Rice, Noodle, Fish Read Online Free PDF Page A

about inventory.
    â€œWhat’s your secret, Ichiro-san?” I ask. “Coffee, of course. I drink at least five cups a day.”

    ç±³ 麺 魚

    Yoshiteru Ikegawa knew that he wanted to cook chicken before he left first grade.
    â€œAt home we ate yakitori, but like most people in Japan we did it over gas in a small kitchen. But I’ll never forget the smell of charcoal when my parents first took me to a real yakitori.”
    Despite the early revelation, Ikegawa didn’t do what most budding shokunin do: he didn’t begin to slaughter chickens as a prepubescent boy; he didn’t study their musculature and temperament in obscure texts found in dark library corners; he didn’t even apprentice under a well-known yakitori chef—at least not at first. Instead, he did what a billion Japanese men had done before him: he became a salaryman. He put on a suit, took the train to work, drank with his colleagues, and remained loyal to his boss. But this wasn’t a dream deferred;on the contrary, it was part of his master plan.
    â€œMost shokunin spend their entire lives in kitchens, never learning how to work directly with people,” says Ikegawa. “I knew early on that dealing with the customer is one of the most important parts of being a master, so I started with that.”
    When he felt the business world had taught him the subtleties of customer service—above all, he says, how to give people what they want without their having to ask for it—he left the suit behind and took up an apprenticeship at Toriyoshi, an elegant yakitori bar in Naka-Meguro, where he trained for seven years, studying the bible of the flame-grilled bird. In 2007 he opened Torishiki next to Meguro Station, a lovely low-lit restaurant with a U-shaped bar centered around a small iron grill. His wife glides around the room in a kimono, dispensing drinks and good vibes to happy guests. The master himself stands at attention behind the fire, the spitting image of a shokunin : chiseled facial features, warrior stance, a rolled white bandanna tied tight around his clean-shaven head.
    Yakitori, like all great food in Japan, is both perfectly simple and infinitely complex. In its most literal state, yakitori is chicken on a stick grilled over an open flame—conceptually only a step removed from caveman cuisine. It’s drinking food, a companion to beer and sake found on the menus of izakaya and clusters of back-alley street stalls that cater to hungry salarymen on their way to the last train.
    But yakitori cleans up nicely, too, and room for refinement in the hands of discerning Japanese chefs is infinite. The lack of variables puts all that much more pressure and scrutiny on the few factors each individual can control: the source and intensity of the flame; the provenance of the chicken; the butchering, seasoning, and, above all, careful cooking of its flesh. This isn’t a matter of running a skewer through a chicken breast and cooking until firm; there are a thousand defining details that must be managed if you take yakitori as seriously as Ikegawa does.

    Yoshiteru Ikegawa, yakitori master, ready for service
    (Matt Goulding)
    One of the predominant trends in the world of high-end yakitori in Tokyo today is the full anatomy experience. At places like Toritama in Shirokane, owner Shiro Izawa butchers his chickens into thirty-six distinct pieces, a forceful biology lesson for anyone who has dismissed chicken as one-dimensional. For the diner, the question isn’t whether you want a skewer of small intestine, but what part of the small intestine you would like: the duodenum or the ileum?
    Ikegawa doesn’t subscribe to the full-anatomy theory. He doesn’t divide the thigh into inner, outer, and middle pieces to challenge your understanding of a single muscle. On a given night, he offers a tasting menu that spans about a dozen cuts of chicken, the same ones you’ll find at most