Sakaya NYC Blog

We were very happy to see the Daily News (1/24/10) include SAKAYA in their two-page spread  shopping guide to Little Tokyo in New York’s  East Village.

We were delighted that our  SAKAYA Sake Club drew the attention of  Daily Candy which decided to include it in their 18 Last Minute Gifts list today.  So far, the response has been an impressive demonstration of their pulling power!

Click here to see their site.

We’re delighted to be mentioned in the November 2009 issue of Food & Wine magazine.  Early last Spring when Dana Cowin, the editor of F&W, asked us to be her Japanese food guides, we were happy to introduce her to our favorite Japanese restaurant, Kyoya in the East Village.

In traditional Japanese style, we ordered a variety of dishes from vegetables to fish to meat.  With Hiroko acting as interpreter, Chef Chikara Sono graciously took the time to answer Dana’s questions, as she carefully inspected the ingredients in each dish, even making notes on their colors as displayed on the plate.

Dana and Rick have known each other since they both joined Food & Wine in 1994 (she as the Executive Editor and he as Associate Publisher).  Not only was it fun to assist in the development of the story, it was also a  pleasure to sit down and share some incredible  food with an old friend.

To read the entire story, please click here.

Rick and Hiroko in Food & Wine November 2009

We are delighted that SAKAYA was included in Time Out New York’s cover story on the East Village.  Rick is featured in “Why the East Village?” by Pervaiz Shallwani.

We are delighted that the August issue Gourmet Magazine features Ume no Yado Yuzu-shu as one of their “Good Living Obsessions” and notes SAKAYA exclusively as the place to buy it!  We couldn’t agree with them more on this refreshing beverage as the perfect summer aperitif.   Please drop by and pick up a bottle, you’ll be glad you did.

We were thrilled to receive a phone call from Kelly Choi, the host of WNYC’s “Eat Out NYC” telling us that she wanted to come to SAKAYA to do an interview about “how to navigate a sake shop.”

As agreed, she arrived with her camera crew at 11AM on May 20 and two hours later, we had wrapped the session which was to be distilled down to a two-minute segment.   It initially aired the following week (and may still be running…we’re not sure).  Please click here to check it out for yourself.

Our hope is that we were able to create some new interest in premium sake and that we offered some guidance to help make it a bit easier for viewers to explore and enjoy this exquisite beverage.

SAKAYA on Eat Out New York

We are very excited to have been included in the 1/7/09 Washington Post Style section article, In NY, a Yen for Japanese Shop (registration at washingtonpost.com is required)!

Please check it out online or in print (if you’re a subscriber or live in the DC Metro area).

We are tremendously excited about the “Destination: Sake” feature about SAKAYA in the June 2008 issue of Travel + Leisure. Thanks to the recommendation of our friend Lynn, we were selected by John Hancock Financial Services to be written about as part of their “Pivotal Conversations” campaign recognizing people who have achieved their dreams with the aid of a key advisor (in our case, our friend, sake expert John Gauntner.

If you’d like to read it and don’t have access to the issue, you can check out the piece here…. Travel & Leisure June 2008 Destination Sake.　　 And, if you think that picture in the story was a quick snapshot, below are some pictures of the photo shoot that produced it!

Kanpai!

During our first week, we were honored to have Daimon-san from Daimon Brewery, producer of Mukune Junmai Ginjo and Tozai Honjozo and Nigori, come to visit us… along with an NHK Osaka camera crew! Within four days of having opened, we were welcoming one of western Japan’s most esteemed brewers. His visit was the focus of an NHK-TV (Japanese Government owned television network) documentary on the growing interest in sake in the U.S. It was particularly ironic for Daimon-san to be our first visitor from a sake brewery as it was his brewery that we first visited on our initial trip to Japan two years ago! It seemed perfectly natural that things had come full circle.

We thank the ever vigilant Grub Street for their latest post and for their patient, persistent coverage of the extended birth of our shop. And, by offering a bit more information about our sake, along with some tasting, we promise to make it easier to remember your favorites, both new and old!

Kanpai!

Read about Sakaya on Grub Street