vary).

A version of the post was first published on KQED’s Bay Area Bites

Chef Sunhui Chang. Photo: Anna Mindess

Odd squeaks emanate from a large bowl of choy sum (an Asian vegetable related to bok choy) as Chef Sunhui Chang massages the chopped green leaves with vinegar. It’s Monday and FuseBOX, the hot new dining spot tucked away on an industrial street in West Oakland is closed, but Chang and his crew are in the kitchen preparing pickles, kimchi, marinades and sauces that will be used throughout the week.

Pre-pickled kale. Photo: Anna Mindess

“Monday is flavor day,” says Chang as he shakes up jars of kale, rice wine vinegar, garlic and bright yellow mustard. After three days, the pickled kale will be ready to eat and can theoretically last for weeks, but probably won’t — thanks to a steady stream of fans — West Oaklanders who just walk over and devotees who drive in from points north and south to sample Chang’s unique blend of traditional and innovative Korean-inspired cooking.

FuseBOX, whose name aptly conjures up the electric energy generated by its chef and his evolving explorations, opened in May 2012, serving lunches a few days a week (and recently added Saturday dinner). Yet, despite its limited hours and off-the-beaten-track location, The Bay Guardian has already named FuseBOX one of its Top 10 New Restaurants and Diablo Magazine honored Chang with a Top Chef Award.

A rainbow of pickle jars fill the refrigerator. Photo: Anna Mindess

Chef Chang enters his walk-in refrigerator and sets the bottle of not-yet-pickled green kale on a shelf with 15 other colorful combinations, including red kale, bok choy, carrots with yuzu, watermelon radish and shiitake mushrooms. His menu features perennial crowd-pleasers like KFC (his spicy chicken wings), pork belly torta, house-made tofu and bacon-wrapped mochi. But seasonality dictates his selection of banchan (small side dishes) that always include several pickled items and kimchi veggies.

“Hand-made” kimchi. Photo: Anna Mindess

Chang’s right hand turns bright vermillion as he scoops out the spicy red sauce that will turn his cabbage into kimchi. “The hand is important in Korean culture,” he says. “Nothing is worse than getting a cut on my finger and having to wear gloves. Then I can’t feel the food.”

Born in Korea, Chang’s earliest memory is a house filled with guests enjoying his mother’s cooking. While his mother, who hailed from a small coastal town in South Korea, was preparing her spicy fish stew, Chang sat in the kitchen watching. But when Chang was seven, the family moved to Guam, where his father found construction work.

“I fell in love when I tasted green mango pickles”

Guamanian cuisine featured fish, coconut, citrus and ignited Chang’s passionate relationship with pickles. “Kids would bring jars of pickles to school for lunch and everyone would fall all over them. The moment I tasted green mango pickles, I fell in love.”

While his mother ran her own Korean restaurant in steamy Guam, Chang watched cooking shows on TV, like Julia Child, and Great Chefs, Great Cities. He admits to feeling that the European cuisine featured on these programs was “real cooking,” while Korean food was just “home cooking.”

When Chang turned 17, he left his parents in Guam and moved to Berkeley, staying with family friends while attending two years of Berkeley High and continuing on to Cal. After his strict Catholic secondary school in Guam, Berkeley High induced a case of culture shock. What took getting used to, Chang explains, was going to a school with over 2,000 kids, the open campus at lunchtime, and seeing kids brazenly smoking cigarettes on the lawn. Cheese was another novelty. Chang explains, “On Guam we only had American and Cheddar. So Brie was new to me, as well as guacamole and sour cream. But I missed my mom’s cooking. That was the hardest thing, feeling homesick for my mom’s kimchi and pickles.”

At UC Berkeley, Chang majored in sociology but always worked in food businesses, including a bagel shop, a deli, and a liquor store, where he sold wine. After graduating in 1994, he ran the grill in an Oakland Korean restaurant and became its head chef after only a year and a half. “That really happened too early,” he muses, “I still had a lot more to learn.”

Two years later, when that restaurant closed down, Chang started a catering business “making everything, but Korean food. Back then there wasn’t much interest in Korean cuisine.” So he offered European dishes: Spanish tapas and French country classics (à la Julia Child). But “after 14 years of taking my show on the road,” Chang says, “I wanted a kitchen to call home and a space to host guests. I always had it in mind to open a place in the neighborhood where I lived and I love the rough beauty of West Oakland.”

“I bleed kimchi”

As to deciding on a Korean restaurant, Chang admits that he was “a bit hesitant, as there were not many requests to cater events with Korean cuisine. But my daughter SunIm and wife Ellen [who works alongside her husband as FuseBOX’s general manager] pointed out the deep roots and passion I have with Korean food. They told me I needed to express this and that the public is now ready to embrace Korean cuisine.”

