I really think so.....

I love Japanese culture.... possibly due to my Dad being stationed in Japan and related a few stories about being there and also it was the first culture I remember being exposed, at least with some relative regularity. Either Japanese restaurants or going to Little Tokyo in Downtown LA, I was exposed to it. Hence I like the song by the Vapors...

Now as this is supposed to be a blog about food, let me preface this with I still consider myself to be a "food tourista", by this I mean that I'm still relatively new (perhaps I'm being a bit modest here). While a majority of people I have talked to have said - "You should start a blog about food" - I always scoffed at them. Yes I know there is a mini Japanese strip mall in Fountain Valley. Not too mention the ones in the South Bay (Too many to list - Gardena/Torrance) or little stretch on Sawtell in West LA (Between Pico & Santa Monica) or the patch in Costa Mesa.... While I know where these places are.. I still consider myself a tourista.

Just to add to that, I've become enamored with other Asian cultures as well. Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai... (India is in Asia but generally not considered Asian.. how does that work???) as these are what I am close to.

Now after going through that nonsensical rant.... on to what I was going to talk about.

For me food is one of the universal constants.... we all need it. Just like air and water, you really can't survive without food.  Look at how many things revolve around food, we have festivals, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduation parties... you get the picture.

We eat throughout the day... we have aisles and aisles of food in the US (which on a personal note I absolutely hate!!!).  The point is a good amount of a time is spent eating, so why not enjoy the food.

So there is this About section I get a weekly articleon Japanese food, this week it's....

Mabo don!!

Which for me I like and one of those dishes that you should try if you've never had tofu, but probably already like if you regularly eat tofu. Which by the way I like, but don't eat it as much as I would like to.. but am in no way a vegetarian or vegan. 

Yet for me I like the unagi (eel) or sake (salmon) don much better than the teriyaki ones.