You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi,
everyone. Welcome to Potluck Food Talks. I'm
here with Phil San, who just returned from the
islands from the Far East. The Misty Islands.
The Promised Land. Exactly. So how was it? How
long was it? You went to Japan like for three
weeks, two weeks? Not quite, just for 10 days.
But it was a really, really good amount of time,
actually. I mean, for people who don't know,
I used to live in Japan before. I used to live
in Tokyo in 2014 for almost a year, working in
a special little restaurant called Ryugen, just
a casual little three Michelin star place. back
then in rapongi now it moved um and yeah so it's
been 12 years since i've been to japan and i've
actually for a third of my career have cooked
japanese food um which is pretty crazy to think
about and so i'm like i'm very into it and i
was very excited to go back and wanted this trip
to be more of a spread of like different experiences
and i was especially interested in having like
really real experiences i didn't just want to
go to a hotel and go to this famous place and
that famous place i wanted to have like real
like japanese life you know i'm super happy with
how that went it was really really nice what
was the itinerary where which cities did you
visit so we arrived in tokyo and we stayed in
tokyo for two days and then took a shinkansen
to kyoto and stayed most of the time in kyoto
That's what I thought. You worked quite a few
days in Kyoto, right? Yeah, that was my focus.
Because Tokyo, I love Tokyo. I mean, I could
live in Tokyo very easily. I love it there. It's
super nice. There's so much going on. But there's
like such a cool vibe. But I'd never been to
Kyoto. And I know that Kyoto is a lot more sort
of old school, more vintagey, more traditional
in a way. And I really wanted to spend as much
time there as possible. and then we did two days
in osaka but also just because our flight was
from osaka back to europe and um and yeah highlights
food highlights city by city let's start with
tokyo oh man there were a lot honestly there
really were a lot so i didn't just want to go
to like the michelin star high -end places you
know actually i wanted to do that as little as
possible there were a couple that i went that
were really nice also really happy i went they
were exceptional But more than anything, I wanted
to go to this kind of like small hole in the
wall places that just do exceptionally good food.
I went to a really nice soba place near Kappabashi,
which was, I think soba is really, really underrated
outside of Japan. Absolutely. There's ramen places
and stuff, you know, and like everybody likes
ramen. Then like there's a few like well -known
udon places as in like Paris, for example, or...
um koya in london you know they've been doing
udon for ages um but soba and like good soba
is outside of japan i've never seen that yeah
i i guess i agree uh i also think it's it's more
difficult to communicate to the wider wider audience
it's also like a more subtle more japanese like
more elegant while ramen is more chinese it's
like a in your face pork broth like super strong
you know like that's easier for everybody to
understand and like well this is something you
have to get into it yeah 100 100 but if you like
really experience it it's it's amazing yeah also
the combination of like you know soba like handmade
noodles buckwheat noodles with the condiments
and then like really good seasonal tempura again
you know and just like this like tiny place super
beautiful And they had tempura of a spring green
called Angelica. Do you notice this herb, Angelica?
No idea. So it's almost like a celery plant.
It's like quite a big, like wild plant. It looks
like a big bush, almost like a fennel. And in
springtime, they're like bulbs. They're very
tender and they get used for miso soup and for
tempura more than anything. They have a very,
very particular flavor, a slight bitterness.
They're very healthy for you. Again, they have
like a really, you know, like how, for example,
Lovage has like a very, very unique aroma. It's
kind of the same with that. It's a little bit
Lovage -y, but a little bit more citric, I would
say. Super nice, like a tempura of that, super,
super tasty. Ah, super interesting. Yeah, it
really does look like fennel flowers. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, totally. And this is something that I hadn't
seen in a really long time since actually I worked
in London. And this Japanese restaurant, Koya,
where we would go foraging a lot. That was one
of the restaurants, one of the only restaurants
when Junior Yamasaki was there, who now has an
amazing restaurant in LA called Yes with double
S. The restaurant where I've seen Japanese philosophy
best lived out in a country that's not Japan,
which is seasonality, local ingredients cooked
in a Japanese way. And we would gather Angelica
there. I know Noma used to use it also. And yeah,
so that was really, really good. And then Kyoto,
I mean, Kyoto was just like chock full of highlights.
