Rick Lapointe - The Japan Times

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Rick Lapointe

For Rick Lapointe's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Jul 22, 2001

Gently add mom's miso, while stirring in humility

Last week while the kami-san was ringing up a customer's bill, I happened to glance down at the scrawled notepad where she keeps track of a table's order — a list of all the food and drink consumed.

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Jul 15, 2001

A journey back to old 'new Japanese cuisine'

This week I saw a program on television that showcased shin-washoku, or "new Japanese cuisine," as the latest restaurant trend. The show visited several eateries where the chef/owners had gone abroad, mostly to America, to work in Japanese restaurants and since come back to Japan with a new twist on their native cuisine. Interestingly, what really makes these new places stand out from their traditional Japanese restaurant competitors is not the food. Sure, there are an avocado or two thrown into the mix for color, but the real difference is in the presentation, the service and the price.

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Jul 8, 2001

The buckwheat starts here

Some of the most enjoyable, satisfying and memorable meals I have had in Japan involve soba (buckwheat). I can still smell the broth of a hot bowl of kake soba I had the winter after the Olympics in Nagano.

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Jul 1, 2001

I love you, I knead you

Lounging in a cool tatami room with a gentle breeze carrying the billows of mosquito incense and dreaming of downing several plates of freshly handmade udon noodles, one could easily waste away the sixth and seventh moons of summer. The Japanese east of Nagoya have their soba (buckwheat noodles), but those of us in western Japan enjoy nothing better than our plump, energy-giving udon (and the udon variation from Nagoya, kishi-men).

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Jun 24, 2001

Hiyashi somen: the cool slurp of summer

On a hot summer day nothing refreshes like cold, wet noodles. Japan eats a rice-based diet most of the year, but in the summertime, to lighten the hot-weather menu and relieve pressure on dwindling rice storage from the previous fall, the population turns to cold noodles.

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Jun 17, 2001

Savoring rewards of slow food

In addition to just eating a plump one with a bowl of hot rice to improve digestion and settle your stomach, there are four basic condiment staples made with dried salt-preserved Japanese apricots (umeboshi). If you were ahead of the game and pickled your umeboshi this time last year, now is the time to reap the benefits of your labor. Prepared traditionally taking more time than work, umeboshi could really be the poster child for the slow food movement. These four offshoot preparations of umeboshi are no exception to this time intensity.

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Jun 3, 2001

Ume, back in the pink

Get out the salt and pop open the white liqueur — the season for ume is upon us. The diminutive Prunus mume — referred to erroneously as a plum but technically an apricot — has hit the shelves and is available in its preferred unripe form for the next month and a half. Farmers growing these apricots take extra precautions — the fruit notoriously falls from the trees while still unripe, especially when disturbed by seasonal rains, lending its name to stormy July weather, tsuyu ("plum rain").

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

May 20, 2001

A good reason to hit the sauce

When a friend of mine dragged two other friends from the States to Osaka to eat at the first restaurant I apprenticed at in Japan, they were prepared to pay 10,000 yen for the pleasure of eating the omakase, a several-course menu selected by the chef. What they were not ready for was the main dish: a big, steamed fish head, the traditional kotsu mushi (literally, "steamed bones"). Eyes widened and chopsticks were timidly taken up to probe the foreign matter presented on beautiful Bizen-yaki ceramic-ware. Later, the plates mysteriously returned to the dish sink devoid of anything but the fish bones, the famous nanatsu dogu, the bones shaped like seven different farmers' tools found in the head of a tai.

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

May 6, 2001

A flavor-enhancer to be handled with care

For a younger, less taste-aware version of myself, coal-black briny-sweet Chung King brand soy sauce was all I needed to accompany the corner Chinese restaurant's ubiquitous white rice. As I got closer to the bottom of the bowl the poor rice would become salty enough to render the last bites inedible.

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Apr 22, 2001

Taking stock of basics

All great food begins with perfect dashi (stock).

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU

Apr 8, 2001

Rice grains of wisdom

I spent five years cooking in fine dining restaurants in the U.S., and yet I was not quite prepared for life as an apprentice in a Japanese kitchen.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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