January 2015

WINE&DINE

198

January15

TEPPANYAKI AND ROBATAYAKI:

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

Often shortened to just “

robata

”,

robatayaki

literally means “fireside

cooking”; it’s a method of cooking,

similar to barbecuing, in which

skewered meat, seafood and

vegetables are slow-grilled over hot

charcoal.

Teppanyaki

, on the other

hand, is a style of Japanese cooking

that uses a flat iron griddle to cook

foods like steak and

okonomiyaki

The word is derived from

teppan

meaning “iron plate”, and

yaki

which means “grilled”, “broiled”

or “pan-fried”. Modern

teppanyaki

grills are mostly propane-heated

and often used to cook food in front

of guests at restaurants.

Teppanyaki

grills are often confused with

hibachi

barbecue grills, which

have charcoal or gas flames with

an open-grate design.

There’s much more to Japanese

cuisine than the ever-popular

California roll and spicy tuna sushi.

Here are nine top dishes to try now.

JAPANESE

DISHES

TO KNOW

IZAKAYA

Izakaya

is akin to tapas:

casual food eaten with

an alcoholic beverage

or three. This similarity

to tapas doesn’t extend

any further, though; the

Japanese version includes

raw fish to go with your

beer or sake.

SASHIMI

Sashimi is thinly sliced raw

seafood – including anything from

salmon (

sake

), tuna (

maguro

), yellowtail

(

hamachi

) andmackerel (

saba

) to octopus

(

tako

), scallop (

hotate-gai

) and sea urchin

(

uni

) – and is normally served with a

dipping sauce (soy sauce with wasabi, or

ponzu) and grated fresh ginger, and often

garnished with shredded daikon radish.

Many places pre-freeze sashimi for food safety.

SHABUSHABU

Alsoreferredtoassteamboat

in Southeast Asia,

shabu shabu

is a dish

of thinly sliced meat boiled in water. Beef

is traditional, but

many restaurants

now also offer a

selection of pork

and chicken slices.

Interestingly, the

name is derived

from the sound

the meat makes

when stirred in the

cooking pot.

YAKITORI

Although

originally used

to describe Japanese

skewered chicken, the word

yakitori

can also refer to

skewered food in general.

Kushiyaki

means the

same thing, and the terms

are interchangeable, so

whichever is used, skewers

will be on the menu.

TEMPURA

Lightly battered and deep-

fried strips of vegetables and seafood,

usually dipped in a light soy sauce. The batter

is kept cold prior to frying and does not include

breadcrumbs. Tempura can be eaten alone

or served over

noodles or rice.

It’s thought that

Portugese Jesuit

m i s s i o n a r i e s

i n t r o d u c e d

tempura to Japan

in the late 1500s.

KUSHIKATSU

(or

kushiage)

Skewered

s e a f o o d , s e a s o n a l

vegetables and meat:

lightly breaded, deep-

fried and served piping

hot. In Japanese,

kushi

refers to the skewers and

katsu

to the pieces of meat. First served, they

say, in the city of Osaka.

SUSHI

Fish on

rice, right?

Kind of. Although

fish is the star of the

show, the term sushi

actually refers to the

vinegar rice. With so

much importance placed on the grain (a sushi

chef spends at least two years learning how to

prepare and season rice), a sushi restaurant can

rise or fall on its rice alone.

OKONOMIYAKI

Although often called

“Japanese pizza”,

okonomiyaki

involves neither bread nor tomato sauce

(and rarely cheese), nor is it baked in an

oven. This pancake-omelette contains a

mix of seafood, meat or vegetables held

together by a cabbage and

green onion batter and

topped with special

o t a f u k u

s a u c e ,

Japanese mayo,

and seaweed and

bonito

flakes.

TONKATSU

Thought to date back

to 19th-century Japan,

tonkatsu

a crumbed, deep-fried pork fillet or loin, but

the pork can be substituted with prawn or

fish. Normally ordered as a single dish,

it can also be eaten in a sandwich or

with curry sauce. It always comes with

shredded cabbage, and is typically

dipped in a thickWorcestershire-style

sauce called

tonkatsu

sauce, served

with rice and eaten with chopsticks.

Ishinomaki Grill

and Sake