It turned out we should have listened to our instincts. This restaurant violated practically every laws of finding a “real” Japanese restaurant, and was one of the worst Japanese restaurants I’d been to in a while.

Fast forward about a month or so later. We’re in Tokyo, hanging out with the Gakuranman. It’s early afternoon, and we’re hungry for lunch. We eventually settle on a Mexican restaurant, and it’s promising: the decor looks right, the menu doesn’t look too bad, and they’re playing Tequila.

The food was bad. I’d been really craving Mexican food during the month we were in Japan, but this didn’t help at all.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about those two lunches, and what they have in common. Even though they were weeks apart and thousands of miles away from each other, the similarities between the two got me thinking about authenticity.

Why Is It So Hard to Get Authentic Food?

Both of those lunches were a disappointment because neither of them seemed to have really authentic food, whether it was Japanese nor Mexican. I started to wonder why it’s so hard to get authentic food in the first place.

There are lots of reasons it can be so hard to get authentic ethnic food. Even though you can get a Big Mac served identically anywhere across the globe, it’s not always easy for food to be copied so perfectly.

There are lots of barrier between you and authentic food. What local tastes are like, availability of ingredients, and all that. Believe it or not, it’s hard to find a bodega in Japan.

I’m not completely astonished that Mexican food isn’t great in Japan. There’s no Latino population to speak of in Japan, and most Japanese people haven’t ever had Mexican food. Given that, how can Japanese people really know what Mexican food is supposed to taste like?

What Is Authentic?

As I thought more and more, the word “authentic” kept coming up and coming up and I began to wonder what it even meant. It was a word that was so critical to what I was trying to figure out that it was hard to ignore.

At the Mexican restaurant in Tokyo, I told the Gakuranman that he’d never had a real, authentic burrito, even though I’d literally seen him eat a burrito minutes before.

It wasn’t as if the burrito were fake or imaginary or something like that. It’s just that it hadn’t met my standards of authenticity, whatever those were.

Unfortunately, the standards of authenticity are very subjective and malleable. There’s no objective checklist for you to cross reference if you wonder whether or not some food is “authentically” Japanese.

Sure, there are signs that point you in the right direction, but the finer details of what, say, constitutes as authentic Japanese or Mexican foods is up to interpretation.

As one Supreme Court Justice said, “I know it when I see it.”

Copy of a Copy

As I kept thinking about it, I realized that most of the Mexican food I’ve had in my life has actually been more Tex-Mex than proper Mexican food. More a localized copy than the real M^cCoy.

And when I think about it, a lot of the Japanese food I know and love isn’t really “Japanese” anyway. Tempura is from Portugal, ramen is from China, and sushi is from southeast Asia. But Japan has managed to absorb these foods into its culture and make them its own.

We like to think that there are clean, distinct lines between cultures, but they all sort of mush together after a while, even a culture as supposedly homogenous as Japan’s.

Bucking Authenticity

I’m not going to claim that you can get authentic, Japanese sushi in some landlocked place in the US like Iowa (sorry Iowans). If anything, I’m saying that you shouldn’t expect food to be the same in Japan as it is abroad.

But as much as we like to joke about sushi abominations, that doesn’t mean that Japanese food abroad has to be bad, or that different interpretations of Japanese food is wrong. Earlier this month, a Danish chef won first place in the World Sushi Cup in Japan. Instead of being penalized for going against tradition, judges were impressed that the chef embraced ingredients and techniques from Scandinavia.

I’d like to think of eating ethnic food a bit like watching a horror movie. You might be able to see the zipper on the monster’s costume, but if you suspend your disbelief, you might actually enjoy yourself!

Even though ramen is originally from China and was once called shina soba (しなそば), over the course of about 150 years ramen has slowly but surely become a uniquely Japanese dish, and even a staple across the country.

Chefs all over Japan have tinkered and toyed with ramen, elevated the food to a national obsession. Different parts of the country have very different styles of ramen, to the point where they represent a sort of regional pride. Once you’ve seen the ramen movie to end all ramen movies, you’ll see the kind of passion the Japanese have for their noodles.