I went to this temple lunch that you recommended.
Did you like it? It was fantastic. It was one
of the best meals we had. Yeah, yeah. It was
such a good recommendation. Yeah, also like spending
the whole morning there, right? Like walking
in the forest and finishing in the temple. Yeah,
for me, it was also one of the highlights for
sure. yeah 100 my mom was blown away like this
it was exactly like what she wanted to do i'm
so happy i'm so happy it worked out nice yeah
i mean it was very busy um because it's like
sakura season so the garden and the temple garden
was like very full of people but we went quite
early our lunch was at 11 30. that's just very
similar to what we did it's like a great plan
to do it like that yeah and you know um i was
really curious to see what it was going to be
like because back when i lived in tokyo I went
to this like very fine dining, kaiseki style
dinner, which was very similar. It was like vegetarian
temple food. And it was a super beautiful restaurant
in Ginza, like hidden away. You would get your
own private tatami room, etc. While the food
was very interesting, they had a lot of similar
things that we ate there. It was a little bit
underwhelming. And this time, going to Tenryu
Temple. The food was so nice. There were so many
highlights inside of that meal. They had a nasu
dengaku, which is a miso glazed aubergine, which
there was one of the... I've eaten it many times
and in many different countries also because
people like to remake this dish. And there it
was the best miso aubergine that I've ever had.
It was so juicy and the meat of the aubergine
was flaky, almost like a codfish. I was like,
what the fuck? This is so, so good. They had
an amazing sesame tofu, gomadare tofu, which
was incredible. They had this bamboo leaf that
was filled with a mochi. That was one of the
highlights for me. Yeah, that was wrapped in
kind of like an origami kind of thing that you
had to open. I even thought that it was just
a creation, and then suddenly not. There was
the most amazing mochi I've ever had inside of
it. I don't remember what the filling was. For
us, it was like a sweet yuzu kind of filling.
Yeah, correct. It was so nice. I was like, what
the fuck? The texture of the mochi, the flavor,
the flavor of the yuzu. just fucking perfect
and it was super friendly and like the best thing
also was that um you can book three types of
packages depending how many dishes you get and
i just booked the biggest one with the most dishes
right because i did the same yeah and it was
not it was not expensive at all yeah i think
the big package was like 50 euros per person
or something like that something like that yeah
yeah she she gets who is the name of the restaurant
in the temple yeah yes yeah but yeah i'm not
a peasant i'm not a schmuck I'm not going to
book the basic package, right? And so it was
really cool to go in. And like I said, the temple
was busy as fuck. And we were the only people
that got a private room. Everybody else had to
sit in the communal rooms. Oh, nice, nice, nice.
Which was very nice. Yeah, that was a definite
highlight. Another thing that was like a massive
highlight was Yakitori. I also think that Yakitori
is super underrated outside of Japan. Where did
you have Yakitori? I went to three places. Most
importantly, I went to Torishou Sai, which is,
I think they have a mission in Star. Kevin recommended
it to me and booked a table for me. They used
to go all the time. Yeah, amazing. It was just
like, it's one counter. I think it's like 10
people eat at the same time. Everybody, like,
it's just one seat. Well, one seating at a time,
right? And they do like two or three seatings
in the evening. You get like, I don't know, like
14 courses or something. Super good. Super, super
good. One of the best Sukune skewers I've ever
had. What is Sukune? It's the meatball, you know,
the meatball skewer. Yeah. Yeah, I also went
to a super nice yakitori place. I don't remember
the name. It was in Kyoto. And yeah, for me,
it was incredible. It's so nice. Such a way of
understanding the bird. Such an experience because
you get like this little cards that every bird
has just a little piece and they make a skewer
with 10 of those or this kind of thing. That
is just incredible. Yeah, absolutely. Had some
really good sushi also. Really, really good sushi.
