“Sanuki udon is the soul food of Kagawa,” remarks Hideo Tadokoro, owner of several fine dining establishments, including the sake-themed restaurants Sake Tottari and Akatsuki no Kura in Yokohama, both of which proudly serve Kagawa’s own Kawatsuru sake among their selections. He speaks like the true Kagawa native he is and encourages me to delve…
Cheese and sake pairing is growing in popularity. It’s not a ‘classic’ pairing, of course, like sake with oysters, dried fish, or mushrooms, as you might see almost anywhere in Japan that serves casual, rustic fare. It’s a recent development that’s mostly gained momentum outside Japan, influenced largely by the prevalence of such pairings in…
Ethiopian food has grown in such popularity that it’s available in most major cosmopolitan cities around the world, from New York to Tokyo to Paris to London. Even smaller metropolises tend to have a restaurant or two these days. Obviously, without the Ethiopian diaspora community the many restaurants serving the country’s unique, native cuisine would…
Kyoto is rich with small eateries and tiny bars. Some of them are hidden away, perhaps even intimidating to enter. But if they are advertising sake in some way, they can be hard to resist. Sometimes, we’re as interested in seeing what kind of food is being served as we are in the sake…
Daiginjo Chotokusen While ginjo aromas are usually described in terms of melon, banana and apple, the ginjo aromas of this sake are like a Venn diagram of them all; no one element stands out any more than another. The fusion of these all creates a hard-to-describe but distinguished and refined aroma that leads to a…
Angkor pepper seeds from Cambodia. This interesting pairing combination was discovered by Villapon, a small bar in Yokohama, Japan.
This is a very simple dish with many variations that we got at Moto Stand in Shinjuku, Tokyo (featured in the Tokyo bar guide in issue #1). It is basically sashimi slathered with sesame, chopped onions and other condiments on a bed of alfalfa. The sashimi and sesame are the essentials because the oily fish…
Tofu marinated in shoyu moromi, the unpressed mash from the soy sauce making process.
Crab sake soup in the shell. Some casual restaurants in Japan (like izakaya) will cook a crab shell over a charcoal grill with the meat still in it and pour sake in as a kind of broth. The flavor is sharp; some love it, some hate it, and it is certainly considered down-and-dirty dining.
Daitokuji fermented black beans. Named after the Kyoto temple nearby which you can purchase these incredibly pungent delicacies, these dried beans generally only pair well with unfiltered or unpasteurized sake. Their powerful flavor (which some people find offensive) would probably overpower a nice, delicate ginjo.