Chef Tokuoka's bonito slicer
The chef at work on his umami menu
We recently had the chance to watch chef Kunio Tokuoka (of Kyoto’s Kitcho) at work in TriBeCa's Bouley Test Kitchen as he finalized his menu for an umami-focused dinner at the James Beard House. Umami is described as the “fifth taste” (following sweet, sour, salty and bitter), and though its exact flavor can be hard to describe, “savory” is the term most frequently bandied about. First classified in Japan in 1908, umami occurs in a variety of glutamate-rich foods including kelp, tomatoes and even Parmesan cheese, as well as in that most infamous of flavor-enhancers, MSG. Another food full of the stuff is bonito, and in preparation for his menu at the Beard House, Tokuoka brought over his own slicer from Japan.
So where does a world-renowned chef go to eat on his second-ever trip to New York? Bouley, naturally, and Benjamin Steakhouse, which supplied the beef for the dinner. Surprisingly, with all the hoopla in this country surrounding Kobe beef, Tokuoka opined, “The meat here is tastier than in Japan. Japanese meat is good, but you don’t eat a lot of it.”