Kelly Choi at SAKAYA

We were thrilled to receive a phone call from Kelly Choi, the host of WNYC’s "Eat Out New York" telling us that she wanted to come to SAKAYA to do an interview about “how to navigate a sake shop.”

As agreed, she arrived with her camera crew at 11AM on May 20 and two hours later, we had wrapped the session which was to be distilled down to a two-minute segment. It initially aired the following week (and may still be running…we’re not sure). Please click here to check it out for yourself.

Our hope is that we were able to create some new interest in premium sake and that we offered some advice to help make it a bit easier for viewers to explore and indulge themselves in the pleasures of this intriguingly complex beverage.

Wedding Anniversary

Our biggest question of the month of June is "what do we eat at our wedding anniversary?." Trying to save money due to the bad economy, we decided to stay home and cook for our special night.

We celebrated 4th year anniversary of our wedding on June 10. For this special occasion, Hiroko spent few days preparing the dinner for the night. We started with slices of seared beef tong, followed by two slices of homemade tofu accompanied by nice cold "Victory Prima" beer from Pennsylvania.


Now the dinner starts! Soup de jur was Spanish style Almond soup. Made with almond, cumin, saffron, it has mysterious flavors.

The dinner was followed by beef carapacio. She purchased beef from Japanese butcher on Great Jones Street. They have a machine to slice beef thinly for the sukiyaki beef, so they sliced the less marbled loin butt. She placed the beef on the plate and pour a hot consomme over the meat so that the meat will slowly cook from the liquid. She drizzled the sesame dressing for an additional flavor.

Our main course was two style of marinated tuna. Inspired by Maguro Zuke Don (marinated tuna on the rice) she read in Oishinbo comic book and red wine marinated tuna from a cookbook by Japanese wine sommelier Shinya Tazaki, she prepared the two type of tuna, one is marinated in soy sauce, and the other is marinated in wine and soy sauce mixture. For Japanese version, she made simple sushi rice, and for wine version, she mixed the rice with red wine reduction and red wine vinegar.

Lastly, our dessert was Green Tea Tofu Jelly. Using the soy milk Hiroko made for tofu and green tea powder she bought from Kajitsu, the Japanese vegetarian restaurant on 9th street, she mixed the soy milk, green tea powder, and sugar with kanten (agar agar) and gelatin. The green tea powder is such a good quality that the result of the jelly is very aromatic and intense.

Rick on Japanese TV

We were finally able to get the video of a Japanese news program on sake produced by TV Tokyo Network. It's about an 8-minute segment in Rick appears as a sake specialist in New York. The response to the show from people who saw it air in Japan was terrific. We received emails from several Japanese brewers asking us to carry their sake at our store and were visited by some others whose sake is not yet available in the U.S.

It is exciting to be recognized as ardent supporters of nihonshu by those whom we revere for creating and producing beautiful beverage!