I’ve tried all of the ramen offerings in my hometown of Portland, and while there are some bright spots, most are fairly disappointing (partly because I neglected to follow to Laws of Identifying a Real Japanese Restaurant).

But as much as I’m a ramen noobie, I know there are others out there who are less fortunate than I, whose only brush with noodly goodness is instant ramen out of a packet or in a styrofoam cup. Here is my effort to guide those people in the right direction, walking you through step by step, ingredient by ingredient, what’s what in a delicious bowl of ramen.

Broths

The foundation of any good ramen is the broth and, when done right, is light years beyond the little packet of flavoring that comes with instant ramen.

A good broth is made over the course of hours and has a ton of different ingredients, but there are a few primary types of ramen broth:

Shoyu (醤油)

Soy sauce, or shoyu is a staple in basically every type of ramen broth, but is more prominent in some more than others. It has a very rich, salty, umami flavor to it, and a dark color.

Miso (味噌)

You’ve no doubt had miso soup before, but miso broth is a little more than just your standard “off the hook” miso soup. Miso broth a relatively recent ramen invention (miso ramen’s only been around for about 50 years), and is more of a regional specialty than a countrywide phenomenon.

Shio (塩)

Most ramen broths use shoyu to give it a lot of that salty flavor, but shio ramen does it a bit differently. It uses salty things from the ocean, like seaweed and other dried seafoods to give it a salty and umami flavor.

Pork (豚骨)

Who doesn’t like pork? Well, besides people who don’t eat red meat, pescatarians, vegetarians, and vegans. Pork broth is a stock made from pig’s bones and other ingredients which vary by the chef.

Toppings

Ramen toppings are yet another way to distinguish your bowl of noodles from everybody else. They’re not quite the heart and soul of the dish, but they make an already awesome dish ever more awesome.

According to Tampopo, each ingredient basically has its own personality, its own special place in the bowl, and you must treat them with respect.

There are a lot of basic toppings that almost always make it into the ramen bowl: things like seaweed, green onions, bamboo shoots, etc.. But some have a much larger personality and role in the bowl:

Pork

Pork comes in ramen comes many forms, whether it’s char siu, pork shoulder or pork belly. My all-time personal favorite is stewed, cubed pork belly, otherwise known as kakuni (角煮). On a good (or bad) day, I’d probably kill a man to get some.

Egg

This ain’t your grandpa’s hard-boiled egg — the eggs that go into ramen reached a level culinary sophistication far beyond your average scrambled or boiled variety.

Lots of chefs cook the egg in a way that the yolk is still left gooey and intact. Some slow poach the egg, a process that requires that the egg never touch the bottom of the pot, and a thermometer to measure the exact temperature of the water at all times. All in all, slow poaching an egg takes about an hour; or, a little more than your egg timer can handle.

Even better still are eggs boiled then soaked in a sort of marinade, usually some combination including soy sauce and mirin. The way the sauces get into the eggwhites is just amazing. I’d highly recommend it.

Corn

Yes, corn. More recently, people in Japan have begun experimenting with new and sometimes weird ingredients not native to Japan or even China. The uniquely American grain has somehow snuck across the Pacific and into ramen bowls in Japan.

It’s not uncommon to see corn paired with butter in the ramen bowl, all atop miso broth. You see this more in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. Something about the warm, buttery corn makes sense in the frigid northern weather, I guess.

Different Styles

Some types of ramen break completely free of the “noodles in broth with toppings” idea. Some are completely brothless, which can be good in its own way. It lets you focus a lot more on the taste and texture of the noodles.

Another style that’s gained popularity is tsukemen (つけ麺), which are cold noodles with a separate sauce for dipping. Some people love to add enough chili oil to make you want to cry.

While this post doesn’t even begin to cover all of the different varieties of ramen, hopefully it will be a guide for those of you out there in the ramen wilderness. For more, I’d highly recommend the food magazine Lucky Peach, issue 1. If you can read through that and not be hungry, then you’re just not human.

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
-Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

To some people, Iron Chef was just a TV show. It ran for about a decade in Japan and had a few, less successful spinoffs around the world. Among a sea of reality TV cooking shows, it might not stand out a whole lot.

