An Appetite for Japan

          I think of myself as fearless in pursuit of gourmand travel thrills. I conquered my dread of imagined mob scenes and street food in Calcutta. I braved the winding roads to a religious retreat in the mountains of Szechuan province for vegetarian esoterica. Showed up for lunch in lawless Macao as rival gangs took pot shots at each other.  Risked being trod upon in the teeming markets of old Delhi for breakfast snacks. But I just couldn’t get myself to the gastronomic Valhalla of Japan so spooked was I by tales of indifference to outsiders and stratospheric prices.

          Then an architect pal who commutes regularly to commissions in Tokyo offered to be my guide to secret places where tourists rarely go.  And Japanophilic friends in New York set up food world connections willing to lead me and my mate on delicious detours. I went off determined to discover the best of the best in Tokyo at every price level, high and low, from the exclusive and esoteric to the raffish and most humble.

          At 10 p.m. barely three hours after landing at Narita and a quick shower at the hotel, the odyssey begins at Okabe where a pair of sushi adepts wait at the unprepossessing eight seat counter. The mournful lovelorn plaints of Billie Holiday feel like a personal welcome as we sip icy cold Koshinozeki sake, premium fuel for the Edo-era masterworks of Kaichiro Okabe. Okabe, we are told, is the mentor of Masa Takayama whose $450 sushi omakase has startled and thrilled Manhattan sushi cognoscenti. Hearing Masa’s name, the chef smiles and proceeds to sliver a long silver needle fish, painting thin slices with a red pepper and sesame sauce, fire to wake up our appetites. The fish’s liver follows in a puddle of soy. And then a parade of small bowls: Bits of raw shrimp that cling voluptuously to the tongue. Sticky ribbons of squid with chopped egg. Mackerel chunks topped with spikes of nori. Crab eggs laced with pungent sea weed. “It takes him three hours just to prepare that seaweed,” one companion translates.  Astonishing textures and surprising flavors explode in this prelude to sushi. Now slivers of fish arrive slicked with “the chef’s special sauce” — that’s universal sushi chef talk for could-be-anything. Squid comes stuffed with chopped egg, Edo style. Vinegar tempers the sweetness of raw shrimp on warmed rice.  A big hit of wasabi on fatty tuna goes right to my brain. I always marvel how the senses go into overload at so much complexity delivered at a ceremonial pace one piece at a time. Or is it the sake you sip in between?

Akemi Nishimura, director of Hiiragiya Ryokan

          Everyone I speak to next day as we check in with designated foodie guides and gurus has a sushi favorite, a robata grill or a temple of the kaiseki faith (little tasting portions in exquisite bowls and saucers). The Japanese are as obsessed with food as we Americans are. Possibly more so. I see them lined up to buy $60 a pound chocolates for Valentine’s Day at Takashimaya when we stop by to explore a vast stretch of international edibles. We sample gyoza, pork dumplings hot off the griddle. Any clerk in the food hall can direct you (or even lead you) to Fauchon’s display or to the display of big urns of Japanese pickles by the gram.  I never saw anyone actually buy a $100 melon but they are displayed as if they were Faberge eggs in ruffled tissue, the gift to bring the hostess you want to impress.

          I realize we could eat five or six times a day to cover every category of cooking just in Tokyo where Michelin recently awarded 191 stars, more than Paris, more than any other city in the world.  And specialization becomes maniacal with restaurants that just do eel or fugu (the fish that can kill you if not properly de-toxed), noodles shops for udon, others for soba, joints for ramen, tempura, breaded pork cutlets, chicken parts, Danish pastry. Should we ignore the Japanese passion for Italian cooking and gooey layer cakes?  Ignore Michelin’s darling, Joel Robuchon? Yes, we can go to Robuchon’s Atelier back home.

          Next evening our architect pal Richard Bloch leads us down a little alley past a gas station to Owan, partly hidden behind a dramatic facade of weathered steel. It’s clear Bloch loves this small oasis, not just for the gently priced omakase of delicious dishes — just $50 per person tonight — but for his rapport with the amiable owner, Kuniatsu Kondo, a man who clearly reveres design too.  The staff’s terra cotta aprons reflect the terra cotta-painted walls and the bowls he sets before us echo the forms of precious antique pottery and lacquer ware on illuminated shelves. He will choose a sake cup for you from a collection on a tray.  A menu scroll is held open with two smooth black stones. An assistant behind the 12-seat counter carves ice for drinks into shapes Kondu requires. An artful chunk goes into my refreshing plum wine spritzer.  Kondu puts out special salts for a gossamer freshly made tofu opener followed by mizuma salad with bonito shaved on top at the last minute, Black sea weed the chef marinates himself comes on the sashimi plate, the fish excitingly smooth and firm, the temperature perfect. Bits of scallop, oyster and broccoli rabe stud a soft steamed dumpling afloat in a dashi broth. Pork slices over shitake with ginger follow. Shrimp sandwiched between lotus slices is rolled in batter and deep-fried for tempura. Pork comes again rolled in nap cabbage. I sense the chef is moving toward a classic finale with layered egg. “Each chef prides himself on their egg mixture,” Bloch observes.  Unlike the blobby cut of omelet I avoid at home, this one is warm, softly layered, not sweet at all, with grated radish alongside.

