Our guest is Phillip Frankland Lee who is the chef/owner of Sushi by Scratch.  Sushi by Scratch Restaurants began in Los Angeles and New York marks its tenth location, which opened in September 2024.

Phillip is known for innovative omakase-style sushi preparations, while still respecting the values set by sushi masters. For example, he uses premium seafood mostly from the Toyosu Market in Japan and he imports rice from Toyoama Prefecture and mills it in-house.  On the other hand, he pays homage to his American upbringing by flavoring hamachi yellowtail with sweet corn pudding and topped with a sprinkle of sourdough breadcrumbs.

Sushi has come a long way in the U.S. since the 1960s when it was introduced to the general public for the first time.  Sushi is now one of the most popular foods in the U.S. and great talents like Phillip seem to be making it uniquely American.  

Our guest is George Kao who is the head of sales at Boken Sake https://www.drinkboken.com/　based in New York.  Boken Sake is a unique concept.  The company collaborates with authentic Japanese sake breweries and produces sake under the Boken brand.

Many sake breweries consider expanding to overseas markets, but a lot of them are family-owned small businesses without enough resources to make it happen.  Boken can effectively create a path for them to get into the American market and American consumers can have opportunities to taste their precious craft sake.

George is an ideal talent to execute Boken’s mission with his rich and unique background in Japanese food, in particular Japanese sake.

In this episode, we will discuss the unique concept of Boken Sake, the sake Boken has produced with a 540-year-old brewery, great ways to enjoy sake with non-Japanese food and much, much more!!!

Our guest is Ririko Tatsumi who is the founder of Annn based in New York.  Annn is truly a unique concept.  Traditional Japanese sweets are called Wagashi.  One of Wagashi’s key ingredients is An, or Anko, a bean paste made with different kinds of beans from red, and white to green.  Not just colors, their flavors are diverse and it is fun to discover how simple beans can create rich flavors in Japanese sweets.  That is why Ririko decided to introduce the charm of An to a global audience in the modern American context.

In this episode, we will discuss what An is, what types of An you can enjoy, how traditional An can be creative in the context of global sweet recipes and much, much more!!!

Our guest is John Gauntner who is one of the world’s leading non-Japanese sake experts and educators.  He has been writing and lecturing about sake since 1994, in various newspapers and magazines in Japan and overseas. He has published six books on sake across two languages, and hundreds of articles on the topic.  Several times each year, he runs the world.com/sake-professional-course/">Sake Professional Course, a week-long intensive sake study course, held both in and outside of Japan, as well as the advanced level of that course.

John joined us in Episode 25 in December 2015 and discussed his intriguing path to becoming a sake expert, why sake was gaining popularity in the world, how to get to know more about sake and many other topics.

Sake has become popular globally over the last decades but we tend to think that sake is something to drink only at Japanese restaurants.  However, more non-Japanese restaurants are serving sake, including new American restaurants Michelin-starred Per Se, Blue Hill At Stone Barns and Eleven Madison Park in New York.

In this episode, we will discuss food pairings, in particular sake and non-Japanese food!!!

Our guest is Nobu Yamanashi who is the president of Yama Seafood based in New Jersey.

Founded in 1980 by his father Kengo Yamanashi, Yama Seafood has been one of the most reliable sources of high-quality seafood in the U.S. for almost 45 years.

Nobu joined us in Episode #245 in November 2021 to discuss why he decided to succeed the highly demanding job in the seafood business, the changing needs for seafood at New York City restaurants, why Yama Seafood had many employees who had worked for the company over 30 years and many other topics.

Since then, plenty of new things have happened at Yama Seafood, reflecting the ever-changing demand for quality seafood and the environmental issues that affect the oceans.

In this episode, we will discuss how Nobu is proactively dealing with the increasingly challenging issues caused by climate change, his efforts to educate consumers about seafood through social media, what seafood has potential for the future and much, much more!!!

Our guest today Xander Soren who is the founder of Xander Soren Wines https://xandersorenwines.com/ . 

