Japan Eats!

Our guest is J. Trent Harris who is the executive chef at the beautiful new sushi restaurant called Mujo in Atlanta, Georgia, which opened in February 2022. At Mujo there are only 15 seats at the counter made with cypress and he serves an omakase-style tasting menu that changes daily based on the catch of the day.  Earlier in his career, chef Harris worked in classic western kitchens, including th...

Our guests are Franckie Alarcon and Marilyne Letertre. Franckie is an illustrator and comic artist based in Paris. He recently published a fabulous comic book, The Art of Sushi . The title sounds very ambitious, but he does not disappoint you. I first learned about the book by reading a recommendation by an experienced Japanese sushi chef.  The book is about Franckie and Marilyne’s adventures in J...

Our guest is Tetsuji Ishigaki who is a scientist and the president & CEO of SOI inc . based in Shizuoka, Japan. The company produces sustainable foods and ingredients using Japanese koji mold.  Tetsuji has a strong mission to help to create a fully sustainable society by providing healthy products. It sounds like a cliché but what he does is real. His family started a koji manufacturing busine...

Our guest is Michael Tremblay who is a Sake Samurai, international sake judge, sake sommelier, and certified sake educator based in Toronto, Canada.  Michael is also the co-author of the excellent new book “ Exploring the World of Japanese Craft Sake: Rice, Water, Earth ” from Tuttle Publishing. This book is not an ordinary book on sake. It not only covers the basics of sake with unique insights b...

Our guest is Zach Mangan who is the co-founder of Kettl , the Japanese tea importer and distributor based in Fukuoka, Japan and New York.  Zach joined us in Episode 44 and talked about his love and passion for Japanese tea. Now, six years later, Zach has lots of updates to share with us.  In this episode, we will discuss this fascinating new book, Stories of Japanese Tea: The Regions, the Growers,...

Our guest today is Akira Shimizu who is the associate professor of History at Wilkes University and his focus has been our favorite topic: food.  Professor Shimizu recently published an intriguing book titled, “Specialty Food, Market Culture, and Daily Life in Early Modern Japan: Regulating and Deregulating the Market in Edo, 1780–1870” .  The book features the very unique period of Japanese histo...

Our guest is Andy Matsuda , the founder and master sushi chef of Sushi Chef Institute in Los Angeles, California.  Traditionally, sushi-making was something not to be taught, but what you patiently learn by watching your master for years and years. But Andy’s work experience in the U.S. and deep understanding of the global sushi market led him to open the sushi school in 2002. Since then, many suc...

Our guest is Blake Richardson who is the president and owner of Moto-i in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Moto-i opened as a sake brewery and brewpub in 2008. There are around 20 craft sake breweries in the U.S. now, but when Blake started Moto-i, there was not much information available about Japanese sake in English, not to mention other craft breweries to learn from.  Blake also runs a sake rice millin...

Our guest is Mehdi Alexandre Medhaffar, who is a kurabito, or a brewmaster’s support, at Terada Honke in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo. Mehdi is Franco-Tunisian and he has made sake at five breweries in Japan for the last 8 years.  Terada Honke is distinctively unique and known for its strong focus on natural sake-making. Here, we are not talking about a natural-oriented brewing style but a never-en...

japan, japanese, japanese food, japanese cuisine, washoku, Japanese culture, japan eats!, Rintaro, Izakaya, sylvan Mishima Brackett, akiko katayama, heritage radio network, food radio Our guest is Sylvan Mishima Brackett , who is the chef and owner of Izakaya Rintaro in San Francisco’s Mission district. Shortly after its opening in 2014, Rintaro was included in Bon Appetit magazine’s Top 10 New Re...

Our guest is Marcin Miller who is the founding partner of the Kyoto Distillery in Japan. The distillery is the maker of the award-winning beautiful Japanese-style craft gin called KI NO BI .  Before he co-founded the Kyoto Distillery in 2014, Marcin has been in the spirits industry for a long time as a writer, importer, distributor and consultant.  Until very recently, no one would have expected t...

Our guest is Bob Florence, who is the founder of Moromi based in Connecticut. At Moromi, Bob produces hand-crafted, small-batch Japanese-style fermented products such as shoyu, miso, hot sauces, and other condiments. Bob studied how to make authentic Japanese fermented products in Japan and uniquely integrate the Japanese tradition and local flavors of coastal Connecticut.  In this episode, we wil...

Our guest is Ken Suzuki, the founder of the Suzuki Farm in Delaware, which opened in 1983.  In the last 39 years, Ken has devoted himself to introducing native Japanese vegetables and fruits to America. He and his team grow a variety of Japanese produce on their 28-acre land and harvest more than 30 kinds of crops throughout the year.  I have been hearing about Suzuki Farm through Japanese and non...