          In my New York experience, tempura is rarely as exciting as a good fritto misto. But a Japanese friend in New York has insisted on giving us a tempura evening at Kondo, a Tokyo favorite of hers. I am hoping for a tempura revelation.

          There are only 15 seats at the u-shaped pale wood counter (booked far ahead, I am told) in the simple, spare room atop one of those needle-like towers where restaurants are layered one on top of another. But we get a bow from Fumio Kondo himself planted in front of the frying station before a mountain of pebbled flour, arms folded like a middle-aged warrior. Neon signs  moving outside the glass expanse of window work like modern art beyond the open kitchen.

          Young women deliver drinks and amuses bouche from the kitchen.  Then when everyone is into the prologue, Kondo tenses, swivels his head, like a baseball pitcher on the mound, and swings into action.  Powder flies as he drags sea creatures through the hill of tempura coating or liquifies a batch into a batter.  He sets a small tray in front of me, drops a rectangle of parchment on it and delivers a pair of crisped shrimp heads.  Then a clean paper for the shrimp bodies, sweet and wondrously tender. He gives instructions to the two of us in English: “Use salt,” he will say. “Now, sauce.”  “This time, lime.” 

          Then comes deep-fried lotus root, asparagus tips, a lily bulb.  He constantly stops to wash away the floury mix that sticks to his fingers. For a small mild little fish, he commands, “No sauce.”  Scallop, clam, whiting, a giant mushroom cut into quarters, eggplant slivered and fanned.  Fat-splotched parchments disappear. Clean ones arrive. Somehow Kondo keeps track of what we have eaten, what he has delivered to the VIP trio on my right, what he is sending across the room. 

          He selects an odd green acorn-like object from a basket of winter and early spring vegetables behind him — seasonal is the Japanese mantra that American chefs are only now worshipping. “Bitterbur,” he says, as If that would explain it. He presses the battered bulb flat as it fries so it emerges looking likes a giant brooch, its taste: the essence of green, with a surprise flash of bitterness at the end.  Across the way more prudent or parsimonious souls may be having the $87 set dinner or even the expanded options at $123 but the chef is delivering all the a la carte extras to us: Sea eel. Abalone. Filets of fish we cannot identify.  He does tricks like dragging a handful of favas through the batter and into the bubbling fat so they cling together like yet another great brooch.

          At the end each diner gets kakiage — an amorphous fried cake, tonight it’s full of scallop scraps and bits of leafy green. Rice is served separately along with a pot of tea, one strawberry and three small cuts of pineapple. This tame coda provides a chance to come back to earth from a transcendent experience of what tempura is all about.

          I had planned to immerse myself in Japanese food.  To explore the mysterious ways of miso, tofu, mochi (that sticky paste that gets wrapped around ice cream or barbecued on a stick). We eat a few too many delicious Kushiage, fried things on skewers, the specialty of Rokkakutei, above Barney’s in Ginza where the house’s impressive collection of imported wine is poured into expensive goblets. The chef is full of surprises: Lotus studded with beef curry. Shitake and salmon. A piece of beef wrapped around a string bean. Each of us gets a bowl of raw vegetables to crunch between deep-fried morsels.

          But I’d not come this far to eat French.  I hadn’t counted on the Japanese passion for foreign food. Or that a food-obsessed man-about town would invite us to lunch at Restaurant Kinoshita where the devotion of affluent sophisticates have made owner Kazuhito Kinoshita a star chef. “But he’s one star chef who’s always in his kitchen,” our host observes.

          Though the 40 seats usually get booked far in advance, we have managed to snare three last-minute spots at the communal table with its Thai orchids. sophisticated modern china and a good view of Kinoshita, athletic in short-sleeve white tee, apron tied over jeans, personally tweaking every plate in a few square feet of kitchen.  His moustache and trendy chin whiskers set off the shiny hairless head.

