Satoru Inoue
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satoruinoue.com
Satoru Inoue
@satoruinoue.com
110 followers 240 following 1.3K posts
Japanese-American data scientist in Chicago. Writes about food, music, cities at https://www.satoruinoue.com

Japanese account: @inoueian.bsky.social
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satoruinoue.com
This does capture most of my obsessions
List of "Most Used Words" compiled by anisota.net, each row listing the rank, the word, and the number of times the word was used. 1 chicago 99 2 food 57 3 japanese 55 4 osaka 54 5 music 52 6 city 41 7 japan 40
December 6, 2025 at 3:40 AM
satoruinoue.com
My top 4 albums from 2025. Not the ones I listened to the most—though I did listen to these a lot—but the best ones.

Swirl by Flora Hibberd
Te Whare Tīwekaweka by Marlon Williams
Switcheroo by Gelli Haha
Vendrán Suaves Lluvias by Silvana Estrada
Cover for "Swirl" by Flora Hibberd. Photo of Flora Hibberd looking right on a pink background, with "SWIRL" in a stylized font Cover of "Te Whare Tīwekaweka" by Marlon Williams. The artist name and title are handwritten at the top and bottom in white, respectively, with a drawing of a man in suits and a tall hat walking toward a house. Cover of "Switcheroo" by Gelli Haha. a large photo of Gelli Haha in the background, looking slightly to the left, in a red background. Artist name top right, album title bottom right, both in a white script. There's a smaller photo of Gelli Haha in a red dress, holding up a red circle on top of the left cheek of the large Gelli Haha photo. Cover of "Vendrán Suaves Lluvias" by Silvana Estrada. A photo of Silvana Estrada reclining on a beige chair, with another identical chair to the right, in a grassy area.
December 3, 2025 at 5:26 PM
satoruinoue.com
Mariscos San Pedro is great. You should go whether or not you're going to Thalia Hall.

Snapper ceviche
Lobster quesabirria
Brandade dorados (my fav, fillings were potatoes, cod, cream)
dessert: Leche frita (bottom left), "Masa"ron (macaron w/ corn flour)
A thin disc consisting of fish and shrimp pieces and crispy flakes of food, on a circle of yellow sauce, with a green leaf with red veins as garnish A taco with green-brown crust on the tortilla, containing fried seafood, white cheese, and red shrimp on the left side of a plate, and a small bowl of red broth with choppe cilantro and white onion floating inside on the right side of the plate. 2 pieces of semicircular fried dumpling, with a green sauce, a white sauce, and little pieces of vegetables including red tomato and red onion on top of them. 2 plates, one with a brown ball of fried food with powder sugar on top (bottom left), and the other with a light pink macaron (top right).
November 30, 2025 at 4:16 AM
satoruinoue.com
Things on the wall tonight, in Pilsen
Mural saying "MARISCOS SAN PEDRO" on the wall of a restaurant A hexagonal-tile wallpaper pattern with red cartoon crawfish surrounded by blue wave-like squiggles A blackboard on a brick wall, with a drawing of a woman with dark wavy hair, with the text: "Silvana Estrada Sold Out! Bedouine"
November 29, 2025 at 6:03 AM
satoruinoue.com
Did my part with gambas al ajillo appetizer before the paella. Took Kenji’s recipe with some modifications. Super easy www.seriouseats.com/spanish-styl...
A mound of cooked shrimp with parsley and garlic mixed in, on a plate with a shallow layer of oil
November 28, 2025 at 12:03 AM
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Central BBQ, half-and-half ribs and BBQ nachos
A full slab of smoked pork ribs, with a dark brown surface throughout, very little sauce on the left half and some sauce on the right half Tortilla chips with shredded meat; melted cheese, and cooked slices of jalapeño peppers on top
November 25, 2025 at 7:00 PM
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Myaku-Myaku sweet potato sweets. Actually a really good snack
A brown pastry shell shaped like bubbles and 5 eyeballs surrounding a smiling mouth, on top of rectangular box for the pastry
November 22, 2025 at 11:41 PM
satoruinoue.com
It’s a pretty book, with a 50-page chapter on Roman history. So right up my alley
November 22, 2025 at 4:37 AM
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Sockeye salmon marinated in guajillo adobo. Cooking a whole fillet looks nicer but it’s the same fish. Big hit with the kids (sorry it’s half eaten)
A large fillet of reddish salmon, with dark red paste on the surface. The top third is mostly eaten, with small flakes left on the skin
November 22, 2025 at 2:58 AM
satoruinoue.com
My late BIL never lived in Chicago but he did draw its flag.

