Momofuku Love in Japan

I'm not sure if you know about my obsession with David Change and his Momofuku empire...if not, refer back to here, here, here and here. My sister gave me the BEST (and only by the way...that's right, I received ONE Christmas present this year...and it was in January...do I sound bitter?!) Christmas gift a girl (like me) could ask for - an autographed copy of the Momofuku cookbook. Voila!

Full disclosure, I knew this gift was coming and I asked her before she went to his book signing, to ask him to write down some food recommendations in Tokyo, since, like a stalker, I knew that he had lived here once. David Chang's advice?

"Get lost in Nakano + Ogikubo  best spots for eats."

Ok! So we did get lost in Ogikubo a few weekends ago and we did stumble upon some great finds. I had a soy bean donut (sounds gross, but it was very tasty) and yummy keiten sushi. I hear Nakano is supposed to be pretty cool, so we'll be heading there sometime soon.

The cookbook itself is pretty bitchin'. I mean, it has all the staple Momofuku recipes in it, but to be honest, I'm probably not going to ever make my own ramen and I definitely will never have a need to recreate the Ko Caviar egg. What is cool about the book is the story he tells about his journey to where he is now. He talks a lot about living in Japan and his obsession with noodles and ramen. Since I live here, that part is particularly interesting. I guess maybe if you don't know about the Momfuku hype, the book is kind of whatevs, but I love it. I tried one of the more accesible recipes, the spicy pork and rice cakes, a few weeks ago and it was BLOWWWINYOFACEZOMGSOOOOOGOOOD. No seriously. Licked the pot clean in under an hour. If you have the book, I recommend trying this one out first since it will stock your kitchen with the ingredients you need for all the other stuff.

PS - I just read that Christina Tosi, the pastry chef for Ko and Momofuku Milk Bar is working on a Milk Bar cookbook. Courtney, if you're reading this, that's what I want for Christmas next year.