Tokyo Foods

40 Tokyo foods we can't live without

Thu May 6 15:48pm

By Melinda Joe, W. David Marx, Darryl Wee and Misha Janette

Comfort foods, gourmet selections, and lots of strange textures -- here are our picks of the most delicious and iconic food items of this foodie's paradise

Juicy home-cooked tonkatsu breaded fried pork cutlet. Now it justs needs to be drowned in 'sauce'. (Photo by Flickr user aki.sato)

Japan is often called a "Galapagos" when it comes to technology, as the country's cultural isolation tends to produce innovations found nowhere else in the world. The same can be said about food. Japan is a culinary wonderland thanks to an incomparable uniqueness, a national obsession with cuisine and an almost religious embrace of freshness and productive perfection. The result is the following 40 edible treasures that we can never get enough of.

1. Gindara saikyo-yaki

Lovingly slow-grilled over hot coals, the perfect gindara saikyo-yaki is flaky, moist, suggestively sweet and irresistibly savory at the same time. Black cod is in itself a thing of beauty, but marinating it in mellow white miso brings out a buttery richness that's hard to describe -- and even harder to stop eating. The Japanese originally developed this technique in order to preserve fish before the invention of refrigeration. Those days are long gone, but our love for saikyo-yaki endures.

We especially love the gindara saikyo-yaki at Ginka (Azabu Juban 2-19-2, Minato-ku, tel. 03 5439 6938). It's a hole-in-the-wall shop selling himono dried fish with a small dining area hidden at the back. (Melinda Joe)

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2. Horsemeat

Basahashi horsemeat. (Photo by Flickr user shrk)We know what you're thinking. But, when properly prepared, horsemeat is tender, mildly sweet and not at all gamey. The secret? Dry aging, which concentrates the flavor and gives the meat a pleasing springiness. The Japanese politely refer to horsemeat as sakuraniku, or cherry blossom meat, because of its bright pink color. Its most popular incarnation is basashi, paper-thin slices of raw horsemeat dipped in soy sauce and grated ginger, frequently served at izakayas.

Minoya (Morishita 2-19-9, Koto-ku, tel. 03 3631 8298, http://www.e-minoya.jp/), one of Tokyo's oldest shitamachi horsemeat restaurants, specializes in sakuranabe, a savory miso-based hot-pot dish of horsemeat simmered together with naganegi Japanese leeks and clear shirataki noodles. (Melinda Joe)

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3. Warabi mochi

Wiggly, jiggly, sweet and cool to the touch, warabi mochi is a lot like Jell-o, except much, much better. Technically, 'mochi' is a bit of a misnomer: Warabi mochi is made not from rice, but bracken fern starch. The result is custardy, translucent, and delicious rolled in toasty kinako soybean flour.

Look no further than your local grocery store for warabi-mochi, especially in summertime. The treat can also be found in depachikas or wagashi Japanese confectionary shops such as Kazuya. (Melinda Joe)

4. Umi-budo

Umi-budoShimmering like tiny jewels in shades of green that range from pale jade to deep moss, umi-budo are a delight to behold. These miniature 'sea grapes' are not grapes at all, but clusters of an extraordinary sea vegetable found in Okinawa. When you bite into them, the turgid little capsules pop in your mouth, offering a satisfying crunch before releasing their briny goodness across your palate.

At Okinawan restaurants like Dachibin (Koenji Kita 3-2-13, Suginami-ku, tel. 03 3337 1352), umi-budo come with a lively ponzu dipping sauce to provide a balance of acidity and sweetness. (Melinda Joe)

5. Sushi

Without a doubt, sushi is one of Japan's greatest gastronomical gifts to the world. Almost poetic in its simplicity, good sushi relies on two things: the freshness of the ingredients and the knife skills of the chef. Whether you like your raw fish draped over bite-sized balls of vinegared rice, rolled up in toasted nori seaweed or pressed into fat rectangular logs, delicious sushi can be found in every price range.

The sushi at Sushisho Masa (Seven Nishiazabu B1, Nishi-Azabu 4-1-15, Minato-ku, tel. 03 3499 9178) in Roppongi is nothing short of piscine perfection. Each exquisite piece is served with flair, and specific instructions on how to eat it. At around ¥20,000 per person, it's a splurge, but perfection doesn't come cheap. (Melinda Joe)

6. Chirashi-don

Kaisen hitsumabushi chirashi-don.Chirashi-don combines the simple elegance of fresh raw fish with the laid-back informality of donburi, the quotidian rice bowl. The specialty at Uogashi Senryo (Tsukiji 4-10-14, Chuo-ku, tel. 03 5565 5739) in Tsukiji is kaisen hitsumabushi, a kind of chirashi donburi tossed with various morsels of raw fish and topped with creamy uni sea urchin and ruby red ikura salmon roe. Eating it involves a procedure that borders on ritual. The fish and rice are first mixed with soy sauce and wasabi, and later with pickled vegetables. When most of the mixture has been eaten, dashi broth is poured over the remaining third, which is consumed as a soup. (Melinda Joe)

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7. Tonkatsu

Breaded, deep-fried until crisp and golden brown and then drizzled with a sweet and piquant sauce, meat doesn't get any better than tonkatsu. At Tonki (Shimo Meguro 1-1-2, Meguro- ku, tel. 03 3491 9928), they don't take reservations. The lines are long, but the succulent hire tonkatsu, served with a mound of shredded cabbage to assuage your guilt, is well worth the wait. Maisen (Jingumae 4-8-5, Shibuya-ku, tel. 03 3470 0071) is also an unbeatable stand-by. (Melinda Joe)

8. Wagyu

Wagy sushi.Nothing quite compares to that first bite of lavishly marbled wagyu. It's like butter, meltingly tender and decadent. Once you've had wagyu, other steaks seem downright stingy in their leanness. At first, those fine white veins of fat may seem shocking, but compared to regular beef, wagyu actually contains higher levels of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, which help reduce the risk of heart disease. At least that's what we keep telling ourselves.

Blacows (Ebisu Nishi 2-11-9, Shibuya-ku, tel. 03 3477 2914) offers a taste of luxury in their juicy 100 percent wagyu burgers (from ¥1,300). (Melinda Joe)

9. Tempura

Wooing the world through the international language of deep-fried deliciousness, tempura is one of Japan's most popular culinary exports. Ironically, this iconic Japanese dish finds its roots abroad -- in Portugal. When Portuguese missionaries and traders arrived in Nagasaki in the mid-16th century, they brought with them a taste for rich foods and the technique of deep-frying. Christianity may have been slow to catch on in Japan, but tempura was an instant hit.

At Kondo (Sakaguchi Bldg. 9F, Ginza 5-5-13, Chuo-ku, tel. 03 5568 0923), deep frying is almost an art form: greaseless morsels of tender asparagus, delicately crisp kisu fish, and plump scallops still pink in the center. (Melinda Joe)

10. Ramen

More books, blogs and movies have been dedicated to ramen than any other noodle dish in Asia. No wonder: Ramen's intoxicating combination of fat and salt sends powerful messages directly to the endorphin-producing parts of the brain.

It's very, very difficult to choose just one ramen shop, but Enji (Kichijoji Minami-cho 1-1-1, Musashino-shi, 0422 44 5303) is one of our newest favorites for tsukemen, ramen noodles dipped in a thickly concentrated fish-and-pork-bone-based broth. (Melinda Joe)

Still hungry? Find the full list of 40 Tokyo foods on CNNGo