I’m here to tell you that those people are dead wrong. It might just be the nostalgia goggles talking, but I’d wager to say that Iron Chef was the most significant cultural contribution that the Japanese have ever given the world.

Okay, that might be going a bit far, but I contest that Iron Chef was a fantastic franchise that reflected a fair amount of Japanese culture, and did so in style.

Iron Chef, for the uninitiated, is a competitive cooking show with a fairly simple format: a world-renowned chef challenges an “Iron Chef” — a chef who specializes in one type of cuisine. Over the course of an hour, the two chefs compete in an arena called Kitchen Stadium to make the best dishes all utilizing one, common ingredient. At the end, the two are judged to see whose cuisine reigns supreme.

Given how many cooking shows are around now, it seems strange that Iron Chef ran for nearly a decade. Iron Chef contained a multitude of elements that culminated in a recipe for success.

It probably shouldn’t be any surprise that Iron Chef took off as it did in Japan. Japan is a veritable paradise for food lovers, boasting both unique delicacies not available elsewhere in the world, and skilled chefs who are able to craft wonderful dishes.

You can gauge Japan’s love of the gourmet by its Michelin stars. The Michelin Guide is the undisputed authority on gourmet restaurants, with its coveted three star rating the highest honor in the restaurant world. For a while, Japan boasted the more Michelin Three-Star restaurants than any other country in the world. (Eat it, France!)

You can see Japan’s love of gourmet food in Iron Chef through its ingredients. In spin-offs like Iron Chef: America, chefs use ingredients familiar to the common man: things like hamburger and beer. In Japan’s Iron Chef, the special ingredients include things like foie gras, caviar, and lobster.

(Those ingredients came at a price. One estimate puts the budget for ingredients on the show at around $8,000,000.)

The food wasn’t the only reason behind Iron Chef‘s popularity — there’s no doubt that part of the reason Iron Chef was so popular in Japan and around the world was the drama. The spectacle of Kitchen Stadium with its chandeliers, torches, high ceilings; the aura of the Iron Chefs, the supposed heads of their fields; and the sweeping, orchestral music that underscored it all.

But no element tied the show together more than Kitchen Stadium’s leader, Chairman Kaga. Portrayed by actor Takeshi Kaga, Chairman Kaga was the enigmatic leader of Kitchen Stadium. With his mane of hair, eccentric outfits, and ever-present gloves, Kaga’s look was incredibly distinctive.

Of course, Kaga’s presentation of the secret ingredient was a highlight of the show:

Kaga shared Japan’s love for the gourmet — it’s claimed that he consumed over 2,389,995 calories during the course of the show. (And yet, managed to maintain his figure!)

Unfortunately, it seems that the only way to see Iron Chef outside of Japan is catching it on TV or more questionable means. I haven’t been able to find a reliable to buy DVDs or catch it on a streaming site.

Regardless of its availability, Iron Chef has left its mark on Japan and around the world.

Allez cuisine!

A small sushi bar near a train station in Tokyo called Sukiyabashi Jiro, run by sushi chef Jiro Ono is largely considered to be the best sushi restaurant in the world; and Jiro, a master at the top of his craft. What is it about Jiro and his restaurant that makes the sushi so good?

Michelin Stars

So who says that Sukyabashi Jiro is the best in the world? Well, the Michelin Guide, for one.

If you’re unfamiliar, the same Michelin company that makes tires and has a giant, puffy, white man for its mascot, has been putting out a restaurant and hotel guide for about 100 years.

The Guide hands out stars to restaurants, on a scale of one to three stars. Even earning just one Michelin Star is one of the greatest honors a restaurant can get. But three Michelin Stars? That’s essentially food perfection.

There are fewer than 100 restaurants in the world with 3 Michelin stars, and Sukiyabashi Jiro is one of the few sushi restaurants to receive that honor.

What Makes This Sushi The Best

What’s the difference between Sukiyabashi Jiro and your neighborhood conveyer belt sushi restaurant? You can’t even compare the quality.

So good, it looks fake.

Instead of the $2 sushi plates you’ll find at lesser sushi restaurants, a full meal at Sukiyabashi Jiro will run you around $300-$400.

