Kerstin Baker-Ash

Ushiwakamaru: The Best Sushi In New York City - No, the WORLD!

I haven't really blogged about food here, mainly because the blog isn't about food. I'm still at the struggling-for-a-blog-definition between PPC/SEM and Working Mommy stuff, but I digress. This isn't about that. This is about the best sushi restaurant in New York City, possibly the world.

I was recently on business in New York, and after a long day it was decided that we'd look for a sushi place. Staying near Times Square, it didn't really make sense to try out any local sushi places; Times Square food is overpriced, poorly prepared and might taste fantastic to a tourist from Woonsocket, South Dakota. We're foodie snobs - Times Square was out.

Yelp to the rescue on a smart phone, and the third result gave an interesting, compelling review. We hopped in a cab and hightailed it to Greenwich Village/Soho (although it's on the north side of W Houston). Tucked away like a little, dimly lit bodega, it's almost like Ushiwakamura doesn't want to be found. Not that it needs to be - the place was hopping at 9pm. We were all thankfully very adventurous, and started picking and choosing things off the menu at random. I don't remember what half of the sushi or sashimi was called - it didn't matter, everything was fantastic, the tuna and needlefish sashimi in particular were so delicious it called for seconds. A smidgen of self restraint was the only thing keeping us from thirds, even after our bellies were full of gorgeous, delectable sushi delights.

And here follows what can only be described as sushi and sashimi food pornography. It's grainy because the cellphone camera isn't the best, but it kind of gives it that dirty, exciting feeling you can only get from watching sushi porn:

Talented sushi and sashimi chefs preparing our dinner. The curious gentleman on the left was picking up an order to go, and as he left he shouted "see you tomorrow". That's loyalty. And deep pockets.

I didn't eat all of the selection here, but I was told it was just as delicious as what I did eat. From left to right: monkfish liver, octopus and seaweed, red snapper roe.

This was the most delightful selection of the evening at Ushiwakamaru in New York: needlefish or sayori sashimi with real, mouthwatering wasabi.

Time for dessert: Zenzai, which is red beans, rice cakes, strawberries and vanilla ice cream. Fabulous!

A sidenote - Ushiwakamaru (牛若丸) was the childhood name of the famous Japanese warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune (源 義経). Next time I'm at Ushiwakamaru in New York City - and there will be a next time - I'll ask chef Hideo Kuribara the story behind the name.

Ushiwakamaru is nestled between Soho and Greenwich Village at 136 W Houston St., New York, NY 10012. Cross streets are MacDougal and Sullivan.

SES in the T-Dot

I'm baaaack... for my second time at Search Engine Strategies Toronto, that is. SES Toronto is one of my favorite conferences, not least because I don't feel self-conscious saying aboot and eh during a presentation. It's a smaller conference, which means you get access to some of the top search marketing practitioners in the field without having to wade through throngs of people to ask a question. The quality is also great; these are speakers which have spoken at international conferences and bring the same level of insight and search marketing motivation they would if it were a big conference.

Programmed by one of the industry's most intelligent and insightful minds, Andrew Goodman (who is a - ptew, ptew - Habs fan for those of you who would immediately scream fangirl), SES Toronto kicks off on Monday, June 8th with a keynote from Tara Hunt. Ms Hunt's Whuffie Factor, which gets props from Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales, discusses how to raise social capital in online communities and translate social capital to real, tangible profit.

My session, Internationalizing Your Campaigns and Sites, immediately follows the first keynote. I'll be speaking about pitfalls and ways around them for English-speaking markets. In a world that is seeing a sharp decline in sales and market confidence, it's not about the timing of expanding south of the border (or across one of the ponds) but how you choose to package your product to seemingly similar audiences.

I'm especially looking forward to the Geek Track (aside from my own session, which is in suit-and-tie corporateville). The Ins and Outs of Twitter and the Extreme Site Clinic look like great lineups - rockstars abound.

Aside from the conference, I get to take a trip to my hometown. I've been lucky so far this year; several trips back home have allowed me to stock up on all the Canadian essentials - Kraft Dinner, Swiss Chalet Sauce and Maple Oatmeal (and see my family as well). There are some great restaurants and sightseeing opportunities within spitting distance of the Sheraton Centre Toronto, where the conference is being held. I know the exchange rate isn't wonderful anymore, but the Hudson's Bay Company store within the Bay itself is great for Canadiana, and the Eaton Centre is just across the road.

