January is a time for reflections. I look back on all the great food I ate in 2023. There were many kaiseki and tasting dinners, breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Travels to different parts of Japan and Europe also brought many fine food memories.
Once in a while, there will be a dish that stands out for any number of reasons. It might be a flavor I never tasted before, an ingredient, a technique or something that I thought wasn’t possible or not done before. I enjoy that the most about eating: a new discovery. It keeps me on my toes as I feel like I am still learning and wanting to improve after all these decades of cooking. Some are game changers; they open up new possibilities and doors to go through so new dishes arrive.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love tamago kake gohan, or raw egg on rice, and most times, I eat really simple. I grew up eating corned beef and Spam out of the can long before I knew how to cook, so that tells you something. I eat ethnic most times. I just love noodles, soups and rice dishes. I appreciate the simple and the fancy. Sometimes, I go through a meal, dish after dish, enjoy them all and though I know it took a lot of effort to make it happen, but nothing really stands out.
I love stories about ingredients, tales about why a chef would do this or that. I probably would remember the stories more than the actual dish. I believe in having a sense of place, and that a restaurant has the opportunity to tell a story about the people, the culture, their food, the farmers and their own unique history.
This past year, a fish choucroute dish in Alsace turned me upside down because all the choucroute dishes
I had before were full of meats, sausages and dumplings but never a fish one. It’s not new — chefs were doing it for decades — but it was the first time for me to actually eat one.
The last article I mentioned kimchi made with tangerine in Jeju Island, a game-changer because now all the other fruit possibilities need to be explored for fermenting kimchi with. The night I pounded kalo for the first time and ate paa kai will stay with me for a long time. Adding kalua pig to an ozoni soup? It was because ozoni in Japan is very regional and there are so many versions of it, depending on what region you live in Japan.
We live in Hawaii, so why not kalua pig and marungay leaves in ozoni for a local twist to the Japanese New Year’s good luck traditional soup? It tastes really good, try it. Just add a little bit of kalua pig.
Under a train station in Tokyo, they served me a clam gyoza in its own broth, gyoza with a keem curry. At Seisoka restaurant in Tokyo for my birthday dinner, lobster sashimi was served with salt water as the dipping sauce. Ideally the salt should be from the same waters the protein came from. I know it might sound nerdy, but I am a nerd!
My self-inflicted versions of oatmeal make me laugh at myself all the time. There are truly no rules. Try adding a little green Thai curry paste to your oatmeal pot, then crack an egg on top. When the egg starts turning white on the bottom, add some natto, shaved Brussels sprouts and tsukemono, and you get a perky, slimy oatmeal zosui that borders on raw egg rice. I don’t think our natto club members will be asking for this one, but it keeps breaking simple barriers down about what oatmeal should be. Milk and sugar? So gross!
I guess this is the reason why I hardly get invited out to someone’s home for dinner; they’re worried about what I would think. I promise I don’t judge, I truly want to have a good time and enjoy the moment. In fact, I won’t say anything about the food unless you ask; I did learn something from Buggy last year while making egg fu yung. Happy New Year, everyone! I wish you all a wonderful 2024!
Chef and restaurateur Alan Wong has wowed diners around the world for decades, and is known as one of the founders of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Find his column in Crave every first Wednesday. Currently, Wong is dba Alan Wong’s Consulting Co.
