Made (Better) In Japan

GQ's food critic Alan Richman looks at the high quality food being created in Japan in this month's issue:

When it comes to eating in Tokyo, you might think only of impossibly fresh sushi, bowls of ramen, and melt-in-your-mouth Wagyu steaks. But over the past few years, Japanese chefs have branched out, mastering Italian cuisine and creating French food that would fascinate a Frenchman. Most amazingly, they're reinventing Chinese. Alan Richman gets lost in the pleasures of Tokyo, a place where nothing is good enough unless it is perfect.

FIVE DISHES NOT TO MISS

Uniin cold consommé with cauliflower cream
KITAJIMATEI
Faultless sea urchin, as you’d expect in Japan, in a cold, clear chicken broth garnished with a cream so light I barely knew it was there. So elegant, so exquisitely Japanese-French.

Chicken-liver crostini
RISTORANTE TERAUCHI
It’s more than just liver on toast; it’s the fundamental start to every Tuscan meal. This version tasted as though the chef had slipped in another kind of liver—foie gras. Chicken liver never tasted so good in Italy.

Sweet-and-sour pork
MOMO-NO-KI
During the first third of my life, syrupy, goopy American-style sweet-and-sour pork was my favorite restaurant dish. Momo-No-Ki’s vastly superior version is caramelized rather than sugarcoated and more tart (from black vinegar) than sweet. If you like braised meats, you’ll love this.

Fillet of smoked salmon topped with frizzled potatoes
KINOSHITA
How can a slab of fish so thick and so smoky vanish in the mouth as though it were nothing but air? Crisp on the outside, juicy within, and resting in a lemon-cream sauce.

Fatty Tuna
SUSHI DAI, TSUKIJI FISH MARKET
I didn’t go to Tokyo to eat Japanese food, but isn’t sushi really considered California cuisine these days? There’s always a line and sometimes a wait of a few hours, but you can’t beat the quality or the price (thirteen pieces plus miso soup for $35).