Text 6001, 136 rader
Skriven 2006-09-28 14:33:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Okeson on beef 327
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A Steak With a View (and the Cow's Resume): Tokyo Dining
by Bret Okeson Sept. 28 (Bloomberg)

M's note: check out the "appellation controlee" for meat.
And the odd prissiness of the author. Why wouldn't he go
back to the lowest-ranking restaurant on the list? It
sounds as though it's about as good as anything he could
get in the US.

  A streak of sadism helps when eating dinner at Kazahana
  at the Conrad Hotel in Tokyo. A smiling, kimono-clad
  waitress brought two 10-inch prawns, numbed by a bed of ice,
  to our private teppanyaki chef. The hapless crustaceans
  jerked spasmodically as the heat of the grill overcame them,
  before the chef sliced off the shells and dropped the
  still-twitching bodies onto our plates. "They don't really
  feel pain," he assured us with a smile. We had come for the
  steak and the 28th-floor view. Below the hotel are the 62
  acres of bamboo forests and tidal pools of the Hama Rikyu
  garden, a former game reserve for shoguns during the Edo
  era. Beyond, hydrofoils rush across Tokyo Bay into the ferry
  terminal, while water taxis meander up the Sumida River.
  Even with such a vista, it's hard to take your eyes off the
  performance in front of you. I've always enjoyed watching a
  skilled chef slice and cook meat and vegetables, then serve
  them directly. No waiting, no intermediaries, and the bonus
  of chatting with an expert on food. As the evening darkened
  into night and the lights of the Rainbow Bridge sparkled
  over the bay, our chef cooked up a series of vegetables -
  eggplant from Kyoto, chestnut squash from Kyushu, green
  beans from Mie prefecture - all tasty, yet all preludes to
  the meat, which is the real draw. Kazahana specializes in
  Matsuzaka beef from Mie prefecture which has the highest
  grade in Japan. The cattle are raised on beer and massage
  and the taste is spectacular. You barely have to chew the
  meat as it melts in your mouth. My dining companion and I
  looked at each other in amazement. This doesn't come cheap.
  A course* costs 20,000 yen ($172) per person and there is
  only space for six people at the two teppanyaki counters. We
  shared a cut of sirloin and fillet which was just enough.

* he means a prix-fixe meal.

  New Otani At the New Otani Hotel, Sekishin-tei offers an
  even more traditional atmosphere for teppanyaki. The
  restaurant is located in a gazebo with glass walls in the
  middle of a 400-year-old Japanese garden, which once
  belonged to the Ii family, one of the most powerful daimyos
  during the Edo era. From your seat at the counter, you look
  out onto a koi pond with manicured dwarf pines growing out
  from between rocks. A red arched bridge leads through the
  trees to a raked stone garden. On the evening we were there,
  a late summer cicada made its way into the restaurant and
  began screeching, much to the amusement of the guests. They
  serve beef from Kagoshima prefecture, rated one grade below
  Matsuzaka. The difference is easy to tell in both price and
  taste. The meat was tender and juicy and cooked to
  perfection, but it didn't have the same melt-in-your mouth
  quality. The set menu was also 7,000 yen cheaper. 
  Cow CV
  The restaurant has an intimate feel with space for about 25
  customers, seated at a semicircular wooden counter around 12
  grills. Our chef brought us a card listing the cow our
  sirloin and fillet came from, where it was raised and the
  farmer that raised it. Ever since "mad cow" disease appeared
  in Japan in 2001, it is obligatory for restaurants to offer
  customers proof of where their steak originates, he told us.
  After a starter of grilled Sazai shellfish with diced
  tomatoes, garlic and mushrooms for my dining companion and
  cold cuts for myself and a course of lobster, we tucked into
  our steaks. Our chef grilled the sides and then the edges
  before serving them up, nicely juicy. Afterwards, we were
  led to a second gazebo in the garden for a dessert of
  vanilla ice cream with sesame sauce, spiced up with freshly
  ground pepper.

  Homesick Americans
  In contrast to Kazahana and Sekishin-tei, Porterhouse Steaks
  draws homesick Americans. It caters to a foreign clientele to
  such an extent that, when we called to make reservations, the
  staff answered the phone in English. In the basement of a
  nondescript building at a traffic fork in Nishi-Azabu,
  Porterhouse has no windows and no view. Instead, there is a
  rather cold interior of cream walls lined with black leather
  cushions. The staff brings the raw meat out on a platter for
  inspection, massive slabs of aged beef from Miyagi
  prefecture. I ordered the 18-ounce rib-eye steak for 8,000
  yen. My companion, rightly sensing my dish would be too much
  for one person, decided to share. This was not the soft
  steak of a pampered cow. It was charred to a crisp on the
  outside, raw and juicy on the inside, with lots of fat along
  the edges. It was about an inch and a half thick and
  demanded strong jaws. It was the kind of meat I grew up
  with. At the table behind us, a group of U.S. military
  contractors compared their steaks favorably to those in
  Boston and Texas. Perhaps, but I'd still rate Porterhouse
  the lowest of the three, squirming seafood and all.

  The Bloomberg Questions

  Prices: Kazahana: About 20,000 yen a person, Sekishin-tei:
  13,000 yen, Porterhouse: 10,000 yen.

  Sound level: Kazahana: hushed. Sekishin-tei: chatter of
  guests. Porterhouse: noisy.

  Special features: Kazahana and Sekishin-tei: the views.
  Porterhouse: American atmosphere.

  Best table: Kazahana: only two teppanyaki grills to choose
  from. Sekishin-tei: all seats are equally good. Porterhouse:
  no discernible difference.

  Business meetings? Yes to all three.

  Date place? Yes to all three.

  Will I go back? Yes to Kazahana and Sekishin-tei. No to Porterhouse.

  Kazahana, at the Conrad Hotel, 1-9-1 Higashi-Shinbashi, Minato-ku.
  Tel: (81) (3) 6388-8000 or go to http://conradhotels1.hilton.com .

  Sekishin-tei, at the New Otani Hotel, 4-1 Kioi-cho Chiyoda-ku.
  Tel: (81) (3) 3265-1111 or go to
  http://www1.newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo/Restaurants/JapaneseCuisine .

  Porterhouse Steaks, Faro Nishiazabu 1F 1-15-4, Nishiazabu, Minato-ku.
  Tel: (81) (3) 5771-5322 or go to http://www.porterhouse.jp/howto.html .
(Bret Okeson is an editor for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed
are his own.) To contact the writer on this story: Bret Okeson in
Tokyo at bokeson@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: September 27, 2006 15:19 EDT


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