Lower plate: kale, napa, bok choy crown kimchis; upper plate: green mango, shiitake, French radish pickles. Photo: Anna Mindess

Instead of chef’s whites, Chang wears a black T-shirt whose back screams, “I bleed kimchi.” Chang speaks of the iconic Korean staple with reverence. “Kimchi has its own journey. After four days fermenting in the refrigerator, it’s ready to start eating. But the taste will change every day. My father likes it way over-fermented – to me it’s sour and the crunch is gone. That stage is best for making kimchi stew. But actually, ours never gets to that point, because we tend to run out. Kimchi is a part of my life. I feel weird if I don’t have it for a day or two; I start missing it.”

Chang’s signature kimchi and pickles take advantage of every part of the vegetable, including the stems, roots and leaves that others often throw out, what he calls “the offal of vegetables.”

“From my days as a butcher and fishmonger, we always took the meat scraps home. I noticed that people also threw away lots of vegetable parts they didn’t like either, such as beet and radish greens, bok choy crowns, spinach stems and roots [the pink parts]. I would save them and use them for pickles or kimchi. That’s how I found that each part has its own flavor and nutrients.” Chang’s respect for his ingredients is all embracing. “After squeezing out the cabbage,” he explains, “we even save that salted water to make into ‘clear water kimchi’ with napa, daikon and ginger. It’s a palate cleanser.”

Bacon wrapped mochi with pickled mustard seeds. Photo: Anna Mindess

Chang takes a pan from the stove and scrapes off the mahogany mixture that has been simmering for hours: chicken bones, deglazed with sake, mirin and soy. The resulting sauce will be brushed on his chicken skewers. “If I reflect on my nine months at FuseBOX,” Chang says, “I’m most proud of the amount of flavors we’re able to produce in a small space. And I hope that the recent recognition of Korean food has legs – that it’s not just a trend, but becomes part of the fabric of America.”

++++++++++++++++++++

FuseBOX, 2311A Magnolia St., Oakland, 510-444-3100, open Wednesday-Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 2:30 p.m. (closed some Saturday lunchtimes because of Chang’s daughter’s soccer tournaments. Call to check) and 5:30-9 p.m.

A version of this piece was first posted on Berkeleyside NOSH Feb. 28, 2013

E&F Market in Oakland Chinatown

All Photos: courtesy of  Wendy Goodfriend

I’m surrounded by a dozen huge tanks of handsome swimming fish, including red tilapia, black bass and silver carp at the E&F Market in Oakland Chinatown. My friend, Lisa Li, has graciously agreed to take me on an urban “fishing expedition” to buy a live fish that we will cook for lunch, in the Chinese tradition. Among the many choices of fresh and farmed varieties, she decides on a wild-caught rockfish and points the fishmonger to a tank labeled “gopher” fish. He deftly wields a hand-net and scoops up a lively, mottled brown fellow with spiky fins and bulging blue eyes. We see it wriggling for a moment before a discrete thwack on the other side of the counter dispatches it into a state ready to be cleaned and bagged. Lisa also chooses a farmed sea bass for us to compare the flavors.

Fish Tank at E&F Market in Oakland Chinatown

Lisa, who grew up in Guangzhou, China, is a world-traveler who enjoys the cuisines of many cultures and together we’ve shared Moroccan tagines and Spanish tapas. She is also happy to expand my knowledge of Chinese cooking and take me along on this shopping trip she makes weekly. “In Chinese culture,” she tells me, “we like to get our protein as close to live as possible.” What could be fresher than a fish that was swimming around less than an hour before you eat it? And for the upcoming Chinese New Year’s Eve feast, a whole fish is the traditional last course. The word for fish yu also signifies “abundance,” making simply dressed, steamed fish a symbolic and delicious way to end the meal.

Although Lisa frequents several Oakland Chinatown fish markets, she decides that this newish, spacious one would be best for me, since it has the biggest selection and its owners speak English.

A petite woman in a fish-emblazoned sweatshirt greets us, adding that we are very lucky to live in California since we have so many local fish to choose from. The co-owner of E&F Market has an impossibly perfect name: Finnie Fung. She grew up with fish, helping her parents on weekends in their New Sang Chong Market a half block away. Finnie, age 31, and her husband bought this store, formerly called Hung Wan Market, from her parents and recently changed the name to “E&F” to reflect this new identity (as Eric and Finnie) and also to connect with the younger generation.

“Many Americans [who don’t speak Chinese] are frustrated shopping at the older markets in Chinatown. They often think the shopkeepers are being rude,” explains Finnie. “They aren’t being rude on purpose. It’s just that they don’t speak English well. Here we can answer shoppers’ questions about which fish to buy and how to cook them.”

Meanwhile the orange-gloved fishmongers have quickly scaled, cleaned and bagged our two fish. And as we pay, Lisa picks up some other ingredients we’ll need: fresh scallions, ginger and cilantro.

Oakland Chinatown produce market

We chose the perfect day to stroll through Oakland Chinatown: the annual New Years Bazaar. As we walk back to the car, we thread our way through bustling streets, lined with piles of green-leafed tangerines, huge hanging pomelos, red and gold chrysanthemums and branches of plum blossoms (all symbolic of good fortune in the new year).

