To a Westerner, the idea of a chef cooking only deep-fried food is pretty weird. Deep-frying is for machines or, at best, a line cook who can pull the fries out when they’re done.
But in Japan, tempura is a first-class cuisine. In fact, Yukari’s cousin, who is a chef himself, told us recently that he would never even try to do tempura, since the apprenticeship takes years. So when you find a tempura chef you like, you stick with him.
For us, Suzuki-san, executive chef at the incredible yamanoue tempura restaurant, is that chef. The man is a genius. He finds the freshest fish and vegetables and carefully enhulls them in an a light, totally greaseless shell.
And although seemingly shy, he quickly opens up as you talk to him. He seems to really enjoy it when our guests, especially foreign guests, get into the food. Our most recent guests, Megan and Sean, were enthusiastic enough that the reclusive Suzuki-san agreed to pose for a picture!
The only other picture I’ve gotten of him was when he was doing cleanup after most of the other customers had left. I like the picture, since you can see yamanoue’s stunning counter, made from a single, beautiful board of Japanese cypress.
I’m going to do a more detailed write-up on Fugu Diaries, but if you’re in Tokyo and want to see what real tempura is all about, yamanoue is the place to go.
Posted by pmk at September 5, 2005 4:12 AM | TrackBack