tokyo food file

Shirako takenoko: spring has arrived

Bamboo shoots. Takenoko. 

Dug in the morning in a Kyoto bamboo forest and served the same evening in Tokyo. Slowly grilled over charcoal till the outer sheaths are charred and the inside is sublimely sweet and creamy.

That's the way they're prepared by chef Jun Kurogi, at his namesake restaurant in Yushima.

 

But these are no ordinary bamboo shoots: they are shirako takenoko [白子筍].

It's not just that these are the very first of the season from Kyoto — they appear around late March (any earlier in the season, and the bamboo shoots served in Tokyo are sourced from Kagoshima or elsewhere in Kyushu). 

What makes the shirako so special is that they are dug from deep down in the ground. 

Bamboo shoots always have to be extracted before they break the surface of the soil and start converting their sugars into green, fibrous sprouts. But shirako are excavated from much deeper down, close to the root system — at least a meter below the ground. 

This means they have very little of the bitter astringency of even the freshest takenoko. They are also a beautiful creamy white colour, hence their name (literally, shirako means "white child").

That's what is lurking under the charred exterior…

 

Chef Kurogi pares off the charred outer layer, slices the soft inner flesh and brushes on a shoyu-based sauce.

 

Then he serves them with a generous scoop of aoyose — white miso mixed with crushed kinome (sansho leaf).

So simple so good, with lots of sweetness and only just the very slightest hint of aku bitterness at the end.

 

Needless to say, shirako takenoko are extremely rare and similarly pricy. In fact, you are unlikely to find them — even in Kyoto.

Chef Kurogi doesn't leave anything to chance when it comes to sourcing his takenoko. He has bought his own land in Kyoto, with its dedicated bamboo forest, where the shoots have been dug for generations.

Remarkable. Outstanding.

Spring is here. 

Anything good is worth waiting in the rain for…

Kagari certainly is.

 

Notwithstanding the sign over the door, Kagari does not serve buckwheat noodles. It specialises in Shina soba. That's another word for ramen, although it usually implies that it is classier than your standard ramenya fare, and also slightly closer to Chinese noodles.

Whatever, it's a brilliant little place. My column is now up in the Japan Times… Now here are a few more images.

Starting with the tori-paitan-soba. This is served with slices of chicken chashu; Kyoto bamboo shoot (not menma); a sprig of flowering nanohana greens; and as a garnish, kaiware daikon sprouts.

 

The special tsukemen – at Kagari they call it tokusei tsuke-soba – comes with a version of the niboshi broth, plus lots of good stuff on the side. From right to left, that's the aji-tama soft-cooked eggs with beautiful dark orange yolks; bamboo shoot; pork chashu; slices of roast beef; and chicken chashu.

 

And if you think you're still going to be hungry, you can order a bowl of the yaki-gohan – essentially a yaki-onigiri (grilled rice ball) – which currently is being served with a topping of fuki-miso and some mentaiko roe. This comes with dashi in a separate pot, which you pour over it to make chazuke. Absolutely outstanding!

 

Two things about Kagari:

1) The wait. There's no getting around it. Rain or shine, you get in line and wait. The good thing is smokers aren't allowed to light up (Chiyoda-ku rules); the bad thing is there's no shade from the sun or the rain.

2) The menu is all in Japanese. Here's what it looks like, so you can work out your order ahead of time...

One more thing: Kagari is quite hard to find. Here's a map link…

uni, takenoko, sora-mame, jewel tomatoes

 

On the menu it's called "tappuri nama uni jure-kake", which translates something like: a generous serving of fresh urchin, topped with dashi gelée.

Except that it doesn't mention the mousse of uni and new-season sora-mame (broad beans) underneath, the wedges of young bamboo shoot on top, and the garnish of jade-green broad beans and jewel-like cherry tomatoes.

Not bad for ¥1,480. Not bad for a yakitori shop!

Just one reason why there are so many people lining up outside just about any day of the week...

 

The "Ore no" group of restaurants — and the way they're shaking up the business model for gourmet dining through their standing-only restaurants — is the subject of my latest Food Matters column in The Japan Times.

Here's the link…

spring meets summer on the plate

This really is my favourite season, when spring segues into early summer, with clear skies, warm sunshine, fresh green foliage on the hillsides -- and still no humidity (or bugs) to spoil the great outdoors.

 

It's a favourite on the plate too, the last tastes of spring overlapping with the early flavours of summer.

Like this dish: tempura of takenoko and chi-ayu. The bamboo shoot came from Ishikawa, where spring is still in the air. The young ayu sweetfish were shipped up from Lake Biwa, in Shiga. 

 

And what better to go with it than a drop of Kaze-no-mori — "wind in the forest".

 

Another confluence of the seasons: takikomi-gohan made with bamboo shoot and sora-mame beans.

The arrival of broad beans in the local markets is one of the supreme pleasures of this time of year. Cooked in with the savoury rice in a heavy ceramic pot, it's a beautiful melding of colours, textures and flavours.

 

With plenty of kinome (sansho leaf) added at the end to give it extra zing…

seasonal brews 1: Oiso Kotatsu-Mikan Belgian White & Sake-kasu Golden Ale

There's no better way to welcome in early spring than with some good seasonal brews and eats...

Down in Fujisawa, at Komazawa Shuzo's Mokichi Craft Beer, we sipped on Shonan Beers's early-spring special, Oiso Kotatsu-Mikan Belgian White (that's the pint on the right; the one on the left is the year-round IPA.)

The mikan in the ale are mandarin oranges — the kind you nibble on as you sit around the kotatsu heater in winter — grown on a farm in Oiso, Kanagawa Pref., which is just down the road from the brewery. The fruit adds just a light citrus buzz, nothing too sharp or acidic, so it doesn't overpower the food...

 

Which included a salad with hamaguri clams, strips of udo and nanohana greens...

 

…as well as deep-fried new-season bamboo shoots with batter-fried morsels of kasago scorpion fish — an ale batter, of course — on a tasty sauce americaine. 

 

Shonan Beer is producing some excellent new brews these days. We also tried this little number (on the right): Sake-kasu Golden Ale. It's produced with the addition of some sake lees — what's left after the sake is pressed — giving the ale a slightly more complex yeast profile. Intriguing indeed.

The brew on the left is the real ale chocolate porter. Also excellent.

 

I posted about Mokichi Craft Beer last year here...

And many moons back I wrote a column about the Komazawa brewery in my Japan Times column... Well worth the day trip!