This year the first-ever LA Bloom festival in Little Tokyo is celebrating cherry blossoms, spring and Japanese culture. If you head over to Little Tokyo, creative director Hirokazu Kosaka and landscape architect Calvin Abe have transformed Noguchi Plaza in front of the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center into an ecoartspace. more ›

The Spice Table in downtown Los Angeles' Little Tokyo is a welcome distraction from the neighborhood's Japanese food. The restaurant at the corner of 1st Street and Central Avenue combines Singaporean and Vietnamese flavors, the culinary heritages of chef and owner Bryant Ng and his wife Kim, respectively. more ›

It was a record-smashing result when Saturday's Day-Lee Foods' World Gyoza Eating Championship came to its gut-busting end. Competitor Patrick Bertoletti took top honors, after chowing down some 264 gyoza in a mere 10 minutes. Oof! more ›

A shocking video was released today by Los Angeles detectives of a daytime robbery that occurred on 1st Street between Los Angeles Street and San Pedro Street in Little Tokyo on June 24. A man is seen choking an elderly blind woman and robbing her of a gold chain and jade pendant, according to a news release. more ›

Two men were shot by a ski-masked gunman early Saturday morning "as they stood in front of The Vault XXI, a boutique lounge club in Little Tokyo," according to a LAPD news release. more ›

From the streets to, well, just one street, the Flying Pig Truck has announced they will be setting up shop in Little Tokyo with a permanent restaurant space. The Flying Pig Café is the truck's chef and owner Joe Kim's first brick-and-mortar endeavor, and is slated to open in June. more ›

An outbreak of tagging done recently at Metro's Little Tokyo Gold Line station appears to be linked to a graffiti exhibit running across the street at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. All of the tags were immediately painted over by Metro employees, according to LA Now. The Los Angeles Police Department say they have also been alerted about dozens of other tags that have shown up in the vicinity. more ›

The Levi's Film Workshop is on location this summer at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in downtown Los Angeles. Starting this past Sunday, filmmakers have access to screenings, equipment rentals, and state of the art editing equipment through the workshop. The screenings include the world premiere of Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a 3D documentary focused on cave paintings in the South of France; it premieres next Saturday at the Natural History Museum downtown. more ›

Across from Weller Court on Astronaut E S Onizuka street, is new, colorful store in Little Tokyo called Q Pop. Owner Chris Mitchell fills his pop wonderland with items from Japan, Thailand and Los Angeles that celebrate the cute, the groovy, and the kawaii. more ›

An octogenarian woman died last night after being deliberately pushed off a Gold Line platform an onto the tracks earlier in the day, reports KTLA. Betty Sugiyama, 84, was pushed off the Little Tokyo Metro station platform Sunday morning. Shortly after Sugiyama fell, another woman, Jackkqueline Pogue, 44, was taken into custody. Pogue will be charged with murder, says the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, though right now a motive for the crime is not clear. more ›

As plans and fundraising move forward to cap the 101 Freeway in Hollywood, a similar idea in downtown will take a step next month when Park 101 District organizers host a community meeting and open house. The event, which dovetails with the Downtown Art Walk is on May 13th from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Caltrans District 7 building. more ›

Last weekend in Little Tokyo at the Japanese Village Plaza, we were treated to a song and some philosophy by the one and only Arthur Nakane 1 Man Band. You may recognize this multi-talented performer from his appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live and America's Got Talent. We stayed to take in his rendition of "It's a Small World" and hear his pep talk to kids about the importance of being confident and studying hard.
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The much-awaited new Little Tokyo bar and restaurant, Lazy Ox Canteen, is scheduled to open on December 17th, reports Eater LA. With both owner Michael Cardenas (Matsuhisa, Sushi Roku) and Chef Josef Centeno (Meson G, Opus, Charles Nob Hill) at the helm, the restaurant is expected to be accessible and casual yet keeping that chic and upscale vibe. Think neighborhood joint for drinks and food, happy hours and late nights. more ›

As noted over the weekend, MOCA is offering free admission at their two downtown locations through Friday. The museum is celebrating thirty years by displaying their permanent collection through May 3rd. more ›

This past Sunday afternoon the Japanese Restaurant Association hosted the 10th annual Japanese Food Festival at the Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens in Little Tokyo. The event was a big draw for Japanese food and drink enthusiasts, and offered unlimited sushi, more ›

Considering the lines at Union Station yesterday, you would think there was a new death-defying adrenaline-inducing roller coster. That's not even close, but the excitement was just as intense, if not a lot more. more ›

