Ramen fever has hit an all-time high in Los Angeles and now a Japanese cultural program called Common Grains is coming to town for a food-centered educational series of events led by cookbook writer and sobra-expert Sonoko Sakai.
Common Grains is a scrumptious collaboration between Japan’s rice giant, Shinmei, and the Japanese government’s own cultural awareness program. It is set to kick off on January 10 in Los Angeles’ with an onigiri(savory, nori-covered rice balls) contest. It will be at Downtown’s Japanese American National Museum from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is completely free for the public.
Sakai also plans to open a soba pop-up at BreadBar, following by the opening of a Torrance restaurant.
If you’re in the Los Angles area from January 10 through 19 Sakai will be joined by soba chef and Mori server Mutsuko Soma at Century City’s BreadBar, where the two will join forces to host a ten-day sake bar and soba restaurant. The restaurant will highlight hand-made, freshly stoned and milled buckwheat noodles using ingredients and garnishes. They will also be serving a specialty grilled onigiri along with other items for $11 – $16 items. This pop-up will be open from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
Subsequent events from Common Grains will go through February such as soba workshops at Mitsuwa Torrance, a soba bar at Atwater Crossing in Torrance, a screening of a Common Grains film and finally a new soba-based restaurant opening in Torrance, coming from the team at Shinmei.
