As my second kaiseki meal in Japan, following a tantalizing introduction at Yukimura, dinner at Koju found me curious to see how chef Toru Okuda's dishes might be situated within this heterogeneous tradition of ritualistic and seasonal cuisine. Early on Okuda-san and I enjoyed a good icebreaker when I asked what he thought of Seiji Yamamoto's cooking at Ryugin. (The two chefs, who are friends, had incidentally just visited the day before.) I probed: "So what do you think of his cooking? It is not so traditional?" The charming server translated: "The chef says, 'Yamamoto-san is the most traditional chef in Japan. He is also the best.'" The irony and hyperbolic politeness in Okuda-san's response elicited warmhearted laughter from the three of us: Yamamoto-san is in fact known in the culinary press for veering off the path of traditional kaiseki, taking part as he does in certain molecular gastronomic trends centered largely in Spain.
What became more or less apparent to me after meals at Tokyo's Yukimura, Koju, Ryugin and at Kyoto kaiseki restaurants was a certain miniaturist flair to Okuda-san's dishes. That is, Okuda-san excels at offering close-up views of traditional dishes -- applying a contrasting hue here, paring away an ingredient there, endowing each product with a meticulous cuisson and independent raison d’être -- only to bring one nearer to the unforeseen potential in what is familiarly termed kaiseki. His restraint in the number of ingredients is coupled with an exacting precision, a deft hand in the kitchen. Ultimately, his culinary philosophy appears to entail honing in vividly on taste and textural rapports of traditional dishes. It would certainly take more than one meal to determine, but my initial hunch intimates that this may characterize Okuda-san's modern touch.
That said, the occasional opening dish in Okuda-san's repertoire may appear as a "mere" presentation of the raw materials, which might provoke resistance among Western diners. Indeed, Masa Takayama, one of the very finest Japanese chefs in the U.S., has proclaimed himself figuratively "naked", as his role of cook remains less pronounced than with his counterparts steeped in Continental culinary traditions. In Japan, sourcing impeccable ingredients, and storing them correctly, can outweigh the importance of dressing them up. Japanese chefs may be the most highly attuned to the benefits of paying respect to the inherent potential in ingredients. In any case, this description applies to Okuda-san's dishes at Koju.
The meal began with a white Kyoto miso salad composed of a mi-cuit amaebi, ankimo, leeks, and finely grated yuzu zest. The delicate miso, with the right balance of sweetness and acidity, cut through the ankimo's richness, and the yuzu zest's sharp citrus aroma perked up the senses for the feast to come. (Another successful ankimo preparation, if less elaborate, from this trip was at Sushi Saito, where the simple addition of the zest from this Japanese citrus produced the balancing acidic sensation, much as coarse sea salt cuts foie gras.) There was also a delightful interplay of textures in the salad: between the creamy ankimo, fleshy amaebi and crisp leeks, and the ensemble was brightened by the miso dressing. The dish was elevated by the pairing of a Taittinger Brut 2004, demonstrating that the classic marriage of foie gras and champagne also translates to foie de lotte, as the fat is cut effectively by the wine's combination of yeast and carbonation. Okuda-san, himself a sommelier, paired exquisite sake, including some Junmai Daiginjo the likes of which I have rarely tasted, with the dishes.
Having dined at Yukimura just days before, I had already experienced Yukimura-san's preparations of taizagani, or snow crab from the Tango Peninsula (with servings of fresh roe and meat, followed by charcoal grilled claws, legs and simply the best kanimiso one can find in Japan), for which the chef is particularly renowned. When I mentioned to Okuda-san that I had just recently dined at Yukimura, he inquired: "so how did he serve the crab?" I replied that he had dressed it and covered it in fresh roe, serving alongside a hot chawan mushi with the heady aroma of bonito flakes. Of course, covering it in roe does not necessarily mean smothering it! But that is exactly the gesture Okuda-san performed with his crab, served sans dressing, allowing the copious crisp eggs to circumscribe the softness of the sweet meat. This was perhaps the purest expression of Okuda-san's reverence for ingredient integrity. None of the other offerings of snow crab with its fresh roe that I tasted on this trip were as au naturel as this one, in which I could not even detect an attempt at brightening the meat with citrus.
Next was a highly aromatic and transparent dashi with a scallop dumpling. The grilling of the scallops was admirable (they wore tiny char marks), as they retained a soft, sweet flesh even in the steaming liquid; the maitake had not yielded its firm meatiness; and the broth was redolent of the mushroom's woodsiness, the smoky umami of bonito flakes and the citrus clarity of yuzu zest. Each individual ingredient exhibited an impeccable cuisson, demonstrating that this unassuming chef is a master of precision, which I found unparalleled in the other dashi I was served in Japan. Indeed, each primary ingredient was cooked meticulously enough to suggest a miniature set piece that might be displaced from its environment and still retain its full integrity and raison d’être.
