Tidbits from Japan

I am working on several posts from the trip to Japan I did with Pim and David Kinch. It was a great trip. We tried a lot of restaurants, saw many incredible things and I brought back lots of food and material from Japan.

Right now I am busy trying to figure out how to ignite the binchotan I bought and how to keep it burning. Well, I kind of did succeed yesterday and grilled red mullet filets under a burning piece of binchotan. The result was the best cooking technique for red mullet I have come across. Simply astonishing. When I told David in Japan that the first thing I would do with the binchotan when I got home was just that with red mullets. That is a no-brainer, David responded. He is right.

Here are some tidbits.

Fugu or blowfish.

Fugu spermsack, or male egg sack as they say.

 Sushi at Masa

My favourite soba-place

Not a crime scene.

 
Tuna butchers in action.

 The dish of the trip. Grilled eel at Koju. Then below, a new knife with my name and ike jime in action.