Japanese Books - Page 2

Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook

Mark Robinson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Japanese pubs, called izakaya, are attracting growing attention in Japan and overseas. As a matter of fact, a recent article in The New York Times claimed that the izakaya is starting to shove the sushi bar off its pedestal. While Japan has many guidebooks and cookbooks, this is the first publication in English to delve into every aspect of a unique and vital cornerstone of Japanese food culture.
A venue for socializing and an increasingly innovative culinary influence, the izakaya serves mouth-watering and inexpensive small-plate cooking, along with free-flowing drinks. Readers of this essential book will be guided through the different styles of establishments and recipes that make izakaya such relaxing and appealing destinations. At the same time, they will learn to cook many delicious standards and specialties, and discover how to design a meal as the evening progresses.
Eight Tokyo pubs are introduced, ranging from those that serve the traditional Japanese comfort foods such as yakitori (barbequed chicken), to those offering highly innovative creations. Some of them have long histories; some are more recent players on the scene. All are quite familiar to the author, who has chosen them for the variety they represent: from the most venerated downtown pub to the new-style standing bar with French-influenced menu. Mark Robinson includes knowledgeable text on the social and cultural etiquette of visiting izakaya, so the book can used as a guide to entering the potentially daunting world of the pub. Besides the 60 detailed recipes, he also offers descriptions of Japanese ingredients and spices, a guide to the wide varieties of sake and other alcoholic drinks that are served, how-to advice on menu ordering, and much more.
For the home chef, the hungry gourmet, the food professional, this is more than a cookbook. It is a unique peek at an important and exciting dining and cultural phenomenon.

Harumi's Japanese Cooking: More than 75 Authentic and Contemporary Recipes from Japan's Most PopularCooking Expert

Harumi Kurihara

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Pleasure to Read and Enjoy 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I enjoy reviewing and using Harumi's Japanese Cooking Cookbook. Since I have a family who enjoy Japanese cooking, it is a wonderful opportunity to be able to purchase a lasting memory that I can enjoy over and over in my home. Recipes from another country is so thrilling to experience and enjoy. Thank you for providing me with this source.

Editorial Review:

Cooking expert and lifestyle guru Harumi Kurihara has won over the hearts of Japanese home cooks with her simple, delicious recipes. After selling millions of copies of her cookbooks, magazines, and housewares in her home country, this charismatic former housewife now