sashimi (Page 3)
This Asakusa restaurant has two of Japan’s greatest foods, paired in a way nobody ever did before, and the result is amazing.
Restaurants that specialize in salmon sashimi are few and far between in Japan, but now there’s one right in the center of Tokyo.
We try out this revolutionary condiment that could change the way everyone eats sushi, sashimi, or anything really.
The legendary creator of Lone Wolf and Cub has no patience for such affronts to fine dining.
At the start of my workday, my boss asked me if I’d be interested in trying some potato chips that taste like o-toro, the extra fatty tuna that’s a highly prized sushi ingredient. Looking at the clock, I calculated that it had been about 14 hours since I’d had sushi for dinner, and since that’s honestly about two hours longer than I like to go without eating some of Japan’s most famous culinary creation, I solemnly accepted the mission.
But while I’d already experienced potato chips inspired by fine American cuisine, I’d never had sashimi-flavored ones, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, even before I discovered the other big surprise waiting for me.
Being one of Japan’s two favorite types of fish to eat raw, Japan takes its tuna pretty seriously. As a matter of fact, tuna sushi and sashimi gets different names depending on which cut of the fish is being served. While just about everyone loves ordinary tuna, either maguro or akami in Japanese, it’s the extra-fatty tuna belly, called chu-toro or o-toro, that people really rave about.
Of course, those same premium cuts that get gourmands’ mouths watering can leave your wallet crying, as the price of the extra-creamy toro can be more than double that of lesser cuts of tuna. That’s why we decided to test a theory we’d heard that you can unlock the full potential of akami with mayonnaise. But does marinating your ordinary tuna in mayo turn it into toro, or is this rumor just a bunch of bull?
As we’ve been constantly reminding you over the past year or so, Youkai Watch is really big in Japan now, and yet some of you out there still don’t seem to believe us. We’ve watched them rip the annual McDonald’s calendar endorsement deal out of the cuddly clutches of Pokemon. We’ve seen fans carve their graven images into pumpkins. We’ve tasted of their milk. Still, there are those who think that it’s just a flash in the pan.
For those people, we present the highest honor a character in Japan can receive: a sashimi platter in their likeness.
Basashi is raw horse meat cut into slices–“horse sashimi”, and a delicacy consumed in some parts of Japan. The most famous place to experience basashi is Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu, southern Japan.
You can order a plateful of the stuff in Japanese pubs (izakaya), and it’s said to go incredibly well with nihonshu, but our intrepid RocketNews24 reporter Mami Kuroi couldn’t find any horse meat in Tokyo supermarkets to slice up to make her own basashi to try at home. Eventually, she happened to be visiting Komoro City in Nagano Prefecture and stumbled on a butcher who stocked it. There was even a poster outside proclaiming that the shop sold the “best-quality basashi“! Seizing this once-in-a-lifetime chance for home-made horse sashimi, she bought some, sampled it and wrote about her horsy adventure for us to enjoy. Of course, it was totally raw!
If you’ve ever been to Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo (the largest seafood market in the world), then you’ve probably dodged speeding forklifts, gotten lost in a maze of stalls, and seen professionals wielding metre-long knives, filleting expensive tuna according to traditional methods that go back centuries.
Well now you can take the Tsukiji experience home with you (minus those pesky forklifts) thanks to a special bluefin tuna designed and manufactured by Yamawa, a third generation fish wholesaler from the markets.
The choices we make in life define who we are. Your friends may not admit it, but when you choose mint chocolate chip ice-cream (and bravo by the way), they’re scribbling a couple of lines about you in their mental scrapbook. When you leave your iPod on your workmate’s car, they’re either nodding along or guffawing as they cycle through your albums before bothering to call and tell you they’ve found it. As a wise man once said, “books, records, films; these things matter.” And noodles, my Asia-loving friends, are no exception. Do you like ramen or udon? Udon or soba? When you take a trip to soba town, to you eat them steaming hot or cold and dunked in mentsuyu dipping oil? If you could only eat one kind of noodle for the rest of your life, which would it be?
When we hear “sashimi”, usually what comes to mind is fish. But there are actually a wide variety of sashimi, such as horse sashimi and chicken sashimi. And, since ancient times in Japan, there is frog sashimi. (Here is where we try it out so you don’t have to.) We went to a Tokyo restaurant that we heard serves frog sashimi, “Asadachi” (which means morning wood, you know), about 3 minutes walk from Shinjuku station in ‘Piss Alley’.
It’s well known that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who passed away on October 5th last year, was a huge fan of Japanese food, and not just high-end sashimi and sushi, either. He reportedly enjoyed more quotidian fare like hearty udon noodles.
He even went so far as to develop his own Japan-inspired menu item for Apple’s company cafeteria, Cafe Mac. But is it really any good? Read More