For over 29 years, the Little Tokyo Service Center has been an important resource for the residents of Little Tokyo. The LTSC is a nonprofit organization serving Asian and Pacific Islanders throughout Los Angeles County who are in need, especially those facing language or cultural gaps, financial need, or physical disabilities.
Their yearly Sake event not only functions as a fundraiser, but also allows them to expose the community to Sake brewers direct from Japan along with Asian restaurants and food providers.
In it’s third year, this year’s theme was Mystery of Sake: Jizake Investigation to go along with the CSI exhibit at the California Science Center. Two floors of unlimited Sake and food, plus like DJ music and a silent auction. What made this particular event interesting is that all Sake featured was Jizake.
Two floors of Sake goodness at the California Science Center.
Jizake is unique, where it’s small batch and hand crafted, making a fine artisan Sake. There were about 40 types of Sake to taste and compare. Most were available at Whole Foods (one of the event sponsors), or only sold in restaurants.
We moved through the various Sake vendors. My favorite from the evening was the Kubota Manjyu that is a Junmai Daiginjyo, semi-dry Sake from the Niigata region on Japan. Unfortunately it’s only available in restaurants as far as I know, but I did manage to find a bottle of it online for about $100.
Food was provided by Empress Pavillion, Maison Akira, Rock’n Fish, Good Girl Dinette, Roy’s, Sushi Chef Institute, Japon Bistro, Feast From the East, and some grocery products from vendors like Mishima, Marukome, Cold Mountain Miso, Melissa’s, and Takaokaya. But like a lot of these events have been recently, the vendors ran out of food early, and we weren’t able to try several of them. I’d also like to see more restaurants from Little Tokyo participating, as most of them were not from that direct community.
Sake is made from four ingredients, rice, water, Koji, and yeast. Sake rice has a higher starch concentration than your normal table rice. The unique mold known as Koji, is used to convert that rice starch into sugar and finally, the yeast is used to convert sugar into alcohol.
Sakes flavor is determined by three main elements. First it’s acidity, the higher the acidity, the drier the Sake. Next is Nihonshu-do, which indicates its sweetness and dryness. Finally is Seimaibuai, or the polishing ratio, which determines the sake grade. The water used in the sake also affects the flavor. Harder water yields “hard” or masculine Sake and soft water yields “softer” and more feminine Sake.
I came away with a much better awareness of Sake, how it’s made, and how the various Sakes differ from each other. And even though I was lucky enough to attend the event for free, it’s worth checking out if you can afford the $60 entrance fee. This is my second one in three years, and it’s a great event for a great cause. For more events and news follow the LTSC on twitter. Full photo set from the night can be seen here.
4. May 2009 at 9:27 am
I just got back from three weeks in Japan and this looks really, really cool, but $60 with no guarantee of even getting any food is a bit steep.
4. May 2009 at 9:37 am
There was food, but by the time I got around to a few of them they were out of food by 9, although it was supposed to go until 9:30. The best thing is to get there as soon as it starts so you do get to try everything.