J - Japanese
Right from the start I should say that everything I've tried of Japanese food has been phenomenal. I loved Nobu Matsuhisa's little lunch counter in West Hollywood, I like conveyor-belt sushi, I love the karaoke izakayas in the West end, I like sashimi, I even like seaweed.
My problem is authenticity. People say that Nobu is Japanese/South American fusion for rich Westerners. People say that conveyor belt sushi is so awful that only Westerners would eat it. People say the izakayas are tourist traps.
We don't even have a friendly celebrity to demystify things. Theres no Japanese equivalent to Madhur Jafffrey or Antonio Carluccio encouraging us with jolly stories of their childhood recipes.
Instead we have a bunch of rather snotty Western foodwriters who, on the strength of a single press trip to Japan have become food Ninjas.
"Yes, it's the finest cuisine in the World and no, you can't have any because evrything that calls itself Japanese outside of Tokyo is really rubbish".
Well I'm bored of it.
Call it fusion, call it fake, I like 'Japanese' food and I don't care if the whole thing really is an enormous joke played on the gullible Gaijin.
In fact it must be... what else could explain tofu?