I left the decision of where to eat on my birthday till a few days before. Twitter friends kindly helped me create a shortlist of fabulous options but in the end I remembered my longstanding desire to visit Scott Hallsworth’s Kurobuta Izakaya to try his small plate menu of inventive, modern Japanese food. True to ... Read more »
I said a couple of years ago that 2012 was the year of ramen. That was prompted by the opening of four fabulous ramenya in London, each one selling a vastly more exciting (and generally, more authentic) offering than the Wagamama-style facsimile that was prevalent at the time. Since then, the enthusiasm for real ramen ... Read more »
I recently started a new job in Victoria, an area jam-packed with mediocre chain restaurants and coffee shops. When I asked food friends for recommendations, Uni was a name that popped up more than once, with its salmon tacos singled out for particular praise. Taco shells filled with salmon tartare isn’t a dish I’ve ever ... Read more »
Traditionally, the key ingredients in the Japanese dish shira-ae are white – white tofu, white miso and white sesame seeds; shiro means white in Japanese and the ae suffix denotes a vegetable dish with dressing. What’s unusual from my European perspective is the low amount of liquid ingredients in the dressing; the silken tofu provides ... Read more »
Yuzu makes a fabulous sorbet, one I am seldom able to resist if I see it on a menu. But when I was gifted a jar of Korean Yuzu Tea by a friend I decided to use it in a simple yuzu ice cream instead, combining creaminess with the distinctive flavour of yuzu. Yuzu is ... Read more »
Back in the late 1990s, a friend took me to Matsuri St James. It was a fair bit pricier than the restaurants we more commonly visited, but he’d heard good things about the food and was keen to try. Most of the clientele were Japanese and virtually all of them were men, probably a factor ... Read more »
Long before my (relatively recent) obsession with Japan I developed a taste for matcha, the very finely powdered green tea that is at the heart of the Japanese tea ceremony. There are a number of different types of green tea in Japan. Some tea leaves are deliberately grown in shade for at least the last ... Read more »
After two trips to Japan in two years, I’ve fallen even more in love with Japanese food. Both holidays gave us plenty of opportunities to enjoy traditional washoku cuisine, particularly in the multi-course kaiseki ryori meals we enjoyed at a number of ryokans. While sushi is increasingly popular in the UK, the many, many other ... Read more »
During our two recent holidays to Japan, we discovered a real love for yakiniku.* I was determined to recreate this indoor barbecue experience at home. But there were obstacles: no smokeless charcoal; no indoor barbecue container; no working extractor fan in the kitchen (it died and we’ve not had it fixed); and it can be ... Read more »
In China, Taiwan and North America, yakinuku (literally “grilled meat” *) is often referred to as Japanese barbeque but in Japan itself, it’s very much considered a Korean import. In the UK, it’s not well known at all. Showa Taishu Horumon in Osaka What is Yakiniku? Yakiniku is DIY dining at its finest! Diners gather ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]