EPISODE 2: RAIDING LITTLE TOKYO

Hi, thank you for staying tuned and welcome back to the show. This is Food Huntress at Chef’s Day Out.

Well, we are right here at Little Tokyo- found along the length of Amorsolo Street here in Makati. See this little creature here? This is the guardian of the gates. In Chinese, this is called ‘pichu’- a mythical creature that is all-eat- no- poop. For the Chinese, business should be all-eat-no-poop, meaning money should only come in and must never go out. I am not sure, though, how the Japanese call this- it looks like a samurai creature to me. I am honestly fascinated by this – look at those stone incisors!

Little Tokyo is a small compound that will take you to that Japanese neighborhood so reminiscent of Karate Kid’s. Since it is full of restaurants, it is apparent that there is a Japanese grocery around- like this one- Yamazaki. Let’s take a look!


Yamazaki showcases lots of Japanese products from curries to dried mushrooms to lotus roots. It is an all- food grocery- I didn’t see Japanese knives nor sushi mats for sale There’s that unagi, the Japanese fresh water eel marinated in a special sauce. This fish has really cast its spell on me. Damn, I like!

A little hungry? Ok, lunch will be served at Seryna’s restaurant, now my favorite Japanese restaurant in the city. It has a sushi bar, manned by talented sushi chefs I could only gape at, and a sushi master himself doing hands on very quietly. Salute, sensei! I do have a high regard to people like this who dedicate so much of their lives in their craft.

- Ah, yes, I heard you- Morimoto also included.

For god’s sake… I told you why this restaurant rocks. They have here a wall full of Japanese sake. Once a Japanese friend back in the graduate school poured me sake, and my head started to spin that day and all I did say was, ‘Hai, more sake…”. I like cooking with sake too.

And food! A hungry man’s dream. I had that tonkatsu bento – crisp panko on the outside, tender pork on the inside… sided with tamago, and sliced kyuri and pickled renkon… and miso soup with wakame and silken tofu. Wow. I told you, Japanese food can’t be wiped away by declines of human civilization…

Aww…. Japanese visa…hmmm…

Ok, post lunch, we head around here- a small peek at the backdoors of Little Tokyo…

- before we proceed to Cartimar, which is really a whole strip of Japanese groceries.

Hai, there are many Japanese groceries around here, and one just differs so greatly from the other. I suggest, take a look here yourself


NEW HATCHIN TRADING 7602 Sacred Heart St., cor metropolitan ave., san antonio vill. Makati 890-5038/ 890-1649/ 897-7207 #6 Cartimar Plaza, Pasay 833-8905/ 834-1384


DARUMAYA #5 Cartimar Plaza, Pasay 831-0114

ASUKA TRADER INC #7 Cartimar Plaza, Pasay
YAMAZAKI 2288 Dernando St., Pio del Pilar, Makati City 893-2162 - 6

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And last but never, ever the least, don’t forget to take home with you- Ninja Chips!