And also not just like the fancy. We went to
Sushi Saeki, which is like capo style, super
high end. For people who don't know, capo style
is a very high end Japanese concept where you
have basically a counter and then behind that
counter are the chefs. with like big chopping
board surfaces and stuff and they prepare the
food in front of you cutting plating cooking
and then they just like reach over and put the
plate down in front of you and that was a whole
experience that was amazing uh we went to like
just like small hole in the wall sushi places
in tokyo and in osaka which again were also super
good and like a really good kaiten sushi place
which is the conveyor belt sushi And in all of
these places, you have these highlights. Like,
for example, in the Kaiten Sushi place, they
were selling a special, which was maguro tuna
marinated in soy with yuzu on top, like fresh
yuzu skin. And man, it's like you get this piece
of lean tuna marinated in a nice soy sauce with
yuzu on top. It's just fucking delicious. You
could eat 10 of those. I remember going to Tsukiji
Market. And there was this famous guy that is
the tuna king. I had just, yeah, I think it's
the best tuna I've ever had. It's super touristy.
You're not allowed to create content, to upload
it without permission. So they're super restrictive
with that. And the guy looks like this, bigger
than life, celebrity, tuna lover. Apparently
every year in the tuna auction, he has to buy
the first one. It doesn't matter how much he
pays. He always gets the first one when tuna
season starts. And it's like his thing. And it's
like his marketing tactic. You know, like every
year he does the same and he's everywhere in
the news. He has like 10 restaurants. All of
this sounds like not good for a place to go and
visit, but it was incredible. The tuna was just
incredible. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. Like, I
mean, the quality of stuff that you get, like
even just the markets, the produce quality is
just amazing. The tuna also like in Kyoto, I
don't know if it's like a Kyoto specialty, but
I've never had it before. And I had it a few
times in Kyoto. It was this like roll, like it
was either we had it as gunkans, which is how
to describe a gunkan for people who don't know.
It's basically like a little boat of like nori
and sushi rice. You have the topping on top instead
of like a maki where the nori is on the outside
as a roll. But the filling was the same, which
was like the tuna meat from the ribs. Like when
you filleted the tuna, the meat that you scrape
off the ribs. And then that's kind of like chopped
up with pieces of pickled daikon radish. And
so you have like a tuna and pickled radish roll.
And you have this like crunchy, sour radish and
the fatty tuna. And it was like, man, fucking
hell. And we had that at like at Sushi Saeki,
which was like super high end. And even just
like the like. small, dirty sushi places where
people smoke on the tables. I saw a place in
Tokyo like that. I couldn't get in because it
was already completely booked and I was alone.
But I saw the pictures and I walked by and I
saw inside and these were just little tables,
like plastic tables, nothing fancy. It was only
working people and the tables were full of these
super long ribs of tuna. and you would spoon
out the you would scoop out the the meat and
that that that's what you do there you know and
every table had like this whole rib cage you
know it was incredible damn that's so nice i've
never been to a place like that that's really
cool um yeah what else was good i had one of
the best ramen that i've ever had in my life
and um like you were talking about ramen earlier
you know these like pork broths that are very
creamy and very rich they're very popular you
know because they're very tasty and also And
I had one that was similar to that. I had a pork
ramen. I had a chicken ramen that was made like
a tonkatsu. So chicken broth cooked for so long.
So it like emulsifies all the fats and it gets
really thick. And that was really cool because
it tasted like, my mom was eating it. She was
like, you know what this tastes like? This tastes
like carbonara. And she was right because it
was like fatty, salty. There was like onions
on top of it. And you put in like black pepper
and it really tasted like carbonara in a really
nice way. I went to one because I really wanted
to go to a ramen place that was broth focused
because I love those sorts of places that don't
do the creamy broths, but like the really intense
consomme ones. I kept walking past this one place
and there was always a huge queue outside. And
so I was like, all right, this has to be good.
And I get into the queue at like, you know, just
before 12 o 'clock. So it's still early. And
the waitress comes outside and she comes to me
and she's like, do you have a ticket? And I'm
like, what ticket? She's like, oh, I'm sorry.