As children scamper by, happily holding brightly colored pinwheels, we join the shoppers examining rows of red and gold lanterns with fluttering tassels, sparkly strings of firecrackers, embroidered fish charms and strands of shiny gold money purses.

Back at Lisa’s house, her husband John helps us quickly shred the scallions as Lisa cuts the peeled ginger into large slices. The classic preparation for the fish is to steam it whole — “to represent completeness,” Lisa explains. It is essential that the fish is served with head and tail attached to make sure that the coming year has both a good beginning and ending.

She fills a large pan with water and steamer tray, places the whole fish on a plate atop a pair of chop sticks (“so that the fishy water will run off”), slits the back, so the thicker areas will cook and stuffs the fish with several coins of ginger. The fish will steam for 8 minutes over a high flame. Meanwhile, in another pan she pours some peanut oil and briefly sautés matchstick pieces of ginger and more scallions. When the fish are done, they are ringed with cilantro and topped with the gently sautéed ginger and scallions. Then she pours a generous amount of a special soy sauce for fish. “How much soy sauce are you pouring,” I ask? “Enough to puddle around the bottom of the dish,” she answers.

We move to a round dining table edged with a carved dragon and phoenix motif. As Lisa serves us the tender fish, she explains that at New Years Eve dinner, the head of the fish is always pointed towards the oldest or most honored guest. She scoops up more flesh from the bony skeleton, to refill our plates. John, presents her with the cheek, a prized morsel, and tells me the Chinese cultural belief that you never flip the fish over to get to the other side, because if you do, somewhere, a fisherman’s boat will capsize. With two spoons, he deftly extracts the meat from the underside of the fish. Lisa also likes to eat the fish eyes, which she admits have a “different texture.” She remembers her mom telling her that eating the eyes would improve her sight. “Maybe it’s just that in Chinese culture, nothing should be wasted,” she says. “People who don’t eat the head and tail can boil them with the bones and make a nice broth.” We all agree that the wild caught gopher has a more delicate taste, but the texture of the bass is creamier.

Another important aspect of Chinese New Year tradition is not to finish the fish course on New Year’s Eve, but leave some to be eaten the next day so that the abundance of the yu will continue into the New Year.

Information
E&F Market
333 8th Street, Oakland
(510) 465-1668

If you don’t feel like cooking a whole fish yourself, some restaurants offer Chinese New Year specials.

A version of this post first appeared in KQED.org’s Bay Area Bites. Many thanks to my producer there, Wendy Goodfriend, for accompanying Lisa and me on this adventure and documenting it in lovely photos.

Raj Raja is a natural chef who cooked in Paris before opening Café Raj in Albany. Photo: Anna Mindess

Café Raj’s open kitchen belongs to one man, whose commitment and concentration are evident as he shakes, stirs and tosses spices into a half dozen pans filled with aromatic curries, simultaneously bubbling on the range-top. He is Raj Raja, owner and chef of the Albany restaurant. Depending on the time of day, five to ten women complement his cooking crew by grinding spices, mixing chutneys and raita, slapping circles of naan dough onto the scorching sides of the tandoor ovens, and plating and serving dishes to eager diners.

During a momentary lull, I approach Raja with questions for our arranged interview, but find him soft-spoken, seemingly more comfortable cooking than talking. He defers my inquiries to his wife, Rosemarie Eichner-Raja, who tells me “My husband is shy.” But he’s also obviously busy, overseeing every single plate that comes out of his kitchen. “He does 200 or more curries a day, Rosemarie explains, “and every dish is made fresh to order, tailored specially for each guest.”

Kulbir has worked at the restaurant for almost 10 years. Photo: Anna Mindess

Café Raj, a beloved dining landmark in the Albany/Berkeley community, will celebrate its 14th anniversary on February 9. Eichner-Raja shares the restaurant’s history over a lunch of chicken tikka masala, tender lamb saag, aloo gobi, raita and assorted chutneys delivered to our table by a gracious server in an electric blue dress, named Kulbir, who has worked at the restaurant for almost 10 years.

“Raj and I met in France in 1991,” Eichner-Raja says. “I was studying comparative literature at the University of Paris and he was taking a break from his career as a bio-chemist. He started working the front of the house in Indian restaurants owned by his family in Paris, before venturing out to buy one of his own in the Latin Quarter, where he served as maitre d’. In those days, many Parisian Indian restaurants were quite upscale, with fancy, carved wooden chairs and the waiters in tuxedos.”

They couple married in Paris and, in 1997, moved back to Albany (where Eichner-Raja was born and raised). Raja proposed that they open a restaurant and offered to cook. His wife was a bit surprised, since he had never taken formal training, nor cooked in a restaurant, but apparently he had been paying close attention and had learned a lot from watching.

Raja is a natural chef. And, after his 10 years living in France, he has incorporated a few key elements of French cooking that give his dishes a delicious je ne sais quoi, such as his emphasis on perfectly balanced sauces and going to the market daily for the freshest ingredients.

