Japanese influences proliferate in industry, experts say

Nation's Restaurant News,  Nov 5, 2007  by Lisa Jennings

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LOS ANGELES -- Credit the popularity of Hello Kitty, the original "Iron Chef" or sushi, but Japanese cuisine's influence is growing in American restaurants.

That was the message a panel of experts delivered on Japanese flavors during a workshop at the 2007 Culinary R&D conference at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza here last month.

Bret Thorn, food editor for Nation's Restaurant News, moderated the session.

The number of Japanese restaurants in the United States has doubled in the past decade to an estimated 9,000 in 2005, Thorn said, and sushi has become a $2.8 billion industry.

Japanese ingredients like miso, teriyaki and panko breading have become common, even in non-Asian restaurants. Those growing in popularity include edamame, udon and ramen noodles, Kobe-style beef, and soy foods.

Two of the basic tenets of Japanese cooking are "quality and technique," said Gene Kato, a Tokyo native and executive chef of Japonais, which has locations in Chicago, Las Vegas and New York.

"The more basic the ingredient, the more important the technique," he said.

The technique for cooking something as simple as rice, for example, a ubiquitous element of Japanese cooking, can be quite complex, as chefs carefully select such elements as the type of water or cooker used.

Kato predicts the United States will soon see more specialized cooking techniques coming out of Japan, such as toban yaki and robata grilling. The use of Japanese ingredients for dessert and the adoption of Japanese fast food are two areas that are still largely unexplored, Kato said.

Bob Okura, vice president of culinary development and corporate executive chef for The Cheesecake Factory, said he develops recipes using Japanese ingredients that may not be recognized as such by guests.

Dishes such as the Avocado Egg Rolls and Firecracker Salmon Rolls use a Japanese-chile spice blend, for example. One of the 133unit chain's top selling appetizers in 2006, which generated about $12.5 million in sales, was a Thai lettuce wrap using a recipe from Okura's Japanese mother, he said.

The Cheesecake Factory's Miso Salmon, which generated about $5.6 million in sales last year, is served with a beurre blanc made with sake instead of white wine. The shrimp scampi, which contributes about $983,000 in sales, has a tempura element that makes the shellfish look plumper and crisper and gives it color, he said.

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"Even if it doesn't read like something Japanese, there often is something Japanese in there," Okura said.

Elizabeth Andoh, an American specialist in Japanese food, wrote the recent book "Washeku," which details guidelines about cooking and eating in Japan.

To stimulate the five senses, Japanese meals typically incorporate five colors: red, green, black, yellow, white; five flavors: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy; and five techniques: simmer, grill, steam, fry, raw.

Generally, meals are also designed to reflect a sense of time and place with the use of seasonal and regional ingredients that might evoke the bounty of the sea or the mountain regions.

The goal, Andoh said, is to reach satiety though a sense of balance, rather than quantity consumed.

Andoh also gave the audience of chefs a quick tutorial on the different types of miso, which come from across Japan. Saikyo shiro miso, from the area around Kyoto, for example, has a light and sweet flavor, compared with mugi miso, from Southern Japan, which has a barley-like flavor and texture and a smell reminiscent of beer.

ljenning@nrn.com

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