Think Japanese cuisine, think sushi or even teppanyaki. But there’s more to washoku than raw fish and meat juggling, and much of it is on a menu near you, if you will but explore…
Not that there’s anything wrong with Japan’s most famous export, of course, but the nation’s cuisine inevitably amounts to more than raw fish and vinegary rice. In fact, the country lives to eat. Much of its domestic travel industry is built around travelling to little-known backwaters to sample regional specialities, and some of them can even be found on menus here…
Starters
Miso shiru
This light soup usually comes as a staple of any Japanese teishoku (set meal), breakfast, lunch or dinner. Often found warming on a Japanese stove, it is as much a part of the home meal as it is a restaurant appetiser, and connoisseurs can spot a powdered pretender by smell alone. Regardless of additional ingredients, the flavour is defined by the miso paste used – red, white or mixed – and regional variations are common. Nagoya’s red miso is especially moreish.
Do whip up the soup with your chopsticks before you eat, allowing the miso stock to permeate throughout.
Don’t season with salt or pepper. Chefs take great pride in presenting what they consider to be the perfect dish.
Time Out says: Sadly, a lot of the city’s Japanese restaurants knock this dish together from a packet, but try the soup at Taiki for a good idea of what a Japanese mum serves up.
Dhs20. Taiki, Al Ain Palace Hotel (02 679 4777).
Agedashi dofu
The dofu in the name is a regional pronunciation of the better known tofu. This dish is little more than tofu cubes dunked in cornstarch and deep fried, but the effect is heavenly. Eat it served in a light mirin, dashi and soy sauce broth, sit back and compose a haiku to minimalist cooking.
Do savour the tender skin slowly. It won’t last forever, although you might – soya bean products are thought to work wonders on life expectancy.
Don’t wolf the dish in a single mouthful. If it’s fresh, it’ll have a centre hotter than the lava Mr Fuji will one day spout again.
Time Out says: Fairly common on Abu Dhabi menus, Toki does a very delicious take on this classic washoku dish.
Dhs32. Toki, Abu Dhabi Hilton (02 681 4151).
Light meals
Onigiri
The humble onigiri may look like nothing more than a rice ball to the untrained eye, but dismissing it as such is akin to turning down the best focaccia you ever tasted on the grounds that it’s just bread. Rice is an essential part of any Japanese meal, and in its onigiri form it comes presented as a light meal all of its own. Try it stuffed with ‘sea-chicken’ (otherwise known as tuna) for a real everyday treat.
Do eat the seaweed coating, which seasons the meal gently with a salty, ocean goodness.
Don’t mistake it for a plaything. While tempting, hurling your food around is not hugely popular in Japan.
Time Out says: The best place to try this simple dish is Taiki, where the onigiri set constitutes a great lunchtime snack.
Dhs36. Taiki, Al Ain Palace Hotel (02 679 4777).
Yakitori
Though the name translates as grilled chicken, the yakitori menu usually extends across the farmyard and into the pond. There’s little more to this dish than the skewered limbs and organs of various critters, seasoned with either salt or soy sauce, but wowza! This is the stuff of slightly twisted dreams.
Do order the strangest thing on the menu. Nankotsu (chicken cartilage) and shiro (chicken small intestines) are surprisingly good.
Don’t forget to keep a close eye on what you eat. Yakitori may feel like a communal free for all, but that bill can add up…
Time Out says: We’re fans of the tsukune at Wasabi. What’s tsukune? Skewered chicken balls (think balls of minced chicken rather than fowl genitalia).
Main meals
Nikujaga
It’s said in Japan that a woman who expects to marry needs to know how to cook this dish. We think it’s best eaten on a snowy night in Morioka, huddled around a stove, picked at through fingerless gloves. Essentially meat (beef) and potatoes stewed with onion in a sweet soy sauce, this is a broth to warm the belly of the coldest beast.
Do feel free to eat from the same pot. This is an old navy dish and is considered better shared with friends.
Don’t laugh too long over the similarity in name to a certain Rolling Stone. Your joke would be considered ‘samui’ (cold), and a deserved shunning would quickly follow.
Time Out says: You may not be able to replicate the ideal conditions, but imagining the roadworks around Wasabi to be some form of arctic tempest may provide some relief.