Chicken tikka masala, lamb saag, and aloo gobi at Café Raj. Photo: Anna Mindess

Born in Pakistan, Raja also watched his mother cook. The dishes at Café Raj are traditional North Indian and Pakistani, with a little French flair. After I finish my lunch, I slip into the kitchen as Raja squeezes his spiced beef mixture around a metal skewer and lowers the kebab into the fiery hot tandoor oven. He confides that the French influence can be seen in his use of less oil, sautéed mushrooms, creamy soups “and some secret French spices,” he adds with a smile.

Café Raj serves beef, as well as lamb, chicken and fish but also boasts an extensive array of vegetarian and vegan choices.

The tandoor oven: dishes at Café Raj are traditional North Indian and Pakistani, with a little French flair. Photo: Anna Mindess

When they first opened in 1999 in a space half the size of their current one, Raja and his wife envisioned a casual, take-out, food stand, with a large menu board from which people would order by number. They had only six tables where customers could wait while their meals were being cooked. “But,” says Eichner-Raja, “our customers sat down and wanted to eat here and linger so we had to transform into full service dining.”

Families with children have always been comfortable at Café Raj. “It’s okay if children throw rice or students come and study in their sweats. We want to be an extension of their homes,” says Eichner-Raja. The couple’s own two daughters, aged 8 and 10, often eat dinner and do their homework at the restaurant, surrounded by the staff of caring “aunties.”

Sous-chef Kulwant has been supervising the kitchen for 13 years. Photo: Anna Mindess

Many of the 20 women who work at Café Raj are related. One cousin or sister-in-law referring another. “We’ve tried to have male employees, but they complain that the work of chopping 100 pounds of onions a day is too physically demanding,” Eichner-Raja quips.

Raja insists on hand-chopped onions for their firm texture. A food processor would make them pulpy. The language of the kitchen is Punjabi and it has been supervised for 13 years by sous-chef, Kulwant. But Raja works every day, both lunch and dinner shifts, and often shops at farmers markets between shifts.
While her husband heads the kitchen, Eichner-Raja, who taught French when they first moved back, takes care of the books, taxes, website, advertising, music selection and décor.

In 2001, the drop-off dry cleaners vacated the space next door to Café Raj and the couple were able to double the size of their dining room and kitchen. Even so, there is often a waiting line in this popular spot. Some customers feel so comfortable in the homey atmosphere that they actually frequent the restaurant once or twice daily.

“We’re only closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas days,” says Eichner-Raja. “There was one gentleman who came here to eat every day. And when it got close to the holidays, my husband worried about him. I suggested that he could eat leftovers. But Raj decided to cook him a special dinner and bring it to his home.”

Café Raj, 1158 Solano Avenue, Albany, (510) 524-5667, open Monday-Saturday 11:30am – 3pm and 5pm – 10:30pm, Sunday 5pm-10:30pm.

A version of this post was first published on Berkeleyside NOSH - January 23, 2013.

Victor, the oyster man

It’s early morning and I’m perched on a plastic stool near Mazatlán’s stunning seashore, squeezing lime juice on a plate of oysters that were awakened–rather rudely, I suppose–from their oyster beds only moments ago. Victor, the proprietor of this makeshift beachside oyster bar, squats on a rock, shucks the freshly caught oysters and serves them on paper plates with cut limes and bottles of hot sauce. He has worked these waters for the past 33 years with his brothers, uncles, nephews and cousins, as his father did for 52 years. I learn this through the interpreting skills of my friend Dianne, an American who has called Mazatlán home for the past five years. As we slurp our oysters, Victor tells us that since the emptied shells have larva on them, they return them to the ocean to regenerate a new harvest.

oyster diver

The divers, some of whom wear wet suits, take floating inner tubes fitted with nets out into the sea and armed with sharp tools, dive down to the oyster reefs to harvest the shellfish, while holding their breath. When their nets are full, they trudge back onto shore with 50 kilos of scratchy shells on their backs and fill large mesh bags with shellfish that will be sold wholesale to restaurants. Also benefiting from their catch are lucky customers like us who walk up to enjoy the freshest oysters in the world for less than 50 cents each.

ceviche with lime

Later, during brunch at the restaurant of my hotel, the gorgeous El Pueblo Bonito, we begin with mimosas and shot glasses of fresh shrimp ceviche. As soon as I place my purse on the floor, however, a pleasant server rushes over with what looks like a very short coat rack and indicates that this is the place my purse should go. Dianne, an intercultural consultant who has lived all over the world and is the founder of a training program called Cultural Detective, knows there’s a cultural reason behind this action. “It’s bad luck, isn’t it?” she gently prompts the server, who confides, “Yes, if you put your purse on the floor, all the money will run out.” From then on, I am on the lookout for more percheros and find most restaurants provide them in styles to match their décor (simple white wood, gleaming aluminum, wrought iron or bright turquoise curlicues).

pelicans wait for lunch

Fortified, we’re off to visit some fish markets. Dianne and her husband Greg take me to the simply named Mercado de Mariscos, a basic strip of concrete stands near the docks that the fishermen share with about a hundred pelicans. While the freshly caught fish are gutted and cleaned, pelicans clamor for the scraps they know are coming. The fish laid out here are mostly bought by local residents (not a tourist in sight).

