Read Online Rice, Noodle, Fish by Matt Goulding - Free Book Online Page A

brothers and sisters you have.”
    After divining my favorite color (blue) and my astrological sign (Aquarius), Nakamura pulls out an ivory stalk of takenoko , fresh young bamboo ubiquitous in Japan during the spring. “This came in this morning from Kagumi. It’s so sweet that you can eat it raw.” He peels off the outer layer, cuts a thin slice, and passes it across the counter.
    Then he goes to work. First, he scores an inch-thick bamboo steak with a ferocious santoku blade. Then he sears it in a dry sauté pan until the flesh softens and the natural sugars form a dark crust on the surface. While the bamboo cooks, he places two sacks of shirako , cod milt, under the broiler. (“Milt,” by the way, is a euphemism for sperm. Cod sperm is everywhere in Japan in the winter and early spring, and despite the challenges its name might create for some, it’s one of the most delicious things you can eat.)
    Nakamura brings it all together on a Meiji-era ceramic plate: caramelized bamboo brushed with soy, broiled cod milt topped with miso made from foraged mountain vegetables, and, for good measure, two lightly boiled fava beans. An edible postcard of spring. I take a bite, drop my chopsticks, and look up to find Nakamura staring right at me.
    â€œSee, I told you I know what you want to eat.”
    The rest of the dinner unfolds in a similar fashion: a little counter banter, a little product display, then back to the burners to transform my tastes and his ingredients into a cohesive unit. The hits keep coming: a staggeringplate of sashimi filled with charbroiled tuna, surgically scored squid, thick circles of scallop, and tiny white shrimp blanketed in sea urchin: a lesson in the power of perfect product. A sparkling crab dashi topped with yuzu flowers: a meditation on the power of restraint. Warm mochi infused with cherry blossoms and topped with a crispy plank of broiled eel: a seasonal invention so delicious it defies explanation.
    Nakamura watches me eat. He watches everyone eat. Not in a creepy surveillance way, but in a sweetly innocent, I-really-hope-he-likes-this way. Soon you get the feeling that this guy has a body double or two floating around the restaurant, because despite the lavish attention he showers on all of his customers, and despite the fact that he’s personally responsible for cooking at least half the plates that cross the counter, he does nothing all night but smile and look unreasonably relaxed behind the bar.
    â€œWe don’t hide behind kitchen doors,” says Nakamura. “This is what makes Osaka food so special, the relationship between the chef and the guest.”
    In a kappo setup, there are no secrets: you know the shrimp soup is laced with both the brains and the roe of the crustacean, plus a jigger of cognac; you see the nail that goes through the brain of the wriggling eel just before it’s filleted; you learn that 40 degrees is the perfect angle to transform a pristine fillet of fish into a pile of perfect sashimi. (An enterprising home cook brings home a doggie bag of pro moves after dinner at Nakamura.) If you’re going to spend $100 on a meal, this is how you want to spend it, on a dinner that educates and entertains as much as it satisfies.
    As I’m paying the bill, an older gentleman with an electric-blue tie sparks up a conversation with the chef. “What’s good right now? You have anything you’re really excited about?” Nakamura reaches down into one of his coolers and pulls out a massive wedge of beef sointensely frosted with fat that only the sparest trace of protein is visible.
    â€œA-five Omi beef.” A hush falls over the restaurant; Omi beef, ludicrously fatty and fabulously expensive, may be Japan’s finest Wagyu.
    The man bites, and Nakamura gets to work on his dish. He sears the beef, simmers wedges of golden carrots, whisks a fragrant sauce made with butter and vanilla. It’s the first time the