Has anyone else been following the great Japanese cooking feature in this week’s AJC? The gist of the articles is an exploration of umami, the “fifth taste” which features heavily in Japanese cooking.

“My mom says that taste when you eat clear soup, and it’s mmmm, so good, that’s umami,” says Obunai, the Japanese chef who owns Repast with her husband, Joe Truex. Obunai’s mother, who lives in Tokyo, loves to send her daughter newspaper clippings about how chefs and food writers throughout the world are suddenly keen to this taste that Japanese home cooks have known for centuries.

The articles’ almost pornagraphic sushi descriptions have been gradually invading my mind, begging me to indulge in anything and everything Japanese.

If, like me, you can’t afford the restaurants described in the AJC’s reviews, you might want to check out tonights showing of “Samurai Saga” at the high museum, or tune in to WRAS-88.5‘s Nippon Music Champ on Sunday as a cheap alternative to that $70 sushi dinner.