ASK STEVE SHASTA ANYTHING SERIOUSLY DUDES

Never eaten but looks like generic nu-Japanese. Chefs are ex-Nobu.

45RPM

a+ jeans would not wash again but seriously cheapest pair were $300+ or distressed for ~$450 ooohhh man

in japan they're about 60% of the price of the NYC stores. they have to pay a heavy duty to import them here.

to 45rpm's credit, they are OBSESSED with the quality of cotton they use so while a new pair may look/feel similar to something you've seen, after a few years is when you really get to see and feel the difference. I have a 4 year old pair of Aihiku (which are any more, basically a predecessor to Jomon model) and they are incredibly dye-rich and soft (and have been rinsed three times but they still look like one-washes).

cozwn,

i ebay'd a coat and 2 dress shirts and after ebay/paypal/shipping it wasn't a huge profit.

sshasta

steve,

the prices you quote for sugar cane are like half of what i paid ... is that the import duty?

also, there's a new school of thought that you should wash your canes once a month. what do you think of that?

v

s. shasta,

a) http://blueingreensoho.com/site/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/da730d2da22374b68b2c2b4c9a2951a3.jpg

b) http://blueingreensoho.com/site/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/5c7be829fc300acc28ef7941adee66cd.jpg

c) http://rby45rpm.com/shopping/enlarge.php?imagename=denim%2Fd0308R01_large.jpg

okay i can't get c to work they're the Sorahiko '08 from 45rpm of the brands you suggested those were the ones i could find that i liked best.

what is b)

mj2b - they're pure blue japan XX-006 raw:

Pure Blue Japan
XX-006
Neo Vintage Style
Unwashed / Shrink To Fit
Pure Indigo
13.5 ounce Japanese Selvage Denim
100% Cotton
Made In Japanm

from here in NYC

i'm not steve shasta, but if i were you, and i were a much more disciplined person than i am right now, i would save up my money and get 45 rpm jomons.

i'm not a very disciplined person, though, so i have three pairs of sugar canes instead of one pair of 45 rpms

steve-o

you ever get to an "awkward phase" around 4 or 5 washes when your jeans look all "royal blue" mom jeans color instead of indigo? how do you get from there to cool and washed out without going crazy from wearing such a weird color?

sorry for lagging on this guys.

a) are the PBJ AI-001XXs... I can spot those anywhere. Bleached fill/weft threads as you can see on the rear yoke. These are AMAZING jeans... basically hand woven from extremely coarse yarn (19 oz.) which give them incredible character. Incredible dye-job on these too and will wear beautifully (100% vegetable indigo aizome dyeing). Great contrast pop stitching as well. The chainstitching is pretty epic on these too. I think the only fault that I personally have with this jean is the rise is pretty low, at least on the pair that I own which is towards the higher end of the size scale (34")... not sure if that is true of the smaller sizes.

b) I've never seen. I should call Gordon and Yuji and see what's up.

c) Sorahiko's are more premium than anything... yarns crafted from A+ high-grade Zimbabwe long-staple supima cotton, exotic dye-ing process and the finishing on 45rpm garments are always authentic and true to form. These definitely lack the immediate character that the PBJAi001XXs have but every 45rpm garment (jeans, shirts, coats, tees) have shown incredible resiliency against hard-wear and laundering. The Nando-Nando's are famous for still being deep indigo after 100s of washes. It's a great "quality" jean, but it's not so trendy... 45rpm is more niche than trendy... ie, they do more business uptown east than in Soho for their 2 american stores.

vahid,

1) yeah i talked about the duty upthread
2) what kind of detergents are you using? i'm probably not the right person to be talking about laundering of jeans, just saying... but basically indigo is not a very colorfast dye and cotton yarn of which denim is weaved from does not retain dye well either... so jeans are sort of destined to revert back to a natural state which is why they look so cool after time.

but the best way to keep the dye in the jeans would be eiher:
a) use that sugar-cane detergent
b) don't wash your jeans

I don't think I've ever washed any of my sugarcanes to be honest! lol

i'm not so concerned about losing dye; i just hate that intermediate phase between the raw denim look and the hard-washed look.

wash that shit some more then
nobody said you gotta wear it in between baths

v, could be your detergent seriously. be wary of a lot of those "brighteners" and such which are just chemical filters.

ss

i ended up getting 45 rpms

eek, do you know anybody in japan?

ummm no???

wtf shasta now i feel like i made a huge mistake!

just trying to save you some dough dawg!

Steve Shasta,

Is there any more room for me in those jeans?

no

This thread is weird. So much jean talk.

there used to be more and I deleted it. lol.

Do I look fat in these jeans? Be honest.

you are a beanpole dude.