          After a trio of amuses, a delicately jellied lobster cocktail in a martini glass makes me realize I’m grateful for a break after a week of soba, marinated fish, fried stuff on skewers and pickled tidbits.  A lushly creamy seafood bisque positively smells like France. Not every dish in the expanded six course tasting adds up to a poetic progression but I’m a fool for blood sausage, as well as the chef’s peppery calamari.  A rare and tender venison filet served alongside a caul-wrapped venison patty is followed by tangerine segments on a shallow island of perfect crème brulee.  Pretty amazing from a chef who has never even been to France.

          I’d set aside time to venture outside Tokyo in the quest for gastronomic epiphany. Our savvy friends had pointed us toward historic ryokans — in Kyoto and beyond — where ceremonial kaiseki meals are exquisitely served.  Do as the Romans do, I thought, sitting on a rock to untie my shoes, struggling on teetering clogs to enter our first ryokan.  I was a little bit annoyed having to slip my size 9 1/2 feet into men’s leather scuffs to navigate the halls only to remove them for yet another pair, my room slippers.

          Had I had waited to long for Japan? Am I too old to change shoes five times in 12 minutes. Confronting the reality of a vast near-empty suite carpeted with tatami and little else beside a stern Ikebana floral arrangement and a very low table, no chairs, no bed, no reading light, I do not see serenity and romance as my Japan loving friends had promised. I see the impossability of getting up from the floor with the grace of a young gymnast. I make my guy close his eyes.  But yes,  we are often dazzled by fawning attention, graceful attendants scurrying on their knees, and ceremonial kaiseki exquisitely served, sometimes on two-thousand year-old saucers and in museum quality lacquer bowls. Steamed eggs with bits of crab.  Shrimp dumpling in radish soup. Astonishing variations in miso — food that is above all, seasonal and traditional — provocative, exotic, astonishing, and often deliriously good.

          By the end of our trip we are quite frankly tried of taking off our shoes.  We consider cancelling the swift train trip from Kyoto to Nara; but decide we’ve come too far to miss it.

          We take the Nara walk though a vast park, marvel at the monumental Buddha, inside the biggest wooden structure in Japan, feed tame deer in the park,then get caught in the a serious rain. All the cabs disappear.  “They don’t want to get their taxis wait,” our guide explains.

          We are the only guests at Shikitei on a cold January night in Nara. No one speaks English. Gauging our inability to fold up easily, our host indulges us with low slung chairs for back support as our legs dangle in a cut-out pit for squat-challenged westerners. Our assigned kimono’d geisha dips and bows and kneels, delivering what proves to be the best kaiseki meal of our trip. There are all the many required courses and categories, small amusements, the raw and the cooked, the simmered and the stewed, the covered bowls, the uncovered bowl, the rice and pickles. Tonight it’s all in tableware I would like to steal: tremulous fresh tofu with sea urchin in a trail of vinagered broth in a covered cup. I shiver with the shock of how delicious.  Both of us are taken with a wonderful seafood dumpling wrapped around a filet of white fish.  Peach tinted mochi surrounding another bit of fish is also surprisingly delicious.

          “About now, I could use a good old fashioned steak.” I whisper to Steven. As if the room were wired, our server returns with a tray balancing two big black stones tented with parchment. I lift the parchment and find thick slices of wagyu beef searing on the fiery stone.  Quick, while it is still very rare, I grab a slice to dip into thick onzu sauce and savor the silken beef. Even the tempura course is special: a delicious shrimp paste deep-fried between slices of daikon and a gingko nut. Kiwi, papaya and strawberries in a barely sweetened gelatin streaked with sweet milk makes a marvelous finale.

          Next morning our kimono’d caretaker needs five trips from the kitchen to assemble a western breakfast for Steven with as many side dishes as the typical ryokan breakfast I’ve ordered. He has bacon, sausage, fried egg, egg salad, apple salad, blueberry jam, a soggy croissant and soft sweet breakfast rolls enough for both of us. Even the coffee is drinkable.

          Without one word of Japanese from us, without one word of English from them, the unseen genies of Shikitei had produced an unforgettable triumph.

Copyright Gael Greene 2011

A version of this article appeared in Travel & Leisure March 2011

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TOKYO

Sushi Takumi Okabe:

5-13-14 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku Megura district;

tel: 81 (0)3 5420-0141

 

Owan: Okada Building. 1F,

2-26-7 Ikejiri Setagya-Ku (Ikejiri-ohashi St. East Exit off Route 246)

tel/fax: 81- (0)3 5486 3844

 

Kondo: Sakaguchi-Building 9F

5-13 Ginza 5-chome, Cyuou-ku

tel.:81(0)3- 5568 0923

 

Kinoshita: 3-37-1 Yoyogi Tokyo

tel: 81 (0)3 3376 5336

 

NARA

Shikitei: 1163 Takabatake-cho

0742 22 5531