KCET FOOD

Midnight Snack: Suehiro with Mike Samonek

At the corner of surreal and down-to-earth in downtown’s Little Tokyo, you’ll find Suehiro Café. To locals it’s known for late night udon, after-6 p.m. sushi, and a friendly staff eager to serve you ‘til 3 a.m. on weekends. Here, it’s not hard to let your eyes wander.

Mike Samonek, screenwriter/director/super-dad, points out the art plastered along a narrow, fluorescently lit corridor. “Oh look, there’s the girl in the well from ‘The Ring’ next to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” In a somewhat similar clash of context, Mike’s scripts have a knack for capturing the fear and loathing in relationships while tickling our funny bones. His scripts explore the big c’s in relationships, co-dependency and commitment-phobia, in films such as “Table For Three,” with Brandon Routh; “The Glitch;” with Jason Biggs; and “No Strings Attached” with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher.

Among the doodles of superheroes and drunken sparks of brilliance mocked up by late night customers, Mike shared his own Hollywood experiences — from when he first saw his name pop up on Yahoo! Movies to recently earning the “seal of dope-roval” from an MC. 

Emese: I don’t come down to Little Tokyo very often, for some reason.

Mike: I bring the kids to Little Tokyo a lot. Not only do they get the sushi, they get to go to the Hello Kitty store. There’s a fantastic comic book store where my son can see all the mangas and Japanese comic books. It’s up the stairs. On my way over here, I walked by Frying Fish with a backwards ‘R.’ Above it is this killer karaoke bar.

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Midnight Snack: Izakaya Honda-ya with Matt Braunger

Matt: Octopus baaaaalls. 
Henry: I take it you like them.
Matt: They’re great. 
Henry: I’m so afraid of octopus. Ever since watching people eat raw baby octopus in Korean BBQ restaurants, you know, with whole baby body you pop in your mouth like popcorn? 
Matt: Sure sure.
Henry: Horrifies me. Is it good?
Matt: It is, but I eat a lot of weird stuff. I’ll eat whatever I can get that’s odd and within reason. I just got this cookbook from a restaurant in Montreal called “Joe Beef” that’s high end but really into partying and overdoing it, food-wise. I only bring it up because, in Montreal, they almost have a tradition of good eating but indulgent eating, crazy indulgent, where it’s like French times ten, and one of the recipes calls for horse meat, and I’m just like, “Come on. Horse? Really?”

….

Henry: You mentioned you were in New York. You were shooting something for Comedy Central, right?
Matt: I shot an hour special.

Henry: How is it?
Matt: I like it. I watched the first cut today. It’s so hard to watch yourself. Oh my god, it’s like “What are you doing? Stop walking around. Don’t do that. Look straight ahead.” You get so self-critical. You’ve heard your jokes a million times. You think you don’t have an ounce of charisma. It’s just like anybody - when you see yourself, you’re just like, “Good God, I’m a fat asshole.” I remember when I first came to LA, I started doing commercials to make money, and the first time I saw myself on TV - it was a Christmas ad for Macy’s - and when I came on TV, my first thought was, “I know that dick.”

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