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.
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