Tokyo Grazing Jan 2003 part 1

It’s Day 6 of the New Year Sumo Basho (tournament) and you feel like one of the wrestlers; battered, bloodied and bruised. Well, maybe not physically but the machinations of the largest merger in your industry are taking their toll on you and your loyal band of samurai . What can you do to raise flagging spirits? Let’s throw a party…hey, throw a few parties. Party No.1 KI NO JI Restaurant, Uehara 1-13-3, Tokyo. Tel: (03)-5454-5199. This is a small family-run restaurant, a short taxi ride from Shinjuku. Small is the operative word; there were 10 seats at the counter and two low tables of 4-seats in the tatami section. It looked like the restaurant would do about 40 covers maximum per evening. First things first; lets get the sake menu. Remember ‘g’ sounds are pronounced “hard” in Japanese like ‘g’ in “gun” in English. Labels show brewery name, sake name (if any), grade and prefecture of origin. “Da-Sai”, gin-jo grade, from Yamaguchi prefecture is currently rated amongst the top sakes in Japan. Of course, that accolade is quite subjective. This was a medium sweet sake (Maybe 0 or -1 nihon-shu-do rating) with medium long finish. The seimaibuai number (50) on the label refers to 50% of rice grain size remaining after polishing i.e. 50% wasted. The more polished the rice; generally the more expensive and higher graded the product. The minimum seimaibuai is 60% for gin-jo (silver) grade and 50% for dai-gin-jo (great silver) grade. Some sake is made from seimaibuai 35% i.e. 65% of the rice is wasted. Of course, other factors contribute to the final classification of dai-gin-jo including recipe, yeast, rice strain and marketing positioning within the kura’s (brewery) portfolio. Sometimes a kura will grade a product lower than dai-gin-jo just because it has another product even higher in quality. That gin-jo sake would be any other's dai-gin-jo grade! “Kobore” from Nara prefecture. This namazake is a conjoined woed: nama (live or unpasteurised) + sake, mutating the ‘s’ to a ‘z’ for ease of pronunciation. The flavour of namazake should be fresher and livelier than the pasteurised versions. Sometimes the fresh zing is overpowering and sometimes may not be any different. It varies from kura to kura if any difference is discernible between the two versions. As we did not have the pasteurised version to compare, I could not tell if it was zingier but it was flavoursome. I like Nara-ken style of sake anyway. My favourite being Tama-no-hikari dai-gin-jo which is not illustrated. Namazake should be kept refrigerated and preferably the whole bottle finished when opened. Hurrah! “Banshu” produces “GinBan 50” dai-gin-jo grade from yamada-nishiki rice grown in Hyogo prefecture. The first kanji character (Ban) refers to the old name for that rice-growing region. The kura is actually in Toyama prefecture. The ‘50’ refers to the seimaibuai. Gentle nose with nutty softness. A dry +4 nihon-shu-do rating with long finish. This was my favourite of the night. “Asahi” produces “Ju Asahi” (ten morning suns) gin-jo grade in Shimane prefecture. See the Calatrava-like cross which is the Japanese writing for 10. I was a little affected by the –OH groups at this point and cannot remember if this was a nama-cho-zou which strikes the middle ground between namazake and pasteurised sake. A nama-cho-zou sake is matured unpasteurised and then flash-pasteurised in the bottle as it leaves the brewery. This sake became REALLY popular after it was made known that The Crown Prince of Japan proposed marriage with this sake to hand...sigh. LOL The set menu used the freshest ingredients, artful presentation and seemingly ‘simple’ cooking techniques. Appearances are deceptive, as the following photos will testify. Check out the harmony of tableware for each course. I guess cooking should use the Geo.Daniels idiom for watch making, “It must not look hand-made.” Even if you had to strain the broth five times until it cleared . Count the different techniques used. Poached Hasube (ray) in sesame, mirin and soy sauce. Steamed Liver of Anko (angler fish); creamy ‘foie gras’ of the sea. Raw Sashimi moriawase (selection) of Tai (sea bream), Saba (mackerel), O-toro (fatty tuna belly), Ika (squid) and Akagai (red shell. Grilled Hamachi (yellowtail) with lotus root, daikon radish and carrot with teriyaki glaze. Fried Tai (sea bream) with mushroom and spicy puree of “yuzu-ko-shio” which is a pepper puree. Griddled Gyu-niku (beef) with shitake mushroom and lime; oops..half-consumed....reaction time being rather impaired by the -OH groups by now. Tempura Anago (conger eel) and salt. Sliced naked tomato. Stir fried rice, seaweed and seafood soup. Pickled daikon radish and cucumber & green tea. Jellied strawberry dessert. Pretty end of the meal. Tokyo Grazing continues in part 2 …………. MTF ThePuristS.com Wine and Food Discussion Forum  |  ThePuristS.com Home Page We welcome comments, suggestions, and corrections. Copyright 2002-2003 - MTF and ThePuristS.com - all rights reserved