There's chicken... and then there's jidori. And some of the breeds developed around Japan in recent decades are absolutely wonderful. Such as the gitaro shamo variety from Nagano.
Great flavorful, full-textured meat; wonderful eggs too. You can really tell the taste when you try the sasami breast meat simply grilled with a sprinkle of salt and a dab or six of freshly grated wasabi. Superb!
And then there's shamo-rokku (also sometimes called shamorock). This breed is from Aomori, developed from a cross between traditional Japanese gamecocks and the US Plymouth Rock breed. The flavor is delectable — especially as yakitori.
Here (below) the sasami white meat has been coated with Kyoto white miso before being slowly, carefully grilled.
Top-draw yakitori requires the extra depth of flavor that comes from being grilled over premium binchotan charcoal (the best is from Wakayama).
That's the way it's done at Gotanda's two Michelin-starred yakitori restaurants: Takahashi has the gitaro shamo; Yoshicho uses the shamo-rokku. I wrote both up in a Japan Times column (in February 2010).
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