Dhs28. Wasabi, Al Diar Mina Hotel (02 678 1000).
Wagyu
It’s on nearly every Abu Dhabi menu, though few people could tell you what makes wagyu so special. Cattle farmed for the product are predisposed to highly marbled meat, giving off a rich flavour and tender texture. In Japan, wagyu cows are often fed a diet enriched with beer or sake – thought to enhance the taste – though it’s unlikely you’ll find that here, where much of the beef is imported from Australia.
Do try to find a chef who knows what he’s doing, otherwise it can turn into a sickly, fatty mess.
Don’t order the Kobe version without taking out a second mortgage first. Those cows are pricey!
Time Out says: We’ve eaten a lot of shoddy wagyu in this city. Take it from us, though, Kazu’s chef does it many times better than anywhere else. He’s a beefy genius!
Dhs175. Kazu, Yas Hotel (02 656 0760).
Chicken nanban
For a good, everyday dish that verges on fast food, try this dish from Oita city. Translated as ‘barbarian chicken’, the etymology here dates back to the first interaction the Japanese had with westerners – a hairy, barbaric people who apparently liked their meals deep fried. Still, if you don’t mind a meal with a history of mild racism, this here is the nearest thing you’ll get to Japanese KFC.
Do grow an unkempt sailor’s beard and smear the chicken grease throughout it. Just for kicks, of course.
Don’t try telling an Oita resident that chicken nanban comes from anywhere else. You won’t live to see the dawn.
Time Out says: This is one of the few genuinely regional dishes on offer in Abu Dhabi. Try Taiki’s – it’s really rather good.
Dhs37. Taiki, Al Ain Palace Hotel (02 679 4777).
Unagi-don
The donburi is a popular dish throughout Japan, consisting of a rice bowl with various toppings. Abu Dhabi has these in spades – oyako-don (chicken and egg), chirashi-don (sashimi) and gyu-don (beef and onions) are all done well at Samurai, near the Al Diar Capital Hotel. However, for the Don of dons, the unagi can’t be topped. Broiled eel, sliced and served in a sweet brown sauce on pure white rice, this is considered to have cooling qualities on hot days – perfect for the Emirates, then.
Do try it at least once in your lifetime. It’s washoku at its very best.
Don’t be put off by the fact that you’re eating eel. Try to avoid the head end, if you can.
Time Out says: The chef at Kazu prepares what might be the best unagi we’ve ever eaten, either here or in Japan. Stunning stuff.
Dhs40. Kazu, Yas Hotel (02 656 0760).
Dessert
Macha ice cream
A red bean paste known as anko commonly finds its way into many Japanese desserts, giving them a disappointingly uniform hyper-sweetness. Our advice: shun the anko and, instead, seek out a well-made macha ice cream, which pitches the bitterness of green tea against the sweetness of the cream.
Do forsake accompaniments. Macha ice cream is perfect as it is.
Don’t order any form of ice cream cooked in tempura, a stodgy bastardisation unheard of in its alleged home country.
Time Out says: It’s available in every corner shop in Japan, but it’s much harder to come by here. Try it at Benihana.
Dhs30. Benihana, Beach Rotana (02 697 9000).
Japafacts
Think you know Japanese food? Think again.
• The infamous puffer fish, known in Japan as fugu, killed between 20 and 44 diners during the years 1996 and 2006. Chefs must study for a licence in order to prepare the dish for public consumption, though it’s thought that most incidences occur as a result of housewives attempting to prepare the dish at home.
• Although it’s considered a Japanese delicacy, tempura actually originates from Portugal, arriving in Japan in the mid 16th century. Its ancestor, peixinhos da horta, is still a popular dish in Europe.
• Teppanyaki is almost unheard of in Japan. Having been created post-war to please the occupying forces, it never found favour with its compatriots, eventually flourishing when wrestling flyweight champion, Hiroaki ‘Rocky’ Aoki, moved to New York and opened the first Benihana restaurant in the mid ’60s.
• Despite the wealth of great food available to the Japanese, a poll conducted in 2000 found that the nation sees instant noodles as being the most important thing it gave the world during the 20th century. There’s no accounting for taste.