Our guest is Takashi Miyazaki , who is the chef/owner of ichigo ichie in Cork, Ireland.  Takashi moved to Ireland in 2008 where Japanese food was yet to be more deeply discovered. Also, he was met by the global financial crisis shortly after his arrival in Ireland. After going through numerous challenges, he fell in love with Cork, a small city in the south-western part of the country, and opened...

Our guest is Genki Ito, who is the founder of Tippsy Sake , an online store that specializes in Japanese sake, based in California.  Japanese sake has been increasingly popular globally in recent years and the US is one of the most promising markets for the sake industry. For example, between 2011 to 2021, the value of Japanese sake export to the US tripled, and its quantity doubled, according to...

Our guest is Makiko Harada, who is a salt specialist and the owner of Glamsalt , a salt shop based in the Hudson Valley, New York.  She opened Glamsalt in 2012 and now has numerous famous chef clients who adore her products, including those at Sushi Nakazawa, Sushi Yasuda, and Hatsuhana.  Makiko is known for her extremely high-quality, unique products, and the awe and respect for salt in Japanese...

Our guest is Whit Johnson who is the co-founder of Horyzon Spirits based in Atlanta, Georgia.  Whit founded Hryzon Spirits in April 2021 to produce very unique products that blend Japanese tradition and American terroir. More specifically, he chose to use Japanese koji mold, which is the foundational ingredient of Japanese cuisine, to produce his spirits instead of malts. Also, he uses Carolina Go...

Our guest is Kazuko Nagao, the founder of Oconomi , the okonomiyaki shop based in Queens, New York.  Okonomiyaki is a Japanese-style savory pancake, which is very popular in Japan. Despite its rich, delicious taste and approachable style, okonomiyaki is yet to be known to the world outside Japan.  Kazuko has been making okonomiyaki for New Yorkers at street fairs and food events for a decade. But...

Our guest is Matthieu Guerpillon, the Marketing Manager & Brand Ambassador of NAMI , the first sake brewery in Mexico.  Japanese sake has been produced outside of Japan in recent years, and it is very exciting to see that there is a sake brewery in Mexico, which is the home of excellent beer and spirits such as tequila and mezcal! NAMI is not just the first sake brewery in Mexico. Their produc...

Our guest today is Ryo Iwamoto, who is the founder and CEO of TeaRoom based in Tokyo.  Ryo began studying tea 15 years ago at the age of 9 and now he is a certified instructor of the Japanese tea ceremony. He even has a special name that is only given to outstanding tea practitioners.  Ryo founded TeaRoom in 2018 while he was still a student at the prestigious Waseda University to inspire the worl...

Our guests today are John Daschbach, the director of the fantastic new documentary film Come Back Anytime , and Wataru Yamamoto, the producer of the film.  Our mutual friend Yukari Sakamoto, who is an influential food specialist based in Tokyo, introduced me to the new film Come Back Anytime , or mata irasshai (またいらっしゃい) in Japanese. It premiered at DOC NYC, which is the largest documentar...

Our guest today is Kou Sundburg, who is the founder of Kiraku . Kiraku operates multiple projects that aim to preserve Japan’s rich cultural and natural heritage for future generations. Kou has a strong business background with a unique bi-cultural vantage point of the Japanese tradition.  Kou’s diverse projects include transforming abandoned machiya, or a traditional Japanese townhouse, in Kyoto...

Our guest is Takatsugu 'Taka' Amano who is the co-Founder and CEO of American Shochu Company based in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Shochu is a traditional Japanese spirit and it is more popular than Japanese sake in Japan. If you compare sake and shochu, 4.2% of liquor tax comes from premium sake, whereas 14.8% comes from shochu, according to the Japanese government’s data in 2019. But the number fli...

Our guest is Nobu Yamanashi, the director of Yama Seafood . Founded in 1980 by his father Kengo Yamanashi, Yama Seafood has been one of the most reliable sources of high-quality seafood in the U.S. for over 40 years.  Thanks to superior suppliers like Yama Seafood, our diet has shifted dramatically towards fresh seafood like sushi in the last decades.  For example, people used to be frightened by...

Our guests are Mark Isbell and Chris Isbell of Isbell Farms in Arkansas. Isbell Farms has always been forward-minded and played an important role as a strong supporter of the American sake industry.  It is a multi-generational family farm with a focus on the sustainable production of quality rice. And also, Isbell is the first American farm that produced Sakamai, which means Japanese rice varietie...