Like if you don't have a ticket, you can't queue.
On all the tickets for today, they have already
been handed out. So the people who are queuing
all had a ticket. Then I went home and I researched
and it turns out that to go to this ramen place,
you need to get there at 10 o 'clock in the morning.
That's when they open the door and they start
handing out the tickets. So you get a ticket
for a time slot and you have 20 minutes to eat
basically. And it's common courtesy that after
you finished your food, you don't wait, you get
up and you leave. You pay and you leave straight
away. And so the next day I did that, went there
at 10 o 'clock, got a ticket for like 12 o 'clock
and got in. And even though you have a ticket,
you still have to queue because they only have
so busy, man. I don't know how many like bowls
of noodles they have to. There's like four guys
in the kitchen. They do two types of ramen and
like three side dishes and that's it. And as
soon as I got into that restaurant, this intense
smell of very high quality dashi hits me. the
whole place was just filled with the aroma of
really well -made dashi. And I hadn't smelled
that in a really, really long time. I think the
last time I smelled that was, you know, back
in Japan, because there's a huge difference between
box standard dashi that people use for cooking
and that like, you know, like places make, you
know, just like for cooking and the sort of Ichiban
dashi. Ichiban dashi means like the first infusion
of the dashi. And usually... Ichiban dashi is
used for drinking and for soup dishes, like very
where it's focused on the dashi. And then you
have the second flush of the dashi, which is
then used for cooking and stuff like that. I
was standing there in this restaurant and I was
really reminiscing about the smell because for
me, it is the quintessence of Japanese cooking
as I have experienced it and the quintessence
of umami. Just full on umami, you know. Because
the seasoning is very low. It's like very low
salt, very low sugar, very low fat, but it's
just like full on umami from the kombu, the kelp,
and the katsuobushi, and the soy sauce. These
guys also, they're very interesting. They specialize
in two types of soy sauce. You could take the
dashi, the ramen with white soy sauce, and you
could take the ramen with black soy sauce. Where
was this? In Kyoto. Kyoto. Yeah, it's called
ramen inoichi. inoichi okay can very highly recommend
it so we get in we order one of each ramen um
i really wanted to have the one with the white
soy sauce because that sounded really interesting
then they also did um shumai shumai dumplings
which i thought was really funny they did a cold
tofu with walnuts and japanese parsley and what
else i don't really remember what else but the
dashi man like once the ramen comes And you drink
the soup. It's just like, we talked about this
here on the podcast before, but it's just like,
it's so deep and it's so well -rounded. It's
so well -cooked. It's so saturated with flavor.
It was amazing. And it really reminded me of
what I really, really love about Japanese food.
Did you do only Tokyo and Kyoto? I went to, we
went to Osaka for two days also, but it was kind
of just for transit. I've not really been to
Osaka very much. I'm sure it's very, very cool.
I heard very good things about it. For the area
that we were in, it was very, very busy. It was
very intense. Completely different from the rest
of Japan, isn't it? The rest of Japan, for example,
I have the feeling that Osaka is way more liberal.
For example, there are things that you can't
do in Japan, like smoking in the streets. In
Osaka, you would see people smoking in the streets.
You would see graffiti. You would see things
that you'd probably get beheaded if you do it
in Tokyo or Kyoto. Yeah, you could really tell.
People in Osaka are known for being more open,
more friendly, in a way. While in Tokyo, everybody
is very straight, very shy to themselves, very
polite. In Kyoto, everybody was really laid back
and friendly. In Osaka, people are much more
straightforward, open. Coming from Kyoto, where
everything was very vintage -y, you felt almost
like you were time -traveling a little bit. You
walk past the temples. I used to jet lag to my
advantage. I went jogging in the morning to pass
the time, so I would always wake up at 4 .30
in the morning and just go for a run. and it's
amazing what you find you know so you would just
like run through a neighborhood and you come
across beautiful cemeteries beautiful temple
structures with like massive gardens and completely
empty of course because nobody's awake at the
time you know no not too many tall buildings
like everything just really laid back and cool
i really really enjoyed it it was amazing a completely
different japanese experience and i can recommend
this to anybody you know like do Do the big city,
do Tokyo, go to Shibuya, go to Ginza, go into
the fancy restaurants there. But then also the
places that I booked to stay. I didn't book any
hotels. I booked small ryokans. What's a ryokan?