If you plan on attending SES Toronto, drop your Twitter name in the comments and let's connect. See you in the T-Dot!

Coming Up...

Yeah, yeah. Promises, promises.

Trust me, if you had a full time job (which did not involve the tiniest bit of blogging), a mountain of actions and to-do lists and two conferences to prepare for, you'd be a little light in the blog updates. I'm not complaining - far from it. I like being busy, I like being kept on my toes. I just need to prioritize sometimes, and while I love writing... hey, my $2.16 waiting for me in AdSense won't pay the mortgage (or for my latté habit).

SMX was great - I had a really nice time catching up with old and new friends, and not-so-secretly believe that the panel I was on with Kate Morris and Guy Levine was the most entertaining and informative. Takeaways from the conference (I only attended the first day because of work commitments) were a push to get search at the front of mind of clients (even from a research perspective), a desire never to be in a sales pitch or tool demo at any conference (I was in two), and that nitty gritty search marketing techniques are still the way to go for meaningful testing and actionable results. 

What's next for me? SES Toronto, of course. I'll be in town from Sunday afternoon, so feel free to suggest coffee (remember the latté habit discussed above), geeking out about search or the best place for dumpling soup in Chinatown (there's only one, and it's splendiferous). I know I've rabbited on about a sneak peek for my panel on SES, so keep your eyes peeled this week for a preview.

Holiday Detour

The best laid plans and all that...

Really, we did have the best laid plans. We arrived in Philadelphia for our friend Michael's wedding to Remi - a lovely celebration that incorporated the richness of their heritage with modern, personal elements. The chuppah (wedding canopy) was especially moving; Michael and Remi were wrapped in her grandfather's tallis (prayer shawl), connecting them to family and friends but sharing an intimate moment in the midst of their wedding. Since Michael is one of my oldest and dearest friends, it was an honor to be a part of such a great celebration.

So our best laid plans were to get up in the morning, meet a friend for lunch, drive up to Montreal, spend a couple of days there and see some friends, then drive back to Toronto to spend time with my family. We spent an afternoon with my grandparents, having lunch and sorting out a cell phone contract (yes, my 85-year-old grandparents have a cell phone, although neither texts and them picking up the phone is sometimes hit or miss). We had dinner with my brother, took care of some errands, and then hit the hay. When we woke up the morning after the wedding to watch the news and get ready to head north, we did a weather and relaxation shuffle.

I'm no great converter of Fahrenheit to Celsius, but I do know that if somewhere is 85 degrees, it's hot, and if somewhere it's 55 degrees, it's not. Waking up on that sweltering Philadelphia morning, we threw caution to the wind (and threw out our plans), and made a plan to head to Florida.

I know it's a bit different, Montreal and Florida, so let me explain. I've been bugging James about a proper sit-on-a-beach-and-read vacation, and he's responded with some gentle nagging about Disney World. The last time I was at Disney World, I was precisely 12 and a half years old (it was my "half birthday"), I was with the Toronto Childrens Chorus on a tour of Florida and wore a fanny pack with light blue jeans (as evidenced by the photo on the right - I'm the kid wearing a backwards baseball cap in the middle, and my brother is rocking the jean jacket on the right; what the contents of the brown bags are is a complete mystery), and really thought I had jumped very clear of the Disney bus. My husband, on the other hand, spent several summer vacations in central Florida and was keen to show me what I had missed all those years ago.

With a GPS and updated wardrobe (thank goodness), we set out on I-95. We tried to push through as much as possible, clapping whenever we crossed a state line (and not clapping when we accidentally drove into New Jersey). We spent the night in Savannah, Georgia - neither of us had been there and James had never set foot in Peach paradise - and spent the morning there before continuing our drive and crossing one final state line.

We got do Disney very quickly, and stopped only once in Jacksonville to put some gas in the bug-splattered car. For those readers who know us, we've not always been known as the plan-in-advance people; we left our hotel plans to chance and were incredibly delighted by what we were able to get.

I can't say how much we're enjoying Disney. Staying at the resort is a post on its own, and the parks we've done so far (Epcot and Hollywood Studios/MGM) have been brilliant. We've taken loads of photos, videos and collected all the little bits (as well as my epic spanking on the golf course by a much more capable James) - a video recap is already in the works. I'll leave it at that so far, because there's so much more to say and it would take an hour just to go through all the fun things we've done, and I want to save it for the mega holiday post.

