{"id":15843,"date":"2010-12-30T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=15843"},"modified":"2010-12-30T00:48:31","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T04:48:31","slug":"japan-fix-tampa-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2010\/12\/30\/japan-fix-tampa-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan Fix: Tampa (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Steven Horowitz<\/strong><\/a> (Aichi-ken, 1992-94)<\/strong> and Lily Lam (Kagawa-ken, 2004-09)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

If you read the previous Japan Fix:\u00a0 Tampa<\/a><\/strong> post, then you know of some quality JET-recommended places in Tampa to get your Japan Fix on.\u00a0\u00a0 It turns out, however, there’s more to tell and Tampa is even Japanese-ier than previously thought.\u00a0 You just have to know where to look.\u00a0 (In our case, we were forced to look because the places listed in the previous Japan Fix:\u00a0 Tampa<\/em> post happened to be closed this past Monday thanks to the holidays.)<\/p>\n

So read on for Japan Fix:\u00a0 Tampa (Part 2)<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Japanese Food<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I Ai Sushi<\/strong> (as in, “I love sushi”) is a cozy Japanese restaurant with an izakaya section on their menu tucked away in a shopping mall on 33614 W. Waters Ave. that also features a Marshalls (aka America’s “Ito Yokado”) and an\u00a0Albertsons.\u00a0 Perhaps\u00a0the Japanese-iest touch of all is their business card which, in true Japanese fashion, includes a crude yet cute map of the mall with an arrow pointing to where the restaurant is located.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I had the good fortune to go with St. Petersburg native, uber-foodie\u00a0and\u00a0fellow alum Lily Lam (Kagawa-ken, 2004-09)<\/strong> who heard about the place from a friend whose mother happens to be Japanese.\u00a0 (Notably, Lily actually lives and works\u00a0in San Francisco these days.\u00a0 We only\u00a0got in touch when she responded for the JET-Sister City List Project<\/a><\/strong> and, in the course of e-mailing, we realized we would both be in the Tampa-St. Pete area for Christmas.)<\/p>\n

I Ai Sushi is owned by a Japanese couple who hail from Osaka and opened the restaurant about 3 years ago.\u00a0 Tasteful Japanese art on the walls is accented with a Hello Kitty clock as well as autographed photos of several Japanese ballplayers who have eaten there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We started with a bottle of warm sake.\u00a0 And perhaps the nicest thing about the sake was that rather than present us with a long list of detailed descriptions of sakes from all over Japan, they just brought us some decent sake.\u00a0 Somehow I found this lack of choice to be reassuringly\u00a0natsukashii<\/em>.\u00a0 (Remember lunch in your junior high schools?)<\/p>\n

From the izakaya menu we ordered gyoza (savory and yummy), kinpira gobo (which had a surprising and tasty kick to it), maguro yama kake (mountain potato with tuna sashimi–not commonly found in most U.S. Japanese restaurants) and, from the specials menu that night,\u00a0shishamo<\/em>, which are small,\u00a0batter-fried and very pregnant fish.\u00a0 According to Lily, this was a common feature of her school lunches.\u00a0 Somehow I made it all this time without ever being aware of their existence, due most likely to the fact that I’ve spent most of my life avoiding fish.\u00a0 However, given my vow this year to make efforts to expand my palate, I took a couple bites.\u00a0 Right in the belly.\u00a0 And you know, it wasn’t so bad.\u00a0 Especially with a little lemon on it.\u00a0 (Lily noted that in her school lunches, there was no fried batter and no lemon.\u00a0 Just rubbery pregnant fish.)<\/p>\n

These, of course, were just the warmup dishes, the mood setters.\u00a0 Because in the chilly (by Florida standards) 40 degree evening, we quickly discovered that the menu also featured various forms of nabe including sukiyaki, which we both ordered.\u00a0 They let us cook it right at our table.\u00a0 The beef was Japanese-thin and nicely marbled.\u00a0 The veggies were exactly what they were supposed to be.\u00a0 And the broth had that sweet-salty flavor that brought back memories of my first sukiyaki experience on a cold day in a friend’s unheated home gathered round a kotatsu<\/em> with school colleagues.<\/p>\n

