Yuzu Kitchen to open July 4.

Yuzu Kitchen, a ramen and robata restaurant in planning since April 2016, will open downtown on July 4, according to its most recent Facebook post. A March Next Pittsburgh article described the restaurant thus:

Located in the heart of the business district on Wood St., Yuzu Kitchen will feature ramen dishes, tapas-style appetizers and robata grill items. Robata (short for “robatayaki”) in Japanese cuisine is similar to food barbecued on skewers. The menu will feature food with influences from Japanese, Chinese and Korean cuisines.

Yuzu Kitchen will be open from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm on July 4. It's located at 409 Wood St. downtown (map).

Pitt hiring student worker for East Asian Library.

The University of Pittsburgh's East Asian Library is hiring a part-time student worker this summer to serve as a library assistant.

The university of Pittsburgh is currently seeking a Library Assistant. The responsibilities of a Library Assistant include:
- Help with instruction, and LibGuide creation.
- Help with Chinese and Korean collection
- Help with the East Asian Gateway services as needed.
- Local shifting of East Asian Library (EAL)Stacks
- Help EAL projects
- Other work as needed.

Knowledge of Korean and Chinese is required, according to the posting. Those interested should apply via PittSource.

Korean movie The Way Home (집으로) at Carnegie Library in Oakland, July 2.

The 2002 Korean film The Way Home (집으로) will play at the Carnegie Library's Main Branch in Oakland on July 2 as that month's installment of the International Cinema Sunday series.

Ariba hiring bilingual Chinese-English Procurement Operations Specialist for overnight position.

Pittsburgh-based Ariba is again hiring a bilingual Chinese-English Procurement Operations Specialist for an 8:00 pm to 5:00 am shift. An excerpt from the job posting:

The Customer Support Specialist is the face and voice of Ariba to our customers, building relationships in each interaction. Specialists help our customers maximize the benefits of Ariba solutions to facilitate a global exchange of goods and services in the world’s largest business to business trading community. They use their expertise and collaborate with team members and customers across the globe to provide detailed solutions that exceed expectations.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Provides inbound application and functional support for all relevant Ariba applications, both internally and externally, by way of email, webform and phone.
• Resolves 80% of issues without escalation.
• Respond to customer inquiries in a timely manner and within service level objectives.
• Successfully documents all requests through the CRM system while adhering to all documented procedures.
• Provides general assistance to other teams within Global Customer Support and Ariba.
• Conducts all customer interactions in a manner that presents Ariba in a positive light. Specialists are required to be respectful, fair, gracious and knowledgeable and to uphold the core values established by Ariba.
• Ensures that individual performance meets or exceeds the department standards.
• All other duties as assigned.

Additional details and application information are available on the SAP website.

Sweet Panda Asian Market coming soon to South Side.

NextPittsburgh profiles Noi Chaisri, the owner of Thai Me Up and Sweet Panda Asian Market opening soon on the South Side.

Chaisri says it’s common for guests at Thai Me Up to ask where they can buy a particular ingredient used in their cooking, and until now, she would send them across town. It didn’t take long for her to decide that it made more sense to open her new storage space to the public as a market.

Sweet Panda will stock mostly Thai products alongside some Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean and Filipino fare. Expect to find fresh lemongrass and basil alongside specialty soy sauces, purple yams, vegan tofu and other hard-to-find items.

Sweet Panda will also sell prepared meals, “like an Asian version of GetGo,” laughs Chaisri. They’ll open early so customers can pick up Thai beef jerky with sticky rice for breakfast, or snag some ginger chicken for supper on the way home. They’re also thinking of offering some curries that aren’t on the menu next door.

Sweet Panda will open later this summer at 114 S. 23rd St., next to her restaurant (map).

Japanese rock band Boris (ボリス) in Pittsburgh, October 27.

Advance notice for Boris (ボリス) playing at Mr. Smalls Theater on October 27. Boris---which has tried to eschew labels but has been labelled heavy metal and experimental rock---will tour Europe and the US later this year for its 25th Anniversary Tour. The Pittsburgh City-Paper summarized Boris ahead of a 2007 show here:

Three Japanese musicians merge into one pure vacuum of rock influence by absorbing every hyphenated, italicized and marginalized genre. Atsuo (drums), Wata (guitar) and Takeshi (bass) have fashioned a stellar compass of sounds since they first coalesced in 1992. Boris affords its members a sort of artistic invisibility, a singular tri-dentity capable of boundless experimentation. Last names are always withheld and song credits littered with intentional errors to further dissociate the music from its makers.

