tokyo food file

A day for remembrance

 

Today, 11th March, is a time for remembrance and prayer. For the victims and all who were lost. For the communities destroyed. For a region devastated. For a country far from recovered. For a future still uncertain.

And then, from tomorrow, to continue the work and duty of living.

Baird / Ishii / Stone Japanese Green Tea IPA... Coming very soon to a taproom near us!

A great promo vid for what I am confident will be an outstanding beer. And in the best of causes! 

 

It isn't actually available here yet — although the word is it has reached these shores and is now being processed through customs — but a release date of late July is now being mentioned.

I'm definitely looking forward to this one!

 

Sampling and sipping at the All-Japan Nihonshu Fair

 

 We stopped by the Nihonshu Fair at Sunshine City (Ikebukuro)  yesterday. Tasting our way around the shuppinshu special contest  brews was educational, occasionally uplifting and eventually palate-  numbing. So we moved along to the upper floor where the  tasting/retail fair was being held.

It wasn't as massively overcrowded as we'd feared, nor as boisterous — not until the end, at any rate. But there were still plenty of punters crowded around the most popular booths, such as Tochigi...

 

Shimane...

 

...or Fukui.

Obviously there was no avoiding the situation in Tohoku, especially the damage to kura in the quake/tsunami zone.

But even Miyagi was able to balance its pictures of the destruction with its own manga mascot (she's affectionately known as Sugitama-chan, I believe).

 

While some of the brewers were serious, by the end of the evening, many looked like they'd been sampling plenty of their own wares...

 

Among punters, dress styles ranged from the traditional... to the unconventional (this on the right was the Osaka booth, which could explain a lot).

 

Not all the experts in attendance were Japanese...

 

In the end, the booth we spent the longest was the one run by the Institute of Long Term Aging Sake. That's probably because long-term aging is something that's becoming increasingly appealing to us.

It's a sake industry group set up by kura who are focusing on koshu (aged sake). Their offerings ranged from virtually transparent and lightly acidic to deep amber with massively rich sweet flavours...

  

Here are a few more we sampled. A lovely light, clean, well-balanced 6-year-old brew from Nambu-bijin (Iwate); a special 2011 vintage from Kaetsu (Niigata), which you buy, take home and leave to mature for a decade or two...

 

...and the 7-year-old Kijonenpu from Hanagaki (Fukui), which is produced by a double-brewing process, meaning that sake is used instead of water in the moromi tanks, generating a massive sweetness to rival the most unctuous of PX sherries.

After all that imbibing, we needed to eat. So we went off for nibbles — and some more sake — at Uraya. More about that in a future post...

Drunkards of Japan unite! Drink Tohoku sake!

There are some great campaigns being set up to help kickstart Tohoku's paralyzed eonomy — starting with their sake breweries.

Here's something I wrote that never made its way into print...

“Eat and drink for Tohoku.” On first consideration the idea seems crass and insensitive. How can we knock back the sake and food when there are so many people in shelters for whom simple hot meals still feel like a luxury? On reflection, though, this is a simple but powerful way in which we can help communities so badly affected by last month’s massive earthquake.

Since March 11, there have been numerous fund-raising events held in support of the emergency relief work. But now it’s time to start thinking about the next stage: rebuilding the local economies. For so much of rural Tohoku, that means buying their agricultural produce. And because sake breweries are so focal for their communities, that is as good a way as any for us to start.

One person who certainly understands this need is Taiji Nakamura, the owner of Namikibashi Nakamura [featured in my latest Japan Times column]. He hails from Fukushima Prefecture and has extensive contacts in the sake industry in his native Aizu Wakamatsu. Although the area is far from the devastated coastal region and the ongoing nuclear crisis, it suffered substantial quake damage and was equally paralyzed by the ruptured infrastructure.

Instead of cancelling his annual spring sake party, as many have been, Nakamura turned it into a fundraiser. This was done with the agreement and participation of the brewers themselves. On their first visit away from their hometown in almost a month, they were given a powerful — and very moving — statement of intent and encouragement. 

Other bars, restaurants and liquor stores around the metropolis have been doing much the same, urging their customers to make conscious choices about what they spend their money on. By specifically choosing sake from Tohoku, Tokyo and its consumers are literally drinking to the health and recovery of an entire region. 

celebrating sake and seasonal cuisine at Namikibashi Nakamura

I've posted about Nakamura a couple of times already (here and here), but my latest column — in yesterday's Japan Times — is a good excuse for dropping a few more photos in here.

It's a classy place, simple and a bit stylish — but definitely not designer.

 

Bottom line, though, you eat (and drink) well. And that's in large measure due to the ryoricho (head chef), Kawakubo-san.

 

He's the guy with the remarkable quiff (who we first came across over a decade ago at Kan, in Naka-Meguro — and who is now (as of late 2012) back in charge of the kitchen there. He runs a very tight kitchen, and the food is always fresh, satisfying and excellent quality — and seasonal. Here are a few items that are on the current (April) menu...

 

 

Nanohana greens topped with spicy miso...

 

A small (three-piece) serving of hatsu-gatsuo (skipjack) sashimi...

 

Some shiitake lightly cooked over the charcoal grill...

 

Our perennial favourite, charcoal-grilled Daisendori chicken, basted with saikyo miso...

 

And the excellent "mukashi kara" ("since the old days") korokke — so called because they have been on the menu ever since the original Nakamura was set up (in Shimo-Kitazawa back in 1993). Lots of minced pork and only the barest amount of binding ingredients.

 

 

In my column, I mention the shochu. The Kuma-jochu (from Kumamoto) is served neat in tiny little white thumbles that are chucked back in single gulps (much the way that Maotai and other white liquor is drunk in China).  

 

I tend to go for the warmed Sato-jochu served in squat little black serving vessels, known as kurojoka. The booze has been diluted with water (shikomi-mizu from the same distillery) and left overnight to blend in the flavour and mellow out the alcohol intensity.

 

However, our usual tipple of choice at Nakamura is sake. And two brands in particular at this time...

 

Hakurakusei and Iwaki Kotobuki. Both are from the Tohoku coast – Hakurakusei from Miyagi; Kotobuki from Fukushima, the home prefecture of Nakamura's owner, Teiji Nakamura – and both lost their entire stocks in the quake and tsunami. Kotobuki also has the extra misfortune of lying within the exclusion zone around the crippled nuclear reactors, so it will have to rebuild elsewhere.

There is great poignancy in knowing that you are sipping on the last stocks of sake to emerge from those breweries for a long time. But by ordering them, you are also making a small contribution to their revival — and the communities in which they play such an important role.

You will see a couple of magnums on a temporary display outside Nakamura's entrance — not just in memoriam, but also in appreciation and in eager anticipation of their recovery and return.