ASIA
A tour of Japanese cuisine with Spago chef Lee Hefter
The American chef visits Tokyo every year to pick up new ideas in the kitchen.
Tokyo, Japan
Big, burly Lee Hefter barrels through the streets of the Ginza district on a cool spring night in hot pursuit of a pastry cook. With very few words of Japanese, Hefter has persuaded the man to dash out of his shop and lead the way to Shotai-en, an obscure restaurant specializing in Japanese beef.
Here it is, motions the cook, indicating the doorway of an office building. This is the place.
Arigato gozaimasu, thank you very much. And the cook runs off again.
An elevator up to the ninth floor, a quick exchange with the host, and before we know it, Hefter, the executive chef at Spago Beverly Hills, is ordering beef sashimi, beef tartare, two kinds of salad, vegetables for grilling, shrimp on skewers, three kinds of Wagyu beef, Korean-style marinated beef and one — no, two — orders of tripe. The waiter's still scribbling as he walks away.
"We should have tried the liver too!" Hefter says. We think he's kidding. It's the last time we'll make that mistake.
For the last eight years, Hefter, 39, has been traveling to Japan for inspiration, bringing culinary ideas to his restaurants back home. He tries to make his annual trip during the sakura zensen, cherry blossom season. Late March is a joyous time in Japan; it represents the beginning of spring, a time not just for walking in parks and through lanes to view the blossoms, but also for savoring the candied pink flowers and the tender green leaves, along with sweet cherry salmon and young spears of bamboo and the fragrant purple buds of the shiso plant.
Six days in Japan with Hefter and his wife, Sharon — and his insatiable appetite and curiosity — is also a crash course in sushi, tempura, yakiniku and kaiseki, culinary styles that define Japanese dining but are rarely seen in their pure form, even in Los Angeles.
First course: yakiniku
Most travelers to Japan are content to visit the Ginza and the temples and the Harajuku district. They might ride the bullet train or climb Mt. Fuji. But to explore Japan through its food is to experience something very deep about the culture.
Whether it's Tokyo or Kyoto or points in between, food is an obsession here. Everywhere you look, there are sushi bars, soba stands, yakitori bars, French pastry shops, tofu specialists, shabu-shabu joints. There are tonkatsu-ya, the restaurants specializing in deep-fried pork cutlets; tamago shops, where they sell nothing but sweetened omelets; even unagi-ya, freshwater eel restaurants. Rows of vending machines line alleyways, offering 10 kinds of tea, both hot and cold.
Some places are for eating on the run — like the noisy ramen stands where you stand and slurp. Others are incredibly formal — perfectly quiet and almost spiritual, like the kaiseki restaurants where the country's best chefs practice their art.
Soak it all in for a few days, and it's easy to understand why this is the place Hefter returns to year after year for rejuvenation and inspiration. "It stimulates the creative process," he says. "I let it digest for a month and then go back to my notes and get inspired again."
Hefter plots out his trips with extreme precision. He gets tips from other chefs, often Nobu Matsuhisa and Masa Takayama. He talks with chefs in Japan and with hotel concierges. He checks Zagat, and a Japanese food website, www.bento.com, and cross-references it all. "It's a lot of work," he says. "And then you can't always get into the restaurant."
It will come as no surprise to anyone who's dined at Cut, Hefter's white-hot steakhouse in Beverly Hills, that on this trip, he starts with beef.
We've all heard about Kobe beef, but Kobe is just one of hundreds of types of artisanal beef in Japan. There are 41 prefectures that raise Wagyu cattle and produce their own amazingly tender, incredibly marbled, meticulously graded beef that winds up in restaurants such as Aragawa, where one steak can set you back $1,400. It was there, on an earlier trip, that Hefter found the inspiration for the innovative combination of ultra-high temperature and wood smoke he uses to cook the steaks at Cut.
Tonight, Hefter, dressed in jeans, wants to go casual and check out a spot for yakiniku — the Japanese version of Korean barbecue. The restaurant, Shotai-en, is relatively inexpensive. Tonight's tab will come to about $30 a person. And Hefter has ordered a lot.
