Blind Woman's Curse

By Dennis Dermody

Watched one of the most bizarre, wildest, Japanese 1970s exploitation cult classic last night: Blind Woman's Curse (www.discotekmedia.com). It stars Quentin Tarantino favorite Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Female Convict Scorpion) as a crime boss who has to defend her clan from a vengeful blind swordswoman. But there are all these crackpot horror elements thrown in -- a freakshow carnival, a creepy hunchback, girls skinned alive, a blood-drinking cat, an opium den filled with naked prostitutes and lots of blood-spraying sword battles. Directed by the notorious Teruo Ishi (Female Yakuza Tale, Horror of Malformed Men), it's macabre and madly entertaining.

Posted Jul. 4, 2007,

Restaurant of the Week: Ushi Wakamaru

By PAPERMAG Editors

Having irrationally concluded that Manhattan restaurants located on major east-west thoroughfares offer substandard fare, I initially dismissed Ushi Wakamaru as just another takeout joint I might order from once, be immediately disappointed in, then thereafter ignore entirely. The downstairs space has nothing to recommend it, style-wise: Painted institutional green, lit harshly and looking every bit like a discount nail salon, it's outshone by better-designed neighbors Tomoe Sushi, Yama and even Koo Sushi. But Ushi Wakamaru far outclasses all of those restaurants and is on par with the finest Japanese eateries in the city. In fact, chef Hideo Kuribara's food is so good he could be serving it from a hot-dog cart inside a Penn Station barbershop and still earn a loyal following. The menu (which just recently expanded to include English explanations of the Japanese specials) includes plenty of funky fish, which make great raw eating: Among the must-tries are sayori (needlefish), kinme (a fatty sort of red snapper) and the anago (tenderly cooked baby sea eel that here achieves about the same level of wonderful as that dish does at Blue Ribbon Sushi). Appetizers like the herring-roe cake, peeled eggplant soup, and the enoki mushroom and sake-marinated scallops (which arrive Flintstones-style, cooking in a clamshell on top of their own tabletop stone barbecue) look fascinating and taste even better. But stick with the sushi specials, and you'll see what I mean. 136 W. Houston St., (212) 228-4181. Jonathan Durbin

Photo from Food Candy

Posted Apr. 2, 2007,

The Japanese Take on the Age-old Passover Conundrum

By Carol Lee

It is so dead around the PAPER office today because it's the last day of deadline and most of the May issue has been shipped, not to mention that we have one person at jury duty. But we're also missing a couple of key players due to today being Passover a.k.a. the Festival of Unleavened Bread! The Japanese, ever so inventive and ingenious, have found the solution to the age-old problem: how to break a Matzo without making a crumbly mess. So move over Passover-lover and let the Japanese take over!!

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