The sashimi course presented peerless scored ika, with a perfectly soft and squeaky texture, to be seasoned first with salt and sudachi citrus while the second piece was suggested to pair with wasabi paste (finely grated by a sharkskin grater the day the rhizome was released from water) and soy sauce. (This dual seasoning was actually first introduced to me at Kuruma Zushi in New York.) Less impressive was the tai (accompanied by a blanched flap of its skin), which was slightly chewy, most likely due to the onset of rigor mortis, the unfortunate downside to freshness. Okuda-san's hon maguro tasted very fatty and quite round, if falling shy of the more profound flavors of Masa Takayama's from off the shores of Boston.
These deftly executed traditional dishes led up to a mar i muntanya masterpiece: grilled wagyu beef and amadai, or tilefish, with condiments of ginko nuts, pickled daikon cubes, a sweet potato slice and black sesame tuile. The beef possessed a potent flavor profile and, when seasoned with the fresh wasabi, exemplified why Japanese wagyu rivals cattle the world over. It was not as marbled as the Saga beef from Wolfgang Puck's CUT restaurant in Las Vegas and thus tasted less overtly buttery, yet it lingered on the palate with a deep and unctuous finish. In sum, it sits proudly next to Aragawa's Sanda Beef (Hyōgo Prefecture). The amadai's grilling left the subtly sweet flesh soft, gelatinous in places, while producing crispy salted scales lightly lacquered with miso. Each bite released a symphony of harmonious contrasts in flavor and texture. The light pink tone of the amadai ("sweet tai") is a byproduct of its exclusively crab diet. Aesthetic plating in kaiseki is conceived in accord with seasonality, the crockery's design (the restaurant is named after the potter Kojyu Nishioka, whose artworks serve as the vessels for the meal), ingredients and garnishes all chosen with the season's spirit in mind. This was an evocative expression of winter's arrival.
Clearly, it would be difficult to maintain the momentum after such a dish, but Okuda-san gently led one down from this crescendo with a delicious managatsuo, dressed in ponzu sauce, minced daikon and yuzu zest and accompanied by a potato croquette.
All kaiseki concludes with rice, pickles and miso, but I began to sense, after repeated meals in both Tokyo and Kyoto, that one could gain insight into the quality of the overall performance by how seriously the chef conceives of this obligatory course, perhaps in a similar way to the widespread opinion that a sushi chef can be judged by the taste of his tamago. (Some claim that the chef's fish is incorporated in it, thus providing a final testimony to its quality.) Okuda-san's rice preparation was elaborate topped as it was with wild sea eel, exhibiting its pronounced umami, and dressed with a quail egg.
Concluding the feast was a refined version of a popular Japanese dessert, cream anmitsu. Served with a wedge of persimmon, the anmitsu was composed of sesame ice cream, and the agar agar jelly cubes benefited from the slightly bitter acidity of sake, reigning in the sweetness of the dessert. The spray of water droplets on the plate conveys, in the kaiseki tradition, the untouched freshness of the food. This dewdrop aesthetic was repeated at other kaiseki meals of mine. Space, ritual and seasonality are integral to kaiseki, and one's first experiences of it should ideally be undertaken with a deep aesthetic curiosity, senses fully awake, aware nevertheless that one will surely miss or misread many signs present in these rich and nuanced traditions.
If you have been reading up to this point, it will be easy to guess that my dinner at Koju provided an invaluable education in kaiseki, and I long to return in a different season to experience what Okuda-san does with other ingredients and preparations. This meal was remarkable for its variety and quality of ingredients, technical mastery and sense of pacing. Indeed, it was a winter's tale, told through the freshest of seasonal offerings and the culinary traditions that Okuda-san reverently seeks to heighten by accentuating inherent rapports, eliciting revelatory dialogues within a dish, endowing individual ingredients with a fully round, detailed personality.
Perhaps having been spoiled by Yukimura-san's grilled snow crab, I wondered why Okuda-san chose to omit this coveted seasonal offering from his menu. In return, Koju's narrative was more colorful than Yukimura's extended variations on the crab (of course, no one is complaining when it is prepared with such skill!). That nearly every one of Okuda-san's dishes provided the yardstick against which to measure the same renditions at my other kaiseki meals testifies to the chef's range and perfectionism. That he takes seriously his role as sommelier is also to be cherished! Quite simply, Koju sits comfortably with Yukimura on the short list of kaiseki restaurants in Japan that I dream most of revisiting.
You have paid attention to the many details that make kaiseki dining one of my favorite in the world. I have also enjoyed Okuda-sensei's restaurant at the counter. You might also like to try Sojiki Nakahigashi in Kyoto, where your lesson about seasonal symbolism can be far more elaborate. The chef, Hisao Nakahigashi, is a master of tsumigusa ryori, foraging wild plants and forgotten herbs, and incorporating them into his kaiseki in a unique and very personal cuisine. One flavor that he still includes, which is rarely present in the fine dining of any nationality, is the flavor of bitter. The first word in his restaurant name, Sou Jiki, translates into something like "to eat leaves," and suggests medicinal qualities. Another delightful restaurant in Kyoto is Sakurada, a little more traditional, but very creative and skilled.
Posted by: David Padberg | 06/24/2010 at 09:07 PM