Tickets for the October 27 show go on sale June 30. Mr. Smalls Theatre is located at 400 Lincoln Ave. in Millvale (map).

George Takei to speak at Pitt, October 17; musical film Allegiance on October 15.

Via @georgehtakei

The University of Pittsburgh will host activist, actor, and author George Takei on October 17 as the keynote speaker of this year's International Education Week.

With a career spanning five decades, George Takei is known around the world for his founding role in the acclaimed television series Star Trek, in which he played Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the Starship Enterprise. But George Takei's story goes where few stories have gone before. From a childhood spent with his family wrongfully imprisoned in a Japanese American Internment Camp during WWII, to becoming one of the country's leading figures in the fight for social justice, LGBTQ rights, and marriage equality—George Takei remains a powerful voice on issues ranging from politics to pop culture.

On Sunday, October 15th, the film adaptation of the musical Allegiance will play at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum. A symopsis of the film, from the musical's website:

Allegiance illuminates one of American history’s lesser known chapters as it tells the story of Sam Kimura (Takei), transported back nearly six decades to when his younger self (Telly Leung, Godspell, “Glee”) and his sister Kei (Tony Award®-winner Lea Salonga, Miss Saigon, Mulan) fought to stay connected to their heritage, their family and themselves after Japanese Americans were wrongfully imprisoned during World War II. An important story told with great resonance and intimacy, Allegiance explores the ties that bind us, the struggle to persevere and the overwhelming power of forgiveness and, most especially, love.

Both events will begin at 7:00 pm, though tickets are not yet available.

Japanese-English Reading Circle in Shadyside, from July 1.

The Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania's Japanese-English Reading Circle will begin again with a new series of six meetings from July 1 at Kenmawr Apartments in Shadyside.

Join us for the Japanese-English Reading Circle, a first of its kind reading group!

Mission: to promote language learning through reading and language exchange. We aim to keep positivity and motivation high while developing reading fluency, vocabulary, content discussion, and reading strategies in a fun, collaborative environment.

Meetings: will consist of icebreaker language games, discussions about book topics, questions about language, formation of reading goals, and reading strategy sharing/reflection

Who can join: Japanese learners of English or English-speaking learners of Japanese. Any proficiency level is okay, although it would help to have at least beginner level knowledge of the second language you are studying.

Cost: $5 book deposit to be reimbursed upon return of all borrowed books. Please consider donating to offset the cost of promotion and snacks.

The meetings are held every other Saturday from July through September from 5:00 to 6:30 pm. The apartment complex at 401 Shady Ave. (map) has a large number of Japanese residents who work and study in the city, and often hosts cultural events for its international residents.

Another way to beat the heat in Pittsburgh: bingsu at Sumi's Cakery.

NextPittsburgh this week published 12 ways to beat the heat this summer. A glaring omission is the multiple bingsu⸺빙수, shaved ice⸺varieties at Sumi's Cakery, the Korean bakery in Squirrel Hill. The best-known kind is patbingsu (팥빙수), a Korean summer dessert made with red beans (pat, 팥), fruit, shaved ice (bingsu, 빙수), and occasionally ice cream. Pictured above, from Sumi's Facebook page, is black sesame shaved ice (흑임자빙수) with almonds and injeolmi (인절미빙수) shaved ice, made with bean powder and topped with almonds.

Sumi's Cakery is located at 2119 Murray Ave. in Squirrel Hill (map).

Fukumenya / Noodle Uchi to close on June 23 as Sushi Fuku moves in.

Fukumenya, the build-your-own-ramen restaurant on Craig St. in Oakland formerly known as Noodle Uchi, announced on Facebook today that it will close tomorrow, June 23. Its space will be taken by Sushi Fuki, the neighboring restaurant with the same owner.




Noodle Uchi opened in November 2016 at 415 S. Craig St. (map), in what used to be Maximum Flavor Pizza Shop.