Mercado de Mariscos

Then we head downtown to the large indoor market called Pino Suárez. On the way, I can’t resist some neon-hued coconut candy from a street vendor’s cart, which we all munch on while perusing the market’s many stands.

coconut candy

Underneath gaily dancing piñatas, shops sell all manner of spices, seeds, nuts, fresh cheeses, kitchen goods and dishes, more coconut candies and cones of piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar). We get tastes of the huge orange slabs of smoked marlin.

smoked marlin

The next day, we take a non-fish related excursion to Las Labradas, a UNESCO world heritage site and clamber over boulders to see the ancient petroglyphs carved on volcanic rocks that line the shore 30 miles north of Maztalan. No one has yet deciphered the meanings of the 600 water-worn, thousand-year old carvings, but like the petroglyph fields I visited in Hawaii, they exude a special energy. Dianne tells me that the spring equinox is celebrated here by traditional dances from a group of Indians who wear deer headdresses (Mazatlán is a Nahuatl word for “place of the deer”).

petroglyphs

A group of us have lunch at Los Arcos — a cheery seafood restaurant where shrimp is queen. The meal starts with appetizer platters heaped with fresh shrimp, octopus, chunky scallops, and ceviche with lime. (I notice that lemons are nowhere to be found in Mazatlán but tiny, tangy limes are a tasty substitute.) We all order variations on the shrimp theme: deep fried “seahorses” stuffed with cream cheese and breaded with coconut, shrimp in mango sauce, tamarind sauce, spicy red or green sauces.

shrimp and more shrimp

After touring some artists’ galleries and a nice siesta, we meet for dinner at La Costa Marinera, a festive spot where Dianne and Greg held their wedding rehearsal dinner many years ago. Their specialty is a mariscada seafood platter served atop a large, pig-shaped clay pot that keeps the food warm. We enjoy grilled shrimp, oysters diabla, lobster, dorado filets, frogs legs, accompanied by a singing waiter and large pink margaritas.

shrimp ladies of Mazatlan

On my last morning in Mazatlán, Dianne and Greg take me to the visit the “Shrimp Ladies” — Changueras — whose colorful umbrellas line a street called Aquiles Serdán. Tubs and tubs of brown shrimp, blue shrimp, white shrimp, fresh water, deep-ocean and farmed shrimp are kept cool with large chunks of floating ice. Maria del la Paz has been working on this street for 30 years and arrives daily at 3am to buy her shrimp from the fishermen; then sells her wares to housewives and restaurant owners until 7 or 8pm. As her experienced fingers peel shrimp at lightning speed, she tells us that her father also sold shrimp and she hopes her daughters will soon get a coveted spot at this shrimp shopping center.

Dianne mentions that ordering a “shrimp tamale” will get you a masa-encased shrimp with head, legs and shell, which you are expected to eat. She has learned to order a tamale “gringa style” to have it peeled first. Greg points out the establishment across the street where you take your freshly purchased shrimp and have them prepared to order, so we pick out a few dozen shrimp and enter the diner that is still empty this early in the morning. (Greg says at night it’s a guy-hangout filled with boisterous men with beer). After ordering one plate of garlic shrimp and another a la diabla, the welcoming aroma of garlic quickly fills the dining room as we see flames leap around the pan on the range. I toast my friends and thank them for showing me a little of their Mazatlán–a seafood-lover’s paradise, thanks to more than 20 miles of beaches, the ocean’s generous bounty and the labors of all the unsung oystermen and shrimp ladies.

(Now I understand why in my search for the best fish taco in the East Bay, one of my favorite contenders was an Oakland taco truck called “Mariscos Sinaloa.” Mazatlán is in the Mexican state of Sinaloa).

(Full disclosure: The writer was a guest in Mazatlán courtesy of the Sinaloa Tourism Office)

A version of this post first appeared on KQED.org’s Bay Area Bites

watermelon and pomegranate for Yalda

I am slicing up watermelon cubes to bring to a party — not the usual dish for a December celebration, but this is a special event, the Persian fête for the longest night of the year, called Yalda.

Knowing my interest in food and culture, my new friend, Monier Attar, owner of  Zand’s Market on Albany’s Solano Avenue, invited me to accompany her to a party at The Golestan Center, her granddaughter’s Persian-immersion pre-school on Berkeley’s Fifth Street.

I first met Monier last spring when I noticed an intriguing display table in her shop for another Persian secular holiday, Norooz, which honors the first day of spring. Monier kindly answered all my questions about this ancient celebration and I wrote an article about it.

Even though the actual longest day of the year is later this week, and traditional Yalda parties run until midnight, the preschool kids, their teachers, parents and grandparents planned an early evening celebration last Saturday, with all the classic dishes, including pomegranates, watermelon, dried fruit and nuts and a hearty bean and noodle soup called osh (or aush). The evening ended with the sweet voices of children singing songs in Farsi.

