During the busy season, it is not uncommon for a chef to set up a cot in the backroom and take his or her precious few hours of sleep right in the restaurant. In many hotels, it is common policy as well to give ...
It's a cold evening and the salarymen are stopping off on their home from a long day of work at open-air stalls to down a cup or two of warm sake and a few pieces of oden — slowly simmered daikon, hard-boiled eggs and ...
What's in a name? Often, for a restaurant, a lot rides on the naming of dishes. There is a science — and a whole consulting industry — devoted to food-item names and their placement on menus. Cooks everywhere, even before it became a science, ...
Whatever caused the first guy to figure out how to eat a blowfish and live — an attempt to impress a girl or perhaps a wealthy patron — we may never know, but we can be grateful that he did. My first fugu experience was ...
The father of a good friend told me a story about coming to Japan for the first time in the mid-'80s to attend a large conference. On their last day in Tokyo, he and several colleagues decided to splurge at a traditional fine-dining restaurant ...
It is said that one of the key differences between the East and the West is the way things are perceived and subsequently named. Without denying the importance of appearances in the West, in Japan, the way that something looks is often more important ...
At its finest hour, the Japanese food served at the old inns and tea houses of Kyoto is so elegant and delicate that it almost becomes homeopathic. Like the doctor who follows the homeopathic principle — the less medicine prescribed, the better the results ...
Last year, well-known New York chef Anthony Bourdain published "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly," a scathing yet passionate book on the inner workings of a professional restaurant kitchen. In the tome he tells tales and anecdotes drawn from the personal lives and ...
Probably the biggest challenge I faced as a young apprentice in a traditional Japanese restaurant was cooking two meals a day — lunch and dinner — for the 60-year-old chef and his wife. The challenge was twofold: I had to make something that would ...
Above the counter of the small kappo-style restaurant where I apprenticed hung a small scroll inscribed with a seasonal poem that was changed at the beginning of every month. In October, the simple verse read, "Aki no saba, Wakasa umare, Kyo sodachi. (The autumn ...