Almost instantly, the beef starts coming to the table. Hefter takes charge, dabbing slivers of sashimi with chile paste and slivered onion, and passing them around. It looks good, but it's hard not to hesitate. How often do you pop a slice of raw beef into your mouth?
"You only live once!" says Hefter. It will be one of his mantras during this trip. And so ... it's astonishing — cool and subtle, just one velvety bite. Perfect.
Hefter turns to the tartare.
"OK if I do the mixing?" he says, breaking the yolk and working it into the meat. He scoops a big spoonful onto each sheet of nori, slips in a shiso leaf and folds it into a cone. He makes one for each of us, and we don't hesitate this time. There is the crunch of the nori against the creamy shock of the meat — as rich as toro, the fatty tuna belly that's prized here, flavored with soy and sesame, and luxuriously smooth. It is the most sensual thing we have ever eaten, and it's gone in two unforgettable bites.
As we recover, a waiter pulls a hammered copper chimney down from the ceiling, an exhaust fan starts to whir, and then another waiter brings a cast-iron grill pot piled with glowing red bincho — a charcoal made from Ubamegashi oak that adds a distinctive smoky flavor.
"I'll tell you, I'm not doing the cooking," Hefter says, reaching for the vegetables despite himself.
First, he puts the onions on the grill, then shishito peppers, carrots, mushrooms. And the leeks — the long Tokyo negi that are everywhere in spring, even sold as souvenirs in train stations. Taste and you understand: Left whole and grilled, they turn into something like melting little sausages. Next come the shrimp, other meats and — the star of the show — a platter of Wagyu: three kinds, each more marbled than the last.
We wander back out into the night. It's 11:30 p.m., and the Ginza is a blazing postcard, quiet except for a few circling taxis and a cluster or two of wanderers like ourselves. We've all been up for about 27 hours straight, and it's time to head back to Roppongi Hills, the Grand Hyatt and a soft bed. Hefter is glad one of his sous-chefs, Tetsuro Yahagi, will soon be joining the party. Comfortable as he is, he'll be relieved to have a Japanese speaker onboard.
Second course: sushi
The Tsukiji Market is the world's largest fish market — 2,000 tons of fish move through here each day, six days a week. It's the best place to visit if you want to understand why a Japanese sushi restaurant is a travel destination unto itself. If it swims, it's here — turtles, eels, clams, spiny lobsters, shrimp, skinny silvery needlefish, crabs, abalone, little firefly squid with googly eyes, octopus and stalls filled with dozens of kinds of uni, the bright sea urchin roe, the best of which looks like slices of ripe apricot.
And, of course, tuna: Tsukiji's tuna auction draws fishermen from around the world. Here they can fetch the highest price, and at dawn, the auction is in full swing. The turnover is constant — as one row of enormous tunas, steam rising from their icy skins, is sold, another is moved in. Motorized flatbeds, bringing ever more fish, almost run over swarms of tourists and buyers — this is where the city's sushi chefs shop.
On this trip, Hefter will eat sushi only once: at Sushidokoro Shimizu, an eight-seat sushi bar that has Tokyo buzzing. After a little wandering through a drizzle in the Shinbashi district, one of the old parts of the city, we find Shimizu in a narrow alley, amid apartment doorways and houseplants set out in the rain. We announce ourselves and are told to wait outside. At last a few diners emerge and we squeeze in — there's not an inch of extra space. Eight stools, a smooth pale counter, and behind it, the formidable Kunihiro Shimizu.
Shimizu stands with an enormous copper grater, preparing wasabi paste. Is it OK if a photographer takes pictures? He nods yes. He rules his space without a word. An assistant brings out the rice, a gorgeous rosy color, and begins gently fanning to cool it.
Single page |
1
2
3
>>
 This is a city known for great old architecture. And it's a desert spot and has a long-standing tradition of hospitality. |
 America's 20 most-visited national parks in 2009. |
10 smokers' paradises: A guide for globe-trotters
With so many places around the world instituting smoking regulations, increasing taxes and,...
Read more »
Users' Favorites
Taking restless Southern California on vacation
Los Angeles Times e-mail newsletter, delivered every Thursday
wherever it appears.