Sometimes, you have to roll with a bit of a chance. We've not been doing that for a while, and the excitement of picking a spot on the map and going for it will not likely be repeated for a long time to come. It's nice to be able to do this spontaneous vacation and hang out with each other, and I'm looking forward to seeing my family on the weekend.

PPC Hero and Holiday Hijinx

In preparation for my upcoming holiday, I've not really had much time to blog, take photos or do any new videos (well, there's one new video, but I can't talk about it because the person I'm making it for reads this blog).

I'm very chuffed (that's happy in American) that a post of mine was accepted on the PPC Hero blog, run by the folks at Hanapin Marketing. I wrote about five essential tips, tools and tricks for the multimarket account manager - from an English-language perspective. More and more in this economy, marketers are looking to expand to "low hanging fruit" - in this example, an easy cross-border setup between the United States and Canada. I've talked about potential pitfalls in language differences, and also some free tools you can put in your belt to make your multimarket campaigns easier. In case you're just starting out in search engine marketing, the PPC Hero blog is regarded by many to be one of the great authorities on pay per click marketing (and even got a mention from industry great David Szetela at SES New York in March).

What does our schedule look like?

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

April 24 - 26th

A friend's wedding, and also a morning with an SEM guru herself. Neither my husband or I have been to Philadelphia before, so we're looking forward to it.

Montréal, Québec

April 26th - 28th

Home of the Habs (boo!) and French Canadian goodness, it's a city I last visited on way back in 1990-something. James is looking forward to the Poutine.

Toronto, Ontario

April 28th - May 5th

So it's not as exciting a place to visit as Montréal or Philadelphia, but it's my hometown and the city we lived in for three years. Seeing my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends is always a big highlight; little things like Swiss Pidge, movie nights with my brother or seeing my beloved Loon Lake recharge our batteries.

So, there it is. A-guide-to-when-we're-not-going-to-be-in-our-house-so-you-can-steal-stuff post. And if you're in Toronto and I've missed you off my visiting list, tell me so we can have a coffee and a catch up.

Blogcations and Vacations

April has been a funny month so far. The financial year came to a screeching halt on March 31st, and since then it's been a bit of a sweep up at work and at home. From my first opportunity to say Bircas HaChama (I'm one of those people whose age closely matches up with when Bircas HaChama is recited - you figure it out) to going offline for several days last week and this week; my blog has been sorely neglected for the past few weeks.

I can't promise much in the way of blogging until after Cinco de Mayo (why say May 5th when you can say Cinco de Mayo!?). We're looking forward to a much needed break, starting off with one of my oldest friend's wedding in Philadelphia. Scooting up to Montréal (you know, because it's there) and taking the 401 all the way back to the T-dot to visit with my family and friends. I haven't been back since October, so we're prepared for some traditional visit-stuffing.

I also have a nice big red hat to go with my nice big red dress. It allows for the appropriate covering of hair, but adds some definite pieces of flair. I'm not a big girly dresser upper, but I do like the occasional opportunity to wear pretty dresses and pretty hats to go with them. Hey - if I dress up a total of twice a year, I might as well make it good, eh?

We're also trying to organize seeing as many friends and family as possible, but still have a bit of "us time" as well. My grandparents, who aren't really able to travel, take priority number one as they're only able to see us when we come to Canada. I have a big, spread out family, so our trips back home usually involve shuttling between Toronto, Muskoka, Eastern and Western Ontario to get our visits in.

If you're in these North American hubs of culture and goodness and want to meet up for coffee, let us know:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: April 24th - April 26th

Montréal, Québec: April 27th - April 28th

Ottawa/Toronto/Waterloo/Barrie, Ontario: April 29th - May 5th

I will model the hat on request.

On the Road Again

Apologies in advance for the brevity or disjointedness (is that a word?!) of the post. I'm trying Typepad's iPhone app for the second time, and hoping to use it a bit more regularly to be a bit more productive on the long commute home every night (forget the morning - it would probably consist of growls and general lack of etiquette by my fellow Tube commuters; another post altogether).

I'm on the road again (not driving, I leave that to my capable chauffeur/husband), off for a little break in mae hen wlad fy nhadau. More specifically, it's the land of my husband's father rather than my own, and means a nice long weekend relaxing with my lovely in-laws. I love coming to Wales; everything is a bit slower, the countryside is beautiful and I get to have fun pronouncing things like dim llain galed am 550 llarth (no hard shoulder for 550 yards) in a ridiculous Welsh accent (all signs by law have to be bilingual).