The Golestan Center is a Persian-immersion pre-school on Berkeley’s 5th street. Photo: Anna Mindess

“Preserving culture runs in my family,” explains Monier, who left Iran with her two small children in 1984. “My daughter is 36 — when she was 3 years old, I enrolled her at an American school in Iran to learn English. Now 33 years later, she signed up her daughter, Darya, to learn Farsi at Golestan (which means ‘flower garden”) because she really wants to keep the culture alive.”

Classic dishes for Yalda include pomegranates, watermelon, and dried fruit and nuts arranged on korsi

Yalda has been observed for thousands of years to celebrate the return of the light and the victory of the sun over darkness. The Persians adopted this Babylonian festival and incorporated it into their Zoroastrian religion, long before the spread of Islam. More details can be found in this article from The Tehran Times.

A hearty bean and noodle soup called osh (or aush) is part of the Yalda celebration.

Back at The Golestan Center on Saturday, amid the elegant high-ceilinged rooms, sliding wooden doors and comfy floor cushions, a long table was groaning with rice dishes, yogurt with cucumber, fresh green herbs, vegetables, cheese, bread, several variations of osh soup and large bowls of fruit that the guests have brought to share. The children were dressed up and excited. Their parents gave them each a bowl of pomegranate seeds to eat with a spoon and many sat at the korsi — which is supposed to represent the traditional low table with woven cloths that covered a heater or charcoal fire, where families would sit to keep warm. (No heater in this one.)

A door knocker at the Golestan Center in Berkeley.

“Darya said she really likes the way her teachers at Golestan hug her and kiss her,” Monier tells me as we stand, sampling an addictive dish of  seasoned rice, cabbage and tiny meatballs. ”She can already see how friendly and loving Persian culture is. “

“Before, when her mom and I were speaking Farsi to her she just refused to talk and left the room, saying ‘I don’t want to speak Farsi. I want to talk like my dad’ (he’s American.)”

“Now that she goes to a place where everyone speaks Farsi, she sees that there are other kids and people who know the language too. So she asked me, ‘Namna where did you go to learn Farsi?’ I told her I was born in Iran where everyone spoke it. Now she thinks we are very special people who can speak the same language that they speak at school. If I speak English to her dad, she says, ‘Namna what happened to your Farsi?’

If you want to join the fun to bid farewell to the darkness and greet the light, Berkeley’s Persian Center will observe Yalda in a big celebration this Thursday Dec. 20, from 7-10 p.m.

This story was first published on Berkeleyside and on Berkeleyside NOSH December 17, 2012 

Selome Haileleoul cooks traditional Ethiopian dishes served on injera

I’m perched on one of five bar seats with a ringside view of the open kitchen at The Guest Chef in Oakland, where Selome Haileleoule and sous chef Showit Woldu adorn injera draped platters with mounds of fragrant spiced stews and salads, creating edible palettes of brightly hued Ethiopian classic dishes. Selome looks completely at home in the kitchen and as she warmly greets guests, but this is the first time the assistant financial controller with San Francisco’s Clift Hotel has taken on the role of restaurant chef and that’s the charm behind The Guest Chef.

The intimate space on Oakland’s College Avenue seats no more than 25 diners and features a rotating roster of chefs who serve everything from California cuisine, Classic French or Italian to the exotic food of the Azores. The usual run is a two-week stint for the caterers, recent culinary school graduates, aspiring chefs and grandmothers who dream of cooking at their own restaurant. Chef-hopefuls must complete an online application with their concept and menu and then do a tasting try-out for Guest Chef owner Scott Cameron. If accepted, the chefs supply all their own ingredients and labor and Guest Chef provides everything else (including a fully stocked kitchen, a cashier and a dishwasher), for a split of the profits.

Selome Haileleoul and sous chef Showit Woldu in Guest Chef’s open kitchen

For the past four years, Selome’s passion to share her native Ethiopian cuisine has led her to teach Ethiopian cooking classes, first at Paulding and Company and currently through West Oakland’s Brundo.

Six months ago, she was a diner at Guest Chef when David Hung, the CEO of her sister’s workplace, played co-chef with his daughter Maddy, as a bonding experience before she went to Harvard. The evening proved to be inspirational for Selome. Her run at Guest Chef began November 25, and thanks to an overwhelming response, has been extended for a third week, until December 16.

Selome Haileleoul offers a plate of doro wat

Selome named her restaurant Tayitu in honor of the powerful 19^th century Ethiopian Queen. Her signature dish is doro wat (chicken in an aromatic, mahogany sauce) that requires slowly sautéing onions for two days (using no oil) until they achieve caramelized perfection. Then she adds berbere, the famous, fiery Ethiopian spice blend.

Spices have always been precious to Selome, I discover, as she shares her compelling story with me. At the age of 16, she was sent by her mother to the U.S. with her sister to escape the political turmoil in her homeland. The young women attended an all-girls school in small town Mississippi. “Mother packed us some dirkosh (dried injera) and berbere (red pepper spice blend) in case we got homesick. I used to sprinkle it on the bland fried chicken, BBQ meats, rice and eggs.”

