——日本高官海外推销新荐证体制规范日餐
Don’t tell us what to do with our SkyDome roll
Japan’s government casts a critical eye on offshore sushi,
CHRISTOPHER MAUGHAN
Special to The Globe and Mail
Print Edition 31/03/07 Page M2
As recently as 200 years ago, if a Japanese waiter spilled a drink or was late with a dish, he could be executed by the restaurant’s owner.
That’s how seriously food culture is taken in Japan.
Today, of course, no one loses his life over a dropped plate of sushi. But as Japanese restaurants continue to pop up in astounding numbers all over the world, the national mania for food etiquette rages on.
This week, Mari Izumi, director of the Japanese government’s Food Service Industry Office, was in Toronto promoting a new recommendation system for Japanese restaurants. As soon as a year from now, managers and owners will be able to send applications to a council for their establishments to be recognized as authentically Japanese.
“A lot of the Japanese restaurants that are opening now are actually run by Chinese and Koreans,” Masaki Hashimoto, one of Canada’s top chefs in Japanese cuisine, says from his eponymously named restaurant in Mississauga.
“Those people from other cultures tend to have their own way of preparing their Japanese dishes,” he says, speaking through his son, waiter and interpreter, Kei.
There will always be so-called Japanese restaurants whose owners think that running a sushi joint is as simple as slapping some fish and rice together, wrapping it in cellophane, and charging four bucks a half-dozen. But Mr. Hashimoto says it’s about time someone tried to weed out the imitators.
The number of Japanese restaurants overseas has increased dramatically over the past 10 years, totalling more than 20,000. There are about 450 in the Greater Toronto Area alone, says Ted Izuka, director of the Japanese Restaurant Association of Canada.
“A couple of years ago . . . we realized we had to be cautious,” Ms. Izumi says through her translator, Aiko Murphy.
Not everyone is a fan of the FSIO’s initiatives, in part because some recommendation standards remain unclear. The head chef at Nami Japanese Seafood Restaurant on Adelaide Street East says he wonders just how traditional a given menu will have to be.
“We offer authentic Japanese food. However, we try to make it good for Torontonians, something they’ll like,” Tadashi Takinami says through his interpreter and employee, Hideki Saito. “But if we bring this product to Japan, they will say it’s not Japanese,” he adds, referring to his famous California rolls.
Mr. Takinami says a recommendation system like this could hamper the creativity of Japanese chefs. “We’re not going to change for this recommendation,” he says.
Under the new system, applicants for recommendation will have every element of their restaurant scrutinized. The quality and origin of the rice, fish and sake, the cooks’ skill, the restaurant’s decor and service, and the presentation of the food will all be considered.
Mr. Hashimoto explains that, in true Japanese cooking, the rice has to come from Japan. “It makes a difference,” he says. “There, people can eat the rice by itself because it’s so much more flavourful and it can be much more plump, much fluffier. It’s the water and the temperature. The Japanese people put more work into the water they use [in paddy fields] than the rice, which makes it very different from other countries. It’s almost like holy water.”
Mr. Hashimoto adds that water quality is also crucial in making sake. Many sakes are made in the U.S., where the available water may not pass muster. “That changes the taste quite drastically,” he says.
The biggest issue is the quality of fish. Mr. Izuka says many so-called Japanese spots don’t invest the time needed to produce sushi and sashimi meals properly. “People think that making sushi is easy cuisine,” he says. “So they imitate the appearance. But the secret ingredient that every Japanese knows, dashi [a type of fish stock], is totally omitted. . . .
“And a lot of chefs don’t know how to select the right materials and where to cut. That makes a big difference in taste and texture.”
The FSIO will help to organize seminars where local chefs can meet specialists from Japan’s top restaurants. And Ms. Izumi said she’s looking at the possibility of making it easier for foreign chefs to get working visas to go to Japan.
Peter Pang, a Chinese chef at Toronto’s Natural Sushi, says you don’t have to be Japanese to cook good Japanese food, that anyone who studies hard enough can do the job. “I studied in Japan for three years,” he said. “I can make good sushi.”
Ms. Izumi agrees that the most authentic chefs are not necessarily Japanese. “We appreciate those chefs who are non-Japanese who have a good passion for Japanese food . . . . Sometimes, they can be more authentic than a Japanese chef,” she says.
Erik Joyal, the owner of Izakaya, says his chefs would welcome the opportunity for training in Japan because there is a lack of Japanese expertise in Canadian cooking schools, but he doubts whether the accreditation will be popular.
“I don’t know how many people would take notice of what would be one of 20 stickers in the window. It may give us credibility in the Japanese community, but to a 30-year-old Toronto urbanite, I don’t know that it’ll make much difference.”
Ms. Izumi’s draft proposal mentions possible recommendations for fusion cooks, though specific criteria have yet to be worked out. It may be a while, given the debate in the culinary community as to what “counts” as Japanese food.
Mr. Hashimoto says the test should be whether you can order what’s on the applicant’s menu in Japan. In that case, California rolls wouldn’t qualify.
“If you walked into a place in Japan and asked for a dragon roll or something like that,” he says, “the chef would probably get very angry and ask you to leave.”
But Torontonians need not worry. Given Mr. Joyal and Mr. Takinami’s concerns, it looks as if local favourites such as SkyDome and Casa Loma rolls will be in plentiful supply for a while yet.
