Vegetarian Kaiseki Restaurant in Spotlight, Sustainable Tokyo, Earth Day 2010

Vegetarian Kaiseki Restaurant in Spotlight, Sustainable Tokyo, Earth Day 2010

by Serge the Concierge

Robbie Swinnerton writes about Vegetables given pride of place in upmarket kaiseki
cuisine (Tokyo Food File, Japan Times, April 16).

He describes Yasai Kaiseki Nagamine in Ginza this way:

"The idea is simple but profound. Japan's traditional multicourse cuisine
has always been based on the bounty of the vegetable kingdom.
Increasingly, though, kaiseki meals have become loaded up with meat and
seafood, with vegetables, herbs and mushrooms treated as mere seasonal
accents. Nagamine winds the clock back, but in contemporary style."

Tokyorest

Lukas Kratochvil praised the restaurant as well in Japanese kaiseki vegetarian restaurant in Tokyo (Japan Visitor).
Here's an excerpt:

"We started with a trio of appetizers
where the stand-out dish consisted of sesame tofu, wasabi, soy sauce
and sweet azuki beans. The flavour of the panacotta-textured tofu
harmonized beautifully with the beans and wasabi. The first real
highlight followed: a wonderful winter warmer of pureed Nagano turnip soup
with a solitary ball of mochi (rice flower dumpling). Japanese turnips
are outstanding and the soup alone was worth the visit.

Next up, a medley of Kagoshima bamboo shoots, Kyoto carrot, Chinese
yam from Aomori and miso with soy sauce. Do you remember as a child
visiting a farm in the countryside and trying the fresh, chemically
unadulterated vegetables? I had forgotten that vegetables could taste
this good."

Robbie Swinnerton's conclusion for Japan Times piece is pitch perfect for Earth Day 2010:

"We all know the oceans are being over-fished and there's not enough land
for everyone on the planet to eat vast amounts of meat. The only way
forward is surely to look back to the past. Japan's vegetable-centric
traditional cuisine, with its elegance and subtlety, offers a viable
model for the future."

Celebrating healthy and sustainable eating habits for Tokyo Thursdays #136

Previously: From Confusion to Clarity with Japanese Food
Glossary by Eat Japan

(Our illustration comes from Gournavi, Gourmet Navigator Online Guide to Restaurants in Japan)

8 comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.