Century Building at State and Adams
Mural outside of a blocky high rise, with pictures of sea creatures including jellyfish and a turtle, and the top of a building with flag poles flying the flags of the City of Chicago and the United States
November 21, 2025 at 7:16 PM
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Went to a play reading at the Understudy. Now realizing I could’ve chosen a way home to let us see the aurora
6 empty chairs in front of a series of bookshelves
November 12, 2025 at 5:09 AM
satoruinoue.com
There’s a Phodega collab with Gangnam Taco inside Gangnam Market food court. Bulgogi banh mi was great. They also have spicy pork banh mi.
A sign for Phodega, under a sign for Workout Rice A baguette sandwich with green herbs, slices of meat, and green, red, and purple vegetables inside
November 9, 2025 at 11:25 PM
satoruinoue.com
trying to get into Mexican soccer. Pumas UNAM (team I'm tentatively rooting for), needing a win to get into the Apertura play-in, got it by getting 2 goals in the last 10 minutes against 10-man Cruz Azul who could've gotten the 1st seed w/ a win (they finish 3rd)
Fotmob screenshot showing the result: "Liga MX Apertura Round 17 Sat, November 8, 9:15 PM, Estadio Cuauhtémoc Cruz Azul 2-3 Pumas Full time" Also shown are the goals: "Fernandéz 14', 19'" for Cruz Azul "Ruvalcaba 4', Angulo 80' (Pen), Medina 85'" for Pumas And a red card: "Faravelli 66'" for Cruz Azul
November 9, 2025 at 6:05 AM
satoruinoue.com
lol I should've waited to post until my advisor showed up
'Repeated results from BEST continue to show the anomaly as recently as 2022. One chamber contained only 79% of the expected amount of germanium, the other only 77%. “Everybody was hoping that anomaly would go away,” said Wick Haxton, a theoretical physicist at Berkeley. “There is still not any clean understanding of what’s going on.”'
November 8, 2025 at 1:33 PM
satoruinoue.com
just going about my morning before the kids wake up, reading about an experimental anomaly on Quanta, and someone who was on my committee shows up
www.quantamagazine.org/what-could-e...
"Since then, physicists have worked to rule out possible mismeasurements or inaccuracies that could explain the anomaly. Now they’ve eliminated another one. Eric Norman, a nuclear physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues have announced that one possible solution, an incorrect calculation of the half-life of germanium, can’t be the cause."
November 8, 2025 at 1:27 PM
satoruinoue.com
Yesterday, I took a photo of the sunset like everyone else (which I’m not sharing) and I also took photos of the moon.
A view with multiple skyscrapers, including a green, slender one with golden ornamentation, and a nearly-full moon peeking at the corner of one of the skyscrapers
November 4, 2025 at 1:23 AM
satoruinoue.com
Extremely Daiso-coded rice ball maker that we didn’t expect to find there
Pink packaging containing a small pink apparatus with Japanese descriptions and “small ball onigiri” on the outside
November 2, 2025 at 11:32 PM
satoruinoue.com
Still there, from potentially our last water taxi ride of the year
A tall black skyscraper with a white radio pole on top, behind another, shorter skyscraper, with a bridge and the top of a boat in the foreground
November 2, 2025 at 11:05 PM
satoruinoue.com
Rong City restaurant equipment store in Chinatown Square. I should definitely come here more often
A narrow shop aisle with cookware and tableware piled up close to the ceiling on both sides
November 2, 2025 at 8:34 PM
satoruinoue.com
Red Line sighting on Franklin
A train on elevated tracks, with a red destination sign saying “Howard”
October 29, 2025 at 4:24 PM
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But at least it’s not this
A road with 2 90-degree turns in quick succession, near the mouth of a river into a large body of water
October 29, 2025 at 1:20 PM
satoruinoue.com
Finally checking out the bus stop display at Grand and St. Clair. As I was taking this photo, a guy says “I did the exact same thing!” and starts talking about how much he likes it
Electronic display attached to a metal pole on a sidewalk, listing the bus lines, destinations, and estimated arrival times for the next 4 buses (with some space below), and showing an alert for a temporary bus stop relocation for one of the lines. In the background, there is a restaurant building showing the name Volare
October 27, 2025 at 3:53 PM
satoruinoue.com
Using chocolate in a savory dish
A tablet of Nestle Abuelita for making Mexican hot chocolate, with the wrapper showing a picture of an old woman drinking hot chocolate from a cup A brown braising liquid with pieces of meat inside
October 26, 2025 at 12:11 AM
satoruinoue.com
Partisan split on who likes which city is both (A) what you expect and (B) wild that this is even a thing if you think about it. And it's pretty predictive of where the federal government seems to focus on.
today.yougov.com/society/arti...
Plot with title "Democrats like San Francisco and Los Angeles more, while Republicans are more positive toward Fort Worth and Tulsa", and text under the title "Do you have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion of the following cities? (% of U.S. adult citizens who have a favorable view of each city - % who have an unfavorable view of each city)". The cities are sorted in descending order by net score among Democrats. Cities with particularly large gaps include Seattle, WA (-7 among Republicans, 67 among Democrats), San Francisco, CA (-24 and 65), Chicago, IL (-29 and 51), Portland, OR (-14 and 47), Los Angeles, CA (-47 and 45)
October 25, 2025 at 4:49 AM
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Leela Punyaratabandhu herself is a treasure, btw
Screenshot with the text: 'Punyaratabandhu, a Bangkok-born linguist, identifies specific language on the menus meant to signal the food is “made by Thais, for Thais.” For example, instead of the central Thai word for “delicious,” or “aroi,” they use the Isan/Lao “saep.” “It’s more like ‘delicious’ in a way that kicks you in the teeth and hugs you at the same time,” says Punyaratabandhu. “The whole vibe screams: ‘We’re not holding back—let’s freaking go.’ They describe fried wontons as being ‘in the style of the vendors who gathered after school.’ Who’s supposed to get that other than people who went to Thai schools and had that exact after-class food memory? Pure nostalgia bait.”'
October 20, 2025 at 2:59 AM