A ryokan is like an inn. And often these were
just old houses that somebody would live in.
We stayed in this one place. It's very brutally
minimalistic. You have a room with a mat that
you sleep on, on the floor, and that's it. But
it has so much character. And it's like, this
is a house that somebody lives in, you know?
It's a real Japanese house with a Japanese garden
and a Japanese kitchen and an engawa that goes
around the house that you can access the garden
from, like, different sides. And then you go
outside, you know, and you walk through the neighborhood.
You see the cafes. You see the restaurants, it's
only full of locals. You get a completely different
experience of the country, because you're actually
living the real everyday life, rather than the
tourist side of it. Yeah, and Osaka, also the
food scene, I was really impressed with it. Also
very different, I think very non -traditional,
what I saw. They defined it themselves as fusion.
I heard the word more than once, like, yeah,
we do fusion Japanese, basically they add They
do whatever they want, basically. Yeah. That
is basically what that word means, you know?
Yeah. Yeah, I've not, like I said, I've only
been in Osaka like two days, barely. But yeah,
I heard that the food scene is really, really
fun. I went to one place. I had the best soba
of the trip in Osaka. And I'm going to look up
the name of the place. I took a photo because
it was really, it was so much fun. It's exactly
the sort of place that I like going and that
I love about. about japan it's called te uchi
soba shu shuhadi and it's basically like a like
a barn so it's like a long building it looks
like yeah i'm looking at it yeah beautiful and
you go in it's just like a row of tables there's
artwork hanging on the walls there's jazz playing
and it's no it's not fancy amazing soba like
little noodle room where they make the noodles
they make amazing cold soba they make amazing
tempura they make amazing duck soup you know
soba in duck broth with slices of duck on top
and like it's filled with people that are just
coming in for a quick bite and it's just perfect
it's just fucking perfect there's sake there's
beer everybody's laid back there's cool music
playing absolutely amazing and i wish that these
sorts of places would exist outside of japan
honestly absolutely yeah um also tempura i don't
know did you go to a cool tempura place when
you were in in no not not to a tempura omakase
i had a few very very good tempuras and yeah
i i was in general impressed with the frying
technique i think the japanese they don't understand
frying not only as as like a as a dry cooking
technique, but also as a steaming technique.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's exactly my experience
also. Back when I had my first experience with
that, it really changed the way that I think
about it because you think it's like fried and
then it's like crispy and blah, but you have
to kind of forget the oil part of it. It's really
encoding something in a layer and then it's cooking
in its own juices inside of that layer. And the
layer being like very thin, usually very thin,
very light. I had one thing that like blew me
away because I, on the very, very last day, actually
for lunch, before we went to the airport, our
flight was at 10 o 'clock at night. I was like,
okay, let's do one more like high -end tempura
place. And it was really cool because my mom,
it was her first time. And she had exactly the
same experience that I had back then when my
old head chef. Seiji Yamamoto took me to a tempura
place because she was like, yeah, I like tempura,
but how good can it be? Even I was surprised
again because, for example, a piece of eggplant.
And I'm not a big fan of eggplant, honestly.
There's ways of doing eggplant that it's okay,
but I would rarely pick it up myself in the supermarket.
And this guy literally takes a piece of eggplant,
flours it, dips it, fries it, rests it. cuts
it and just puts it in front of you. And the
amount of juice and tenderness and flavor inside
of this aubergine is absolutely amazing. It's
also one of the things that also I think makes
a big impact is the freshness and the immediacy
of like, it's not something that's cooked and
it comes to the pass. You put it on the plate,
you wait for one of your stupid fucking waiters
to come and pick it up until they find the table,
put it down. sorry to the front of house our
listeners but you know like the chef and with
yakitori also they cook it until they find that
it's perfect and they put it in front of you
and if you go to a yakitori place that you go
to a tempura place like that or a sushi place
for that matter you're ever in that situation
do the chef the courtesy and eat the thing straight
away It's not meant to sit there in front of
you while you talk to your neighbor about your
ski holiday in Aspen. It's for you to eat it
when the chef deems it to be at its best. And
when you do that, you realize that things have
a very, very short window of being absolutely
exceptional. Things can be good in a larger window,
depending on what we talk about. But from sushi,
as soon as he makes the nigiri, he puts it down.