I knew enough to request a couple\u00a0raw eggs (since American health codes prohibit restaurants from offering raw eggs on their menu).\u00a0 And we were in business chowing down and exchanging stories of JET days past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And for a final Japanese touch, they brought us (un-ordered) a dessert of grapes, hand-whipped cream and choux creme\/\u30b7\u30e5\u30fc\u30af\u30ea\u30fc\u30e0filled with vanilla ice cream all on a plate.\u00a0 A very nice finish to the meal.<\/p>\n

With our bellies full of washoku<\/em> and a bit of nihonshu<\/em>, it was of course time for….<\/p>\n

Karaoke<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

After searching Google Maps and Yelp on our iPhones, it was determined that the best karaoke options would be Korean noreban<\/em> (i.e.,\u00a0karaoke box) \u00a0joints.\u00a0 Tampa Karaoke<\/strong> was the obvious choice, but one Yelp review mentioned something about gero<\/em> in one of the rooms.\u00a0 So first we checked out One Family Korean Restaurant and Karaoke<\/strong> on 7030 West Hillsborough Ave.\u00a0 It was a bit hard to find at first along the commercial strip, but sure enough there was a Korean market, restaurant and karaoke place all in one warehouse-like looking building.\u00a0 Unfortunately for us they were all closed.<\/p>\n

Tampa Karaoke it would be.\u00a0 And it was actually not so bad.\u00a0 Slick, chi-chi, high class and newly renovated are all words I would not use to describe the establishment.\u00a0 But the young Korean-American guy at the desk was very friendly.\u00a0 And the price was right at $25 per hour for a room.\u00a0 It’s also\u00a0worth noting that this is a BYOB place (like Bar Toto<\/strong> in Korea Town in NYC), which is great\u00a0if you happen to know about it in advance (which we didn’t).<\/p>\n

We asked if there were Japanese songs in the books and were told that indeed there were.\u00a0 We eventually found them, however they were organized by song title only which made it a bit hard to search.\u00a0 That inconvenience, however, was mooted by the fact that we could only find 2 or 3 songs that we actually knew.\u00a0 And we decided to fault that partly to our own limited J-Pop knowledge and partly to Tampa Karaoke’s limited selection.<\/p>\n

Getting into specifics, I was able to find “Kampai” (Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi) and “Kimi Ga Iru Dake” (Kome Kome Club).\u00a0 But\u00a0no\u00a0“Ashita Ga Aru” or “Banzai” or any other songs by Ulfuls (aka Japan’s answer to Hootie and the Blowfish).\u00a0 Lily, meanwhile,\u00a0found “Sakura” (Kobukuro),\u00a0a well-known sappy graduation song as well as “Life is a Boat” (Rie Fu).\u00a0 (Though she regretted not finding “Tegami” by Angela Aki.)\u00a0 Sore demo<\/em>, we ended on a good note with that Japanese standard, “Take Me Home Country Road” (Jo-n Den-ba).<\/p>\n

We realize there is more Japan\u00a0to explore in the Tampa-St. Pete’s area.\u00a0 But it may just have to wait until next Christmas.\u00a0 However, given that I’m currently “stuck” in Florida due to the Blizzard of 2010 and can’t get a flight back to NYC until Sunday, January 2, I’ve decided to head east in search of more JET-ventures.\u00a0 So stay tuned for….<\/p>\n

Japan Fix:\u00a0 Del Ray Beach & Miami!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tell us where JETs should go in your area to get their Japan Fix. E-mail jetwit [at] jetwit.com<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Steven Horowitz (Aichi-ken, 1992-94) and Lily Lam (Kagawa-ken, 2004-09) If you read the previous Japan Fix:\u00a0 Tampa post, then you know of some quality JET-recommended places in Tampa to get your Japan Fix on.\u00a0\u00a0 It turns out, however, there’s more to tell and Tampa is even Japanese-ier than previously thought.\u00a0 You just have to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[119,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan-fix","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-47x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15843"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15851,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15843\/revisions\/15851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}