Hosting an Oscars party is going to be tough this year. With 10 nominations for best picture, instead of the usual five, making movie-themed munchies will be twice as hard. To help Toronto hosts get their bearings, we suggest the following dishes from across the city, each inspired by the films hoping for the ultimate Academy prize.
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Posts Tagged ‘Japanese’
Pantry Raid
The latest food fashion is not a dish, but an elusive “fifth taste”
British chef-writer Laura Santtini has managed to get umami into a tube (Image: laurasanttini.com)
The Japanese have known about it for years, and researchers have confirmed its existence, but the Globe is just now declaring it fashionable. Umami is a taste (separate from sweet, sour, salty and bitter) first recognized by Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda more than a century ago. Apparently Canadian chefs are clamouring to get it into their dishes. “I do think people are really capitalizing on the name,” Andrew Novak, owner of Toronto restaurant Umami Sushi, told the Globe. “Everyone has something that they’re referring to as umami.”
The so-called fifth taste is ubiquitous in Japanese fare: seafood, shiitake mushrooms and tomatoes, as well as fermented and cured products, such as soy sauce. The flavour’s ability to elude description—it has been variously described as meaty and savoury, or like the sweet flavour of barbecued salmon—has whet the appetite of a few cunning profiteers. The Food Channel recently listed it among its top 10 food trends of 2010 (yes, they realize it’s only March), and umami was the subject of a cook-off on The Next Iron Chef. Yet, as Novak himself says, the brilliant thing about a basic taste is that you don’t have to eat out to enjoy it: “Home cooks could combine their own ingredients to achieve the same effect.”
Restauran-TO
Just opened: Koko! brings casual Japanese and Korean fare to Yorkville
Unexpected ingredients add creativity to Aayama's menu (Photo by Signe Langford)
One of Yorkville’s newest residents is, surprisingly, a relaxed, sharing-style restaurant of unpretentious and affordable Japanese and Korean fare. Called Koko!, which is Japanese for “here,” the business is the brainchild of Sang Kim, who recruited Shin Aoyama as head chef (Aoyama studied under Hidekazu Tojo, one of Vancouver’s great sushi masters and the owner of Tojo’s).
Kim, whose impressive résumé as a restaurateur and consultant includes Ame, Ki, Edo, Lil’ Baci, Fellini’s Shoe, Tasty and Blowfish, admits that serving the food of his homeland is new, but he’s confident. “I have a top chef, and we’re not going to be pushing the envelope too much. We are going to be quality and accessibility driven. We’re not doing exotic modern Korean cuisine.”
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In Print
Toronto’s most extravagant Japanese dining experience
Masaki Hashimoto’s incredibly arcane kaiseki restaurant is unique in North America. As James Chatto writes, for $300 a head, before booze, tax and tip, it had better be.
Restauran-TO
Corey Mintz to Toronto’s Guu fans: chill out
Guu's salmon natto yukke (Photo by Jen Chan)
Corey Mintz thinks Torontonians need to get a grip—at least on our obsession with Guu, the city’s offshoot of the Vancouver-based izakaya chain that has everyone from Ryerson students to West Coast defectees lining up for hours to get a seat.
Although the Toronto Star food writer is a fan of Guu’s Japanese pub grub (fried, salty fare that’s perfect with beer), he laments that we have not been “cool” about Guu’s arrival. “We have lined up, kvetch-blogged and snapped iPhone pictures, capturing all the lustre of Nick Nolte’s mug shot… In short, we have spazzed out over Guu.”
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Required Reading
Lindsay Lohan as Jesus, Abercrombie store scares Japanese shoppers, Tavi talks back
Lilo's Purple cover
• Armani Exchange’s Share the Love Valentine’s Day campaign, which features steamy photos of same-sex couples, has angered the American Family Association, which expressed its displeasure on its Web site onemillionmoms.com. The organization, which aims to rid society of “filth,” calls the ads “poison” to children and urges other parents to “take a stand since A|X is one of the fashion leaders and this is becoming a popular trend.” We’re outraged—Armani Exchange is not a fashion leader. [The Cut]
• Controversial teen fashion blogger and Jeanne Beker stand-in Tavi Gevinson responded to the recent criticisms that have been levelled at her, her big hats and her parents. The gist? Bring it. “I’m going to New York on Saturday. I will be wearing some more hats. If you happen to be sitting behind me and you’d like to be able to see, just ask.” Let’s hope the Fashion Television cameras are rolling. [Style Rookie]
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Read All About It
Q&A with Guu’s chef, hangover-free alcohol, Corey Mintz’s castrated rooster
• Home chefs are increasingly turning to YouTube for cooking lessons. Eschewing the Food Network’s plucked and preening stars (except Guy Fieri, who is neither) and dishes, viewers are embracing the shaky camera angles and amateur stylings of such series as Maangchi’s Korean Cooking Show. The host, ex-Torontonian Emily Kim, has tens of thousands of subscribers, and her most popular recipe, kimchi, has been watched almost 300,000 times. Good start, Kim, but call us when you reach sneezing panda or dramatic chipmunk numbers. [Globe and Mail]
• The Star’s Corey Mintz extols the virtues of brining, which promises juicier meat and uniform seasoning. The capon—a castrated rooster prized for its tenderness—Mintz cooks for guests gets a 24-hour bath in a solution of salt, brown sugar and water, which produces a near-perfect bird. In talking about the emasculated chicken, Mintz ends the article with the observation that “we all have a tendency to get soft and juicy once we no longer have chicks on the brain.” [Toronto Star]
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Opening
Just Opened: Guu Izakaya slings Japanese beer and comfort food on Church Street
Get inside: Guu's interior mixes comfort and modernity (Photo by Renée Suen)
The year 2009 was an offal one in Toronto. The success of The Black Hoof, Buca and Local Kitchen showed that are many adventurous diners left in this city. December’s most anticipated opening shares that adventurous spirit. Tonight, doors officially open at Guu Izakaya, the first Toronto location of Vancouver’s intensely popular Japanese watering hole. Will the diners that embraced the offal trend take to Guu’s fusion of Japanese flavours?
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Opening
To get to his new restaurant, Origin, Claudio Aprile goes around the world to travel one block
Though Claudio Aprile’s new restaurant, Origin, isn’t slated to open until early 2010, the edgy chef had us in to play guinea pig for some culinary experimentation. Aprile is testing out a handful of new dishes for his more relaxed Stroudfoot-designed spot at 107 King Street East. Though Origin comes second, Aprile considers it the ready-to-wear counterpart of Colborne Lane’s haute couture. “Origin is in many ways the first restaurant, what Colborne Lane was meant to be,” he says. The venture will recapture Aprile’s original, unfussy vision, featuring an open concept (the kitchen is at the centre of the dining room), “modern global” classic dishes and an ambience even louder than Colborne Lane’s (“Believe it or not,” he says).
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Opening
Just Opened: Hashimoto comes to Toronto proper after years of wowing Japanese food fans in Mississauga
Inside the new Hashimoto (Photo by Karon Liu)
“There’s nothing else like this in Toronto, maybe even Canada,” kaiseki chef Masaki Hashimoto explains over tea at his newly opened location at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in North York. “The Hashimoto in Mississauga was the first step, and this is the second.”
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