Sushi goes down, especially when you're at a
really good sushi place, because they don't press
the rice into a block. I've had this experience
at Sushi Saeki. He put a nigiri down in front
of me, and I would claim that a sushi chef tries
to get the rice just to the right consistency
that it holds, but not any more, so that the
rice is very loose, right? And very, very tender
in a way. And I picked it up, and he could see
that I was struggling a little bit. This one
part wasn't quite there. And he apologized to
me. He was like, oh, I'm sorry. And the next
Nagiris that he made, every time that I picked
it up, I could see him kind of looking over whether
it would happen again. So they really care about
this. And as soon as he puts it down in front
of you, the momentum goes down. We've talked
about the momentum before on the podcast. Yeah,
a couple of times. Same with Yakitori. He puts
it in front of you. It's perfect. It's full of
juice. It's full of life. The longer you talk
about your fucking, you know, whatever, your
fat suction operation in Cancun, the less delicious
your skewer is going to be. Yeah, going back
to skewers and fries, fried stuff, I also mentioned
this before. One of my favorite places was a
kushikatsu place in Osaka called Kushiage 010.
And I remember that there was a frying master,
which was like an old chef, and a younger chef
who was, I don't know, like his protege, his
apprentice, whatever. And they would really,
like, have timers for the frying, so they were
really looking into the stuff, and yeah. Whatever
it was, it could be a prawn, it could be a piece
of pork, it could be a vegetable, whatever it
was, if you bite it and you looked on the inside,
it was perfectly medium cooked the way it should
be in all of the cases. And very different products,
like vegetables or seafood or meat. That was
pretty cool. Yeah, it's amazing. It's really
crazy and it takes so much skill and so much...
so much knowledge so much of this like thing
that you know fergus henderson calls the jedi
sense you know of like knowing what's happening
without seeing inside of the product um and i
think that's really really amazing if uh if you've
not been to japan and you've been thinking about
going but you have this hesitation um just go
like just just just book a flight and go you
know it's it's if you're in any way interested
in cooking and in food It is by far one of the
reference places in the world. And to me, back
then, it was life -changing. This time around,
it was incredibly inspirational again. And I've
actually decided that I'm going to try to go,
like, if not, I'm actually kind of thinking of
going once a year now. I thought the same last
time I was. Right now is a good moment, like
the gen. is lower than dollar and euro and for
that reason it's cheaper than it used to be so
everybody has this idea that japan is very expensive
and today it's not at all not at all yeah and
even if you're smart and choose like the right
season you can find very affordable flights as
well oh yeah absolutely absolutely um i mean
i flew in the middle of sakura season and it
was very expensive and like of course the flights
are going to be expensive but You don't need
to go to Michelin star restaurants in Japan to
have exceptionally good food. Really, really
outstanding good food. You can eat on an average
of 30 quid per person and eat plenty of food.
I was once again really surprised how affordable
the food is there. And just in general, coffees
and stuff like that, super, super affordable.
Nothing at all. Transport's also super fine.
So if you plan a little bit smart, it's totally
doable. Just don't be this person that I met
on the bus where she's like, oh, yeah, you're
from Germany. I'm from Germany, too. Yeah, I'm
here with my friends. Yeah, we thought it was
going to be really expensive, but we just go
eat at 7 -Eleven every day. Don't be that person.
Don't not go to 7 -Eleven because konbini food
is amazing, right? Yeah, exactly. Don't be a
fucking trash panda. And just live at the Konbini.
That's it for this week's episode of Potluck
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