Gift for Japanese-American

My family is visiting Japan in August. All of our hotel arrangements were made by an aquaintance. He is Japanese, but lives in Los Angeles. He will be in Japan on business when we are there and will take us to dinner. We would like to give him a present, but what do we give him? the gift suggestions I've seen here say to give something from your own country or city. But he lives in my city! Any ideas at all for a 40-ish year old Japanese/American businessman? Thank you in advance.

Is he Japanese living/working in the United States, or is he a Japanese-American?
(two very different things, one is Japanese, and one is American)

Either case, a bottle of Sake and or favorite liquor makes a good generic gift to any businessman.

thanks. he is Japanese, living in America. I thought of sake, and i thought of perhaps a Jazz cd. is it proper to give him the gift after he treats us to dinner or is that too soon or too late?

If he is going to be there on a short-term business, he will have to carry the bottle back to the US - so I would not really recommend a sake bottle, unless you know his favorite brand (or something special, maybe one that is hard to find, or something like that). If you know his jazz music favorites, I guess a CD would be fine.

If you give it as a parting gift at the end of the dinner, I think that would be fine.

Just a thought: any way *you* can treat him to the dinner? To me that seems like the most natural and easiest way to show your gratitude to him :)

He is adamant about treating us to dinner. This started with us saying we wanted to take him to dinner. He wrote back and said a day, time and restaurant, and saying he wouldbe taking us. There is no negotiation here!

I wish I could think of a gift that is small, meaningful and useful.