An option for Metro's Regional Connector in downtown won't be officially chosen until sometime next year (probably summer or fall), but Little Tokyo community members are severely concerned over one of the proposals that would bring some major changes to the neighborhood. The regional connector would connect the Blue, Gold and Expo lines into a more seamless system. Trains would travel from Culver City to East LA and from Long Beach to Pasadena making Metro's rail system more efficient. Currently, the Blue Line and future Expo Line end at the 7th Metro Station and the Gold Line circumvents the eastside of downtown through Little Tokyo. more ›

Curbed LA has heard it twice now--Metro's Gold Line Eastside Extension between downtown LA and East LA will open in August. Little Tokyo UnBlogged took a safety walk with officials around the tracks and found that people had many concerns about crossings and signage: "The other questions that came up time and again were the lack of language-appropriate signage (some of the signs that were up did have Spanish translations). Many in the group expressed concerns over how local Japanese and Korean residents, most especially seniors, would be able to read the warnings." UPDATE: Metro says no firm date has been set. Read more here. more ›

You can see cherry blossoms in full bloom all over the Los Angeles area right now, but if you don't get your fill taking a stroll around Lake Balboa, you may want to head down to Little Tokyo today or tomorrow, because all weekend long they are celebrating via the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Soak up the vibrant colors of the delightful blooms while stepping into the Japanese culture. Enjoy live entertainment like Ondo Dancing, martial arts demos, music and singing, fashion, awards, and much more (full main stage schedule here). There's stuff for kids to take part in, the Japanese Cultural Pavilion, crafts and goods for sale, and food. more ›

If you're ever in the mood for great European street food, head to Little Tokyo. Yup, Spitz, "home of the Doner kebab" recently opened up its second location on 2nd Street amid kawaii boutiques and sushi restaurants. (It's original location is in Eagle Rock.) more ›

Nostalgia brought us to the door of Thousand Cranes in Little Tokyo. There was a time in the 80s when nightfall turned downtown LA into a wasteland dotted with random nightclubs and loft parties, It was a punk rock playground, inhabited by night owls, homeless people and junkies. One oasis in the sea of cement and alleyways was the New Otani Hotel. It never ceased to amaze us that a well-tended Japanese garden even existed on a rooftop in the center of vast nothingness. more ›

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Imagine a day when the Gold Line Eastside Extension to East LA and the Expo Line to Culver City are completed (2009 and 2010, respectively). But if you're traveling from Culver City to Little Tokyo, you'll have to take the Expo Line to the Red Line to the Gold Line. Headache, right? That's what Metro's Regional Connector project is seeking to fix. One possible goal, as the conceptual graphic above shows, is to have travelers commute between Pasadena and Long Beach or East LA and Culver City with no transfer. more ›

After 21 years of being a couple, George Takei and Brad Altman tied the knot at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo at their public wedding yesterday. They first made their appearance by stepping out together singing "One Singular Sensation" from "A Chorus Line" before entering a circle of yellow roses and lilies and sharing a traditional Japanese tea ceremony before being wed by a Buddhist priest. They exchanged their own vows and used Native American wedding bands proceeded by a bagpipe procession. more ›

For a larger view of the route image, click here more ›

We learned last year that the Tofu Festival had come to an end. Putting on the popular event demanded high resources with little financial gain. The Tokyo Service Center decided to end the annual event and concentrate on easier to do programs like the Springtime sake and food tasting event. more ›

If you've been waiting for the hype to die down and waiting for the crowds to thin before visiting the Lawrence Weiner retrospective, you've almost waited too long. Weiner's conceptual art show at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA ends on Monday and this weekend is your last chance to get in and see As Far As the Eye Can See before all those fancy words are stripped from the walls and floors and ceilings. more ›

In the earlier days of the frozen yogurt craze, Yogurtland sprung up in Fullerton in February 2006. It was a success and so more stores opened in Hollywood, Long Beach, Little Tokyo, Sherman Oaks and many other Southern California locations and one in Cupertino up north. They even opened a location in Greenwich Village in New York City with plans for Vegas, Hawaii and Texas. more ›

Today, Metro announced that the Gold Line East Extension is 80% completed. But don't think that means you'll be riding into Little Tokyo and out to East LA by the end of this summer. Metro has always conceded that project will by done by the end of 2009, yet construction is now almost six months ahead of time. That means it could open in the summer of '09 if all goes well with the remaining 20%. Keep your fingers crossed. more ›