Just what I wanted to hear. ;)

Sorahikos or Sorahiko Slims? (assuming I can find the latter)

I need something lighter, my Iron Heart 634s are going to be way too hot to wear even at night soon, and I don't really like the cut of my Sugar Cane 1947s they seem very baggy for a 501-style even though the waist is spot on. I probably should have bought one size smaller and suffered.

what size are your 47s

47s are very anti-fit and have a super saggy butt no matter what. from the pics i've seen i really don't think it looks right when people try to size their 47s down, they just look crammed into too-small pants.

Steve, I just moved to the Richmond District and there are six million sushi joints around here. Are any of them any good?

Alex in SF

PS, we went to My Tofu House last night. It was great!

Wow, did you get a good deal?

Lots of sushi in the Richmond but it can be pretty hit or miss. Lots of untrained chefs doing the fusion thing which can be pretty :\ . That said:

+ Murasaki on 3rd & Clement is pretty good.
+ Shimo on 25th & Clement is also pretty good.
+ Okina on Arguello at Anza (I think) is cheap and authentic. Chef is kind of a weirdo.

But if you want to stretch the concept of "sushi" to Japanese food in general, your options increase quite a bit:

Tekka izakaya on 5th and Balboa is great although the "sushi" here is very unrefined style, called "butsugiri"... like, uh, roughly chopped blocks of fish with out any finesse or knife skill. The cooked food is AWESOME though but unfortunately most of the cooked specials are written on the board in Japanese which sucks. this place can get PACKED with a line out the door for hours.

Oyaji izakaya on 32nd & Clement is another izakaya (afterwork sake/beer drinking place to eat shared dishes) where you can choose between a deep menu of cooked food options and sushi. chef Hide gets infamously sauced and then carouses around the restaurant plying customers with sake. Oyaji means "old man" but also implies a bit of perversion to that and Hide does not disappoint in that department. He's a friend of a friend I used to work for so he knows I know a little Japanese and he proceeded to comment on the size of my then-girlfriend's breast size no less than three times throughout the evening, which I had to explain later when she asked what we were talking about. lol? :-\

Newer place that I really like is called Halu and is on 8th @ Clement and they specialize in kushiyaki (skewers)... yakitori you probably know, but they also serve Osaka-style kushikatsu (assorted fried skewered meats). They also serve don-don (uh... hmm, I want to say rice bowls but that just doesn't do it justice) and also a unexpectedly decent bowl of ramen.

Others:
My Tofu House is AWESOME. One of my alltime faves, esp when I'm feeling under the weather, ordering #1 extra spicy usually solves that problem.

PPQ (aka Pho Phu Quoc) Dungeness Crab Island. I have a lot of co-workers from LA, NYC, Europe and Asia who I have to entertain and this is the concensus go-to place. Get either the classic garlic roasted crab or the peppercorn crab and the garlic noodles and you are in business.

Muguboka @ 401 Balboa (had to google this because the name is not written in roman letters anywhere), really good, cheap Korean food. I haven't been here in a long time but I went with some regulars and I remember the menu was really deep.

Good Luck Dim Sum: CHEAP, quality dim sum. Like REALLY cheap. I can eat brunch here for $4 and be set for the day. Mostly take out but there's some rundown tables in the back.

Sanmi: kind of family style Japanese. Tried this place once. It was good.

Brothers: charcoal korean bbq.

Aziza: pretty romantic! gourmet mediterranean. good date place. ;-)

i've never been a fan of the sugar cane 1947s... they didn't get the yoke right on them compared to authentic 1947s. esp. once they are laundered, they "twist" in the seat which is pretty crazy. they should have sanforized prior to construction.

levi's 1947s are a great fit though. vahid, i think you are thinking of 1944s with the saggy butt? 47s are very snug. huge shift in pattern between those models.

"Wow, did you get a good deal?"

We did!

Thanks for the recs. I've been to a few of these and they are all excellent.

oh shit, i forgot about Mandalay... food is as good/better as burma super star and i've never had to wait.

That's def on my list already. I love BSS.

i crave the tea leaf salad and catfish chowder 24/7

Tea Leaf Salad is awesome. I feel like running a marathon after eating that shit.

just found out there's a burma superstar in alameda. stoked because we're in oakland all the time.

there's a tiny russian place on i think balboa around the corner from 5th that makes super good piroshkis (just looked it up. Cinderella Bakery)

yeah, my scrabble club house is right around the corner from there and someone usually grabs hella pieroshkis.

Scrabble club house?

haha, ie, the house where guy who hosts scrabble club lives.

Better not let Bugs Meany find out where it is!

steve shasta, i bought a pair of 501xx. how long (if at all) should i wear them before i can shrink them?

steve, where'd you end up last night? was hecka fun

Shrink to fit 501s (501xx, LVC, etc.) should be hot-soaked before wearing, or else they're going to fit like ass, and look funny once you do shrink them if there's any fading.

hey steve did you know that you can type "steve shasta" all with one hand!? pretty neat, huh?