“We came here in 1974 because of the political situation. When Ethiopia became a communist country, I got completely cut off from my home and was literally stranded. I had attended a British private school in Addis Ababa and spoke English fluently but all the international students at our college were required to take English as a second language–because it was Southern English we had to learn. At first, we were shocked. But they said, ‘Honey, y’all have to learn the language down here.’ It was tough. But I was young, so it was easier to adapt. And Southerners are the most compassionate people. They were all so sad for our mother, letting her girls go so far away.”

Vegan trio: collard greens, yellow split peas, and red lentils

“It was sad to see in America how poor people are. I come from a poor country but the poverty I saw in America was shocking. Some girls from school invited us for Thanksgiving. Three generations lived in a one-room house like cardboard but they spent everything they had to give us a real Thanksgiving. They were so kind.”

Selome’s father was a Supreme Court Judge in Ethiopia who died when she was 13. Her mother raised 7 girls and 1 boy.

“I want to honor what I learned from my mother and grandmothers’ generations and then pass it on to our next generation: spices, dried and blended the traditional way; it takes passion and patience.  In the old days, people used to make their own berbere and mitmita but now you can just buy them packaged.”

Platter of Ethiopian dishes served on injera

At this point, Selome presents me with the platter she has prepared so I can taste a variety of dishes: diced ahi tuna mixed with mitmita spices, two kinds of lentils, yellow split peas cooked with garlic, ginger and turmeric, shiro (roasted chickpea flour with spices, she describes as “Ethiopian comfort food”), a bright and tangy beet salad, and addictive collard greens. The centerpiece is the doro wat, in whose depth of flavor, I taste history–and an ancient reverence for spice. Each dish has a complex character that is only achieved by skilled spicing and long careful simmering. Selome’s cooking is equal to the best Ethiopian food I’ve tasted.

Vegan vegetables

Selome’s menu of traditional Ethiopian dishes features many vegan options. This is no doubt influenced by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whose calendar of “fasting days” (on which no meat or animal products may be eaten) number more than 250 days a year.

The diners at Guest Chef this week have been a mixture of Selome’s friends and co-workers, people who just walk by and Guest Chef regulars who stop in every two weeks to try out the latest chef. Some have never eaten Ethiopian food before and are surprised that no silverware is provided. This is a culture that cherishes eating with the hand.

Food is served the traditional way, arranged on platters of spongy injera and meant to be shared. Rolls of injera are provided and diners are expected to tear off small pieces of the crepe-like bread and scoop up the meats or vegetables with their right hands. “At the end of the day, food tastes better when you eat with your hand,” says Selome. It’s natural.”

Injera

With The Guest Chef now booked with eager chefs through March, Scott Cameron seems to have landed on a simple, yet brilliant idea, that elevates a pop-up into a rich dining experience, which is sure to catch on. He and his partner are still scouting for a San Francisco location and “having meetings” to explore the possibility of a reality TV show.

This experience at Guest Chef has made Selome’s secret dream seem more possible: “I would love to have a restaurant like this one, small and intimate. I would get all my spices from Ethiopia and go completely traditional and wash my diners’ hands before the meal by pouring water from a pitcher.”

Next Guest Chef: Dec. 18-23 — Ikeena Reed, Oakland-based caterer who specializes in sustainable, organic, Soul Food dishes.

Guest Chef
Address: Map
5337 College Ave., Oakland, CA
Phone: (510) 658-7378
Facebook: Guest Chef
Twitter: @theguestchef

A version of this story first posted on KQED Bay Area Bites

I first met Noriko Taniguchi two years ago as I was examining a package of gray speckled noodles at Berkeley’s Tokyo Fish Market. The pixieish grandmother leaned over her shopping cart and whispered, “Yam noodles — very good for the digestion.” As we chatted, I learned she owns a Telegraph Avenue restaurant that features home-style Japanese cooking and promised to visit.

Two weeks later I arrived at Norikonoko for lunch. Once I figured out how to slide open the restaurant’s traditional wooden door, I was charmed by the cozy interior that resembles a typical Japanese countryside inn, adorned with innumerable tiny treasures, like miniature tea sets and teensy origami cranes and wrote a post on her comforting Japanese home cooking.

Her menu intrigued me with unusual items such as a daikon salad with chirimenjako (tiny dried fish that Noriko sautés in butter to make them crispy).

Golden, crunchy, tiny fish complement cool, crispy, shredded daikon radish.

Recently, I was delighted to be asked to contribute regularly to Berkeleyside’s NOSH  by writing more immigrants’ journeys told through a food lens. This time, when I met with Noriko, she graciously shared her life story. I asked what led her and husband Takumi to open Norikonoko, which, for 18 years, has been serving, as her business card puts it, “homey dishes from Japan.”