Xander Soren Wines is a unique boutique California Pinot Noir producer whose mission is to create wines that pair exceptionally well with sushi and other Japanese foods without overpowering them. Equally unique is Xander’s background. He spent 20 years at Apple where he played a pivotal role in helping to develop digital music products like GarageBand, iTunes, and iPod. 

Since the winery launched in Japan in 2023, top restaurants like 3-Michelin-starred Sushi Saito, NO CODE and KOKE have included Xander’s wine on their lists. Also here in the U.S., his wine became available in the summer of 2024 and is on the lists of notable restaurants on the West Coast such as n/naka, Single Thread and Nisei. 

In this episode, we will discuss how Xander’s love for Japanese food started, why he decided to make his own wine to pair with Japanese food, why Pinot Noir goes very well with Japanese food, tips to pair Japanese food with wine and much, much more!!!

Our guest is Stuart Turner who is the Founder & CEO of SushiSushi https://www.sushisushi.co.uk/ based in Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Stu founded SushiSushi in 2007 and since then, the company has grown to become a leading supplier of high-end Japanese food ingredients. Many of his clients are fine-dining non-Japanese restaurants, including The Fat Duck Group, Gordon Ramsay Group, The Savoy and Mandarin Oriental Group. In this episode, we will discuss how the young British man started a business of selling Japanese traditional items, how he keeps discovering great ingredients that have been unknown outside of Japan, the popular Japanese ingredients top chefs are using right now and much, much more!!!

Our guest is Jerome Waag who is the former chef at the legendary farm-to-table restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Jerome moved to Tokyo in 2016 to open his own restaurant Blind Donkey. The restaurant has been popular and successful and in March 2024, Jerome has opened another place called CIMI Restorant with a strong focus on sustainability. He has been also involved in an inspiring project the Food Hub Project in a small town called Kamiyama in Shikoku Island, which aims to revitalize the local community. In this episode, we will discuss how Jerome opened his own restaurant in Japan, his unique experience of running a successful restaurant in Tokyo, his new restaurant CIMI restorant and its vision for sustainable food, his role in revitalizing the rural town Kamiyama, and much, much more!!!

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Our guest is Shiho Tanaka who is the head sommelier at Tsukimi, the Michelin-starred kaiseki restaurant in the East Village, Manhattan. The restaurant offers great selections of sake and wine to pair with chef Takanori Akiyama’s original kaiseki-style dishes. Recently, Japanese wines were added to the list and Shiho is one of the most knowledgeable sommeliers about Japanese wines in the U.S. You may not have heard of Japanese wine, but in the last decade or so, it started to appear in the global market and the world's biggest wine competitions, such as the IWSC International Wine & Spirit Competition, the Decanter World Wine Awards and the International Wine Challenge, honor Japanese wines with multiple Gold, Silver and Bronze medals.In this episode, we will discuss the challenging history of Japanese wine, why the Japanese wine industry is developing so fast in recent years, the unique grape varieties that make Japanese wine special, how to pair Japanese wine with Japanese food as well as non-Japanese food and much, much more!!!

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Our guest is Makoto Okuwa, who is the chef/partner of multiple, highly popular Japanese restaurants in the U.S. and other major cities in the world, including restaurant.com/">Makoto at Bal Harbour in Miami, Love Makoto in Washington D.C., and Makoto Vail in Colorado.

Makoto’s success did not come easily. He started cooking at the age of 15 in Japan, training under master chefs for a decade and moved to Washington D.C. in 2001. Under Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, his new life in America was another hardworking process of learning a foreign language and culture, how to read American diners’ minds, not to mention honing his culinary skills.

In this episode, we will discuss how Makoto got into cooking at such a young age, why he decided to challenge himself in America, what he learned from his mentor/master chefs, the reasons behind his success on the global stage, and much, much more!!!

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Japan Eats by becoming a member!

Japan Eats is Powered by Simplecast.