For this foodie, there's no half-baked blogging

So Gene took a picture of the food. Then I took a picture of Gene taking a picture. Then he took a picture of me. And then we ate. Such is a meal with a food blogger.

Lee writes the food blog "Eat, Drink, Man ... A Food Journal," which documents his home cooking projects as well as his dining excursions in and around Atlanta. This blog —- which Lee, a 35-year-old I.T. applications consultant began writing in July —- is hardly one of the most read or influential local food sites. On a good day it gets 40 hits.

But it is one of the best. Lee takes appealing photographs, researches his subjects thoroughly and writes like a storyteller. Unlike some others in the foodie blogosphere, he hasn't parlayed his site into free meals and party invites. Yet he doesn't have the resources to hit the expensive buzz-buzz places often on his own dime. So instead he focuses mostly on offbeat, cheap-eats spots with notable specialties.

When I called Lee to see if I could join him on an excursion, he suggested Yakitori Jinbei in Smyrna —- a Japanese restaurant that specializes in charcoal-grilled chicken skewers but serves what Lee considers to be the best ramen noodle soup in town. It was a tip he credits to another Atlanta blog, Jennifer Zyman's Blissful Glutton.

"I'm a bit of a ramen otaku," Lee wrote in an e-mail, invoking the Japanese term for people who are over-the-top geeky and obsessive about ramen.

Lotus vs. Betty Crocker

So how did a nice Korean-American boy from Athens, Tenn., end up as a ramen otaku?

"I've always loved food," said Lee, chopsticks in hand. "Growing up, my mom made Korean food —- things like marinated lotus root, which I didn't always like.

"So I started cooking on my own out of my Betty Crocker cookbook."

Lee took a quick slurp of his shoyu-ramen, which had just arrived —- a bowl holding a tangle of noodles in a limpid brown broth, topped with three slivers of fatty pork.

"I made my first meatloaf when I was 9," he said with a lingering shadow of pride in his voice.

By high school, Lee was still an avid cook and, finally, a fan of his mom's Korean dishes. In fact, he wanted to go to cooking school. And ...?

"My dad ... interjected," Lee said. His father, a surgeon who had grown up in a poor family in a small Korean village, considered cooking an unworthy profession for his son, soon bound for Emory.

After college, Lee moved to New York for work and a four-year feeding frenzy. He had his addictions: knishes from the little stand near his Queens apartment, which he ate with Sriracha sauce. Pizza from Nick's and only from Nick's.

And then —- cue the sun bursting through the clouds —- ramen.

A friend took him to Sapporo in midtown Manhattan. "I had eaten [instant] ramen and thought I knew what it was. But I had never had ramen like this. I used to eat it twice a week and can't say enough about how much I love it. I'm so glad it's part of my life now."

Lee finally took a piece of pork from his bowl and savored it.

"I like to let it sit in the broth for the fat to soften. Then it tastes like a rich butter," he said.

Not an insta-pundit

After coming to Yakitori Jinbei for months —- he's on a first-name basis with the waiter —- why did Lee finally decide to blog about it?

"I don't want to post random things about a new place," he said firmly. "I like a more richer story format."

Like many food bloggers, Lee usually tells his stories by alternating tight food shots and chunks of prose. Whether blogging about a restaurant meal or preparing his mom's mackerel stew, Lee first puts his photos in order and numbers them to construct the story.

"It takes a long time to get the right structure and flow," he said.

Lee admitted his hobby is expensive and time-consuming, and he knows that any ads he draws will probably never support it. But he's happy.

"I love thinking about food," he said. "It's the way people express their creativity, love and passion."

With that, he ate his last slice of pork.

jkessler@ajc.com

If you go

> Yakitori Jinbei: 2421 Cobb Parkway, Smyrna, 770-818-9215. www.yakitorirestaurant.com

> Gene Lee's blog: www.eatdrinkman.blogspot.com