Recipes & Articles

At least in my opinion... New York is fortunate to have a sizable Japanese expat community -- and real deal restaurants to serve them. I'm talking about Japanese cuisine beyond sushi, which is just a tiny part of the food culture there, despite its popularity here. Many friends ask me to recommend Japanese joints in the big city, so here I go: Check out the half-dozen restaurants below (listed alphabetically) to discover a world of Japanese cooking from sophisticated cuisine to tapas-like pub food to home style chow. And what about your favorite places? Any Japanese restaurants you want to add? (And not just in New York) Please share your thoughts in the comments!

When I sat down with my friends Chizuko Niikawa and Akiko Ito today, both Akita natives, both sake experts, I posed a simple question: What makes Akita sake so special?

During the staff meal break the other night at Matsuri, I noticed Chef Ryuji cleaning a pile of fiddlehead ferns. Ryo is the Chef du Cuisine at the restaurant. I love watching him in action -- this man knows how to cook. During the break I can usually find Ryo by himself behind the line, working on something in the remaining quiet moments before service -- and its attendant frenzy -- begins.

I was thrilled that Saveur included my item about Mrs. Sachiyo Imai in their latest "Saveur 100" list. Scholar, educator, TV host, and most importantly, accomplished cook, Mrs. Imai has worked tirelessly for the past quarter century to preserve Kyoto's traditional food culture. She is amazing. I wanted to share this piece I wrote about her efforts to save Kyoto's obanzai cooking:

After completing our four day trek along Shikoku's pilgrimage trail (see posts below), my girlfriend and I gave our aching feet a rest and rented a car to explore the island. Shikoku was a revelation: A rugged, breathtaking region with dramatic rocky coastline and towering mountains in the interior. I fell in love with this place, my first time there. We drove along the Pacific from Tokushima City to Kochi City over two days, then headed inland to the remote Iya Valley, where we relaxed at the fantastic Kazurabashi Onsen. Along the way we discovered (or at least I discovered, my girlfriend knew all about them) Japan's amazing network of local markets.

Along the Shikoku pilgrimage trail (see previous post) my girlfriend and I encountered the long tradition of hospitality offered to pilgrims called o-settai. We passed sheds stocked with thermoses of tea and mattresses for resting, benches with notes inviting henro to sit and rest. During the 30-kilometer leg between the 12th and 13th temples, we came upon a tiny farm stand along the road with varieties of citrus and, interestingly, homemade konyaku offered for sale on the honor system -- drop your payment into a jar. As we were checking out the goods, the farmers, an elderly couple named Mr. and Mrs. Abe, appeared and invited us into their home as an act of o-settai. We gratefully accepted this honor.

Train your eye to the top right hand corner of this amazing dinner. Overlook the thick slices of super fresh hamachi. Skip past the delicious udon noodles with oysters and fish cake. Forget the kiriboshi daikon, air-dried strips of daikon. Focus on the mixed rice -- we'll get to it in a minute.

This hotpot hails from the far northern island of Hokkaido, a snowy, remote region famous for its salmon, crab, cattle and potatoes (an influence of nearby Russia), among other ingredients. It's called ishikari nabe in Japanese, in honor of Hokkaido's Ishikari River.

"There are no rules for making nabe," said Chef Ono, as we got to talking about Japanese hotpot cooking to me the other night at Matsuri restaurant. I've been fascinated by this homey soul food, as readers of the Report know (see posts here and here), and wanted to learn more -- and understand what hotpots say about Japanese cuisine as a whole.

Please check out my story in Salon.com about Japanese kitchen knives! It published today (when you click to the site, wait a couple of seconds and an "Enter Salon" button will appear in the top right corner to view for free). Here's some more information, in case you're interested:

After I wrote about nabe, or home-style hotpot cooking, last month, I asked a friend in Japan to research the many regional varieties of this social and comforting soul food. She just sent me a list of twenty styles of nabe, dishes prepared with salmon, tuna, octopus, pork, chicken, root vegetables, even wild boar and snapping turtle. These hotpots all reflect local foods, customs and geography, and their histories and lore are absolutely fascinating: One traces back to the cooking of Japanese pirates, another originated with bear hunters. There's a nabe invented by sake makers living inside breweries during production season and one that's supposed to be eaten in the dark (yikes!). There's even a nabe invented in 2005 to commemorate the merger of three cities. Like I said, fascinating.

Watching a cook named Adam swiftly and deftly portion a duck the other night at Matsuri, I posited, out loud, that the beautiful, gleaming carcass -- all that was left after Adam's handiwork - would make for an excellent soup stock. Chef Ono heard me and walked over. "Those duck bones would make a great soba tsuyu," he said -- soup for soba noodles. "Take a carcass home and try it." And so I did.