“I always wanted to have a little Japanese restaurant,” she tells me while slicing dainty cucumber moons with her favorite Japanese knife, “not another sushi place, but one that served ‘real food’ – what Japanese people eat every day, what Japanese mothers put a lot of effort into cooking to nourish their children.  I cook Japanese food the way it used to be, so young people can be reminded. I love everything about food: buying, cleaning, chopping, cooking and presenting Japanese dishes the way they are supposed to be — as art.”

Noriko was born in Manchuria when it was a Japanese territory. After WW II, when she was five, her family returned to her father’s seaside town. “But life was not easy,” she says pouring me a cup of tea, “So, when I was 14, we moved to California where my aunt lived. I started 10th grade knowing no English. It was challenging but interesting to meet Americans from many different backgrounds. While my mother cooked mostly Japanese dishes at home, I loved discovering new American foods like roast beef, hamburger, corn dogs, meat loaf, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, even Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

During lunch and dinner service, Noriko is a study in perpetual motion: stirring curry on the stove, hand-shaping triangular onigiri rice balls, carefully adorning every dish she plates with a fan of pickles, a sprinkle of carrot shreds or a light shower of sesame seeds.

After high school Noriko attended San Francisco State University where she studied International Relations. She planned to work at the United Nations.

“But I met this man from Tokyo and we got married,” she says. “After eight years away, I wanted to return to my country and relearn my culture, so we moved back to Japan and lived in the middle of Tokyo, where my husband’s parents owned a restaurant. I helped out as a waitress and cashier. Since I spoke English, I was good with American customers. But in Japanese culture, back in the ’60′s and ’70′s, women were not supposed to stand out. My husband’s family believed I should stay home and just be a nice housewife, taking care of our two children. I had other ambitions. When the Olympics came to Tokyo in 1964, I saw an opportunity and hoped to work as an escort to foreign visitors, but my husband and his parents refused me this opportunity and I couldn’t quite understand why.”

Noriko prepares onigiri, traditional filled rice balls wrapped in seaweed.  

While filling a small flower-shaped dish with cooked spinach sprinkled with sesame seeds and little wedges of creamy sweet onion croquette, Noriko says: “Japan is a beautiful country, but I felt it was too small for me. There were so many things I wanted to do, but my opportunities were being erased by the culture. Once you get married, everything you do is supposed to be for the family.”

“I was expected to fit into this narrow box. But that’s not my personality. Plus, I wanted my children to have more experiences, with open possibilities and a broader future. Since my parents and my brothers were here, I decided to move back to the U.S. with my children. I knew my husband couldn’t leave Japan because he was the eldest son and had to take over the family restaurant. It took me almost four years to make him accept why he had to let us go. I felt bad but he finally understood.”

“When my kids were nine and seven, we moved to the Bay Area. It was hard to leave Japan but I’m proud that my son and daughter both graduated college with advanced degrees, are now working independently and happily married here in the Bay Area. I have a grandson and a granddaughter.”

“When we moved here in 1974, I began a series of jobs. The first one was at a bank, but that wasn’t for me. Next I worked at a Japanese travel agency, and finally found a job at UC Berkeley in the housing department. But I always wanted a little Japanese restaurant that I could run by myself.”

On a cold day, a bowl of oden satisfies with a variety of fish cakes and vegetables

“In 1993, when I found I was eligible to take early retirement from UC, I decided to pursue my dream and bought this place to run with my husband Takumi. I met him when I was still living in Tokyo and he came to the U.S. to learn English and pursue his career as an artist. At the same time, he helped me by taking care of my children while I worked. Takumi has also worked at Yoshi’s so he knows a lot about running a restaurant. We opened Norikonoko on April 29, 1994 (the Japanese holiday to celebrate the Emperor’s birthday.)”

For the warming bowl of oden I order, Noriko uses her chopsticks to adjust the vegetables, knotted kelp, gingko nuts and seven kinds of fish cake until they are positioned just so.

Takumi and Noriko make a good team. He cooks the grilled food and she makes the side dishes. Noriko shows me a pair of Japanese cookbooks she uses for inspiration. “Every meal should be balanced, with vegetables, soup, pickles, rice, a main course and 2-3 side dishes.”

Noriko arranges a healthy side dish of Japanese mountain vegetables. 

“Sometimes I have to encourage customers to try their pickles or my variety of side dishes, such as  mountain vegetables, because they’ve never had these before.”

“I try not to serve every customer the same side dishes. I use my intuition to figure what they would like. My pork curry is very special. I learned how to make it at the family restaurant in Tokyo. It takes three hours to make, including two hours in the oven and is so unique that you won’t find it anywhere else.”

“People tell me they like all the little tiny things displayed here, it makes them feel warm. I started putting out some and now customers bring me things all the time. We have many regular customers and I know most of their preferences and try to understand their allergies. The name of our restaurant means “Noriko’s child,” and as soon as customers slide open the door, they are all my children.”

“My life motto is: ‘kiyoku, tadashiku, utsukushiku soshite tsuyoku.’  What this means to me is to live pure, fight injustice and help others while keeping your love, sweetness and politeness. But in the end, be strong enough to stand up for what you believe.’”

This story first appeared on Berkeleyside  November 27, 2012.