Omusubi House

"In a small storefront in Roma Norte, Omusubi House's husband and wife team, Ichiro Kitazawa and Varia Gonzáles Manuel work side-by-side in a miniscule kitchen, cupping steamed rice into palm-sized balls. They sink sauteed sweet potato into the omusubi which are speckled like confetti with purple and wild rice, a marriage of Mexican ingredients and Japanese technique. They met while working at a Japanese restaurant years back when Mexico City was still called DF, the federal district. He had arrived ten years earlier by way of Osaka, as a hippy backpacker intent on photographing Latin America but fell into cooking; and she, from Puebla. “Omusubi translates to tying up or to bring together” Kitazawa explains, “which is how we wrap the rice”—and a sound metaphor for the forging of connections between their two countries. The shop, which opened at the end of 2021 started as pandemic-propelled business after a test-run in a tianguis, the open-air bazaars that pop up on specific days of the week throughout Mexico. Their selection of omusubi flavors rotate throughout the week with other small Japanese dishes. Like their umeboshi, which uses the small red plums that proliferate here during the springtime, their mackerel is cured in house, its silky flesh tightened with rice vinegar and ginger. Kitazawa and Gonzáles refer to some of their rice creations as “sushi de campo'' or “countryside sushi” to reflect their rustic, vegetable-focused approach. You are likely to find brocolini seasoned with kombu and salt from Zapotitlán, pressed like flowers into the rice and hoja santa, the licorice-y Mexican leaf, used as a fragrant wrap. Recently they have outfitted a bright red flat-bed tricycle, those most often used by mobile tamale vendors to pedal their soulful dishes around the neighborhood, in perfect, Mexican ambulatory fashion." - Scarlett Lindeman