Anyway, that's my iPhone post - hopefully the formatting works enough for this to be a regular feature.

Nos da.

SES Toronto Recap - Finally

And so begins a long-overdue post about Search Engine Strategies in Toronto. It was a very busy two days, and I was honored (or is that honoured?!) to speak about the UK market alongside some pretty big names in the industry.

Frederick Marckini got "back to basics" during his opening keynote. Get your initial strategy right, and don't wait for the success to come to you. 'Nuff said.

Many people who read this blog (and don't read this blog, to be fair) know that I am an avid user and fan of Twitter. I was especially excited to attend the Twitter session with great presentations from Lee Odden, Chris Winfield and Dave Snyder. I'll let the links speak for themselves, although I'm disappointed that Kevin Ryan still hasn't been swayed into much more Twitter usage after such great presentations from high-profile advocates of microblogging...

The Advanced Issues in PPC track was refreshing, with Bill Tighe providing a bit more than just standard Google fare. I also stopped by the SEMPO Canada booth (I belong to SEMPO UK) and chatted with Alexandre Brabant in Franglais, a bit of Shiac and some Quèbecois thrown in for good measure. Result? I need to work on real French, not just the mangled stuff I picked up at university.

I was torn between the SEM Toolkit and Social Media Success panels, but since I've been on a bit of a social media bender of late (and I'm pretty pleased with my current toolkit), I went with the latter. I was especially impressed with Li Evans' presentation.

The Yahoo! Canada/Epiar party gave me a great opportunity to schmooze with some people I greatly admire in the industry, and at the risk of over-gushing, I'll leave it there.

A great conference overall, and the smaller size made making new friends and contacts within the industry easier. I'm looking forward to more SES events on the horizon, and continuing to be aided in the development of my skills by some of the best and brightest SEMs. Thanks for a great conference, guys!

Whirlwind Weekend

Two of my girlfriends from elementary school have been visiting my husband and I this weekend in London, and it's been a jam-packed four days.  It's funny, I thought when I moved here that I would have all these things to see in the UK - the reality is that we both prefer to stay local at the weekends because it's a nice break (and we have a new house).

When they arrived on Thursday, we stuck to Hertfordshire, going on a walk around the woods next to our house and shaking out the jet lag cobwebs (been there, hate jet lag).  On Friday, we played tourist in London and did all the touristy things; Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, Soho, the lot.  By the time we got back, we were pretty wiped.  Saturday and Sunday, we ventured further afield and did Oxford and Cambridge (we were feeling academic).  One of my girlfriends' roomate's brother (long-winded, I know) is a post-doc at Oxford, so we got a personalised and inside access tour, which was great.  Eights Week is this week, so we watched the rowing a bit, walked around Worcester College and walked around the Ashmolean Museum.

I'll post photos on Flickr soon, once we've uploaded them from the three cameras that have been snapping away in the last four days.

SES Toronto, Here I Come!

I'm speaking at Search Engine Strategies in my home city of Toronto next month.  It's my first SES speaking gig, and I'm doubly excited because it's in the T-dot.  I'll apparently be the "leading expert with feet on the street" in the UK, and am sharing the panel with some pretty distinguished folks from the SEM world including Motoko Hunt, Anne Kennedy, David Degrelle, Andy Atkins-Krüger and Alicia Morga.

The great thing about speaking at SES Toronto is that I'll be able to really convey what is relevant to Canadian and American SEMs who are researching expansion into the UK.  Trends, pain points and global issues affecting us locally are going to be a big part of the presentation, as well as similarities (and differences!) within the British market when compared with North America.  The UK is the largest English-speaking market outside of the United States, and penetration is huge here.  In terms of Internet users, 66.4% of the population is online.  It's technically lower penetration than other English-speaking countries like New Zealand and Australia, but consider the population online in numbers: the UK has 40 million internet users, while New Zealand has 3.2 million and Australia only 15.5 million.  Consider broadband penetration there as well, and you have a very robust internet market with early adopters and social media uptake in the millions.  It's an exciting time to be an SEM in the UK.

I don't want to give away my entire presentation (!), so I'm looking forward to seeing you all in Toronto in June, eh!

...yes, I had to prove some street cred with Canadian colloquialisms...