You won’t find any sushi abominations at Sukiyabashi Jiro; no Philadelphia rolls, no sushi pizza, and no sushirritos. Everything is served per the chef’s specifications, omakase-style.

The ingredients are world-class. Being located in Tokyo, Sukiyabashi Jiro has access to some of the best, freshest fish in the world. The restaurant even has vinegar specially manufactured to its exact standards.

The preparation is careful and precise. Sushi is served in a specific order, and made only moments before you’re served. Everything comes at the right temperature, at the right time.

And the list goes on. Sukiyabashi Jiro’s obsessive attention to detail is what makes it the best in the world. If you want to read about what a meal at Sukiyabashi Jiro is like (and browse the greatest sushi porn ever), check out this report from A Life Worth Eating.

Jiro Dreams Of Sushi

Jiro, already in his mid-80s, won’t be around for much longer. That’s why I’m excited that somebody is making an entire movie dedicated to Jiro and his obsession for perfect sushi.

The movie is called “Jiro Dreams Of Sushi,” and it’s due out later this year. In the meantime, this trailer will have to do.

I can’t wait till this movie comes out and I can see into the world of Jiro, and what makes his sushi so damn good.

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A hundred years ago, the distinct flavor of Japanese food lead to the discovery of a brand new flavor: umami.

The Four Basic Tastes

Image sources: 1, 2, 3, & 4

If you want to describe the taste of your food, then you probably use a combination of a few different words: sour, bitter, salty, and sweet.

And in fact, for thousands of years people have used those four concepts to describe their food. Sure, you might branch out a little bit more by describing the textures (e.g. crunchy, tender) or compare it to another food, but at the very core, there wasn’t any other way to describe taste.

Why? Mainly because of this guy:

Hey kids! Stay in school!

This guy’s name was Democritus. Democritus, along with a bunch of other Greek thinkers like Socrates and Euclid, were pretty much the founders of western scientific and philosophical thought.

And Democritus theorized that foods tasted like one of the four basic categories because of the shapes of the food’s atoms.

To be fair, Greek thinkers got a lot of things right (like geometry!). On the other hand, they were wrong about a lot of other things (like leeches!).

And Democritus couldn’t be more wrong about the number of basic tastes. But nobody would challenge the scientific basis of this claim until thousands of years later, when an unknown Japanese scientist started questioning the status quo.

The Fifth Basic Taste

In the early 1900s, a Japanese chemist named Kikunae Ikeda began to wonder if there might be a fifith basic taste. After examining lots of different foods that didn’t quite fit into the four other categories, Ikeda found it: the fifth taste.

He called it umami (うま味). Some cultures call it savoriness, but the term umami is used all across the world today.

What is umami exactly? It’s a little hard to describe. Umami is the kind of flavor that’s found in meat, cheese, and mushrooms. Again, think “savory.”

And not only did Ikeda discover umami, but he also created monosodium glutamate, or MSG.  So whenever you’re in a cheap Chinese restaurant that heaps on the MSG, thank Ikeda.

The Science of Taste

Why do things taste the way they do? How did Ikeda discover umami? It’s all in the science of food. (And no, I’m not talking about molecular gastronomy.)

There’s actually a scientific explanation behind each type of taste. Sourness, bitterness, saltiness, sweetness, and umami all have a chemical linked to them that make them taste the way they do.

For umami, that chemical is glutamate. Ikeda was able to figure out that all of the foods that had the umami flavor all had high levels of glutamate.

Why Japan?

How was umami discovered in Japan, of all places? Look into Japan’s history and it seems almost obvious.

Buddhism values all life, which is why Buddhist practitioners are sometimes vegetarian. So when Buddhism was first introduced in Japan way back in the day, meat was formally banned for a time.

Obviously, this ban wasn’t too long-lasting or always observed, but it did have some impact on Japanese food. To compensate for the lack of meat, Japanese developed a cuisine with lots of food rich in umami. Most of the foods that are the foundation of Japanese cuisine, like dashi and soy sauce, are very umami-heavy.

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What’s your favorite Japanese food? Tell me in the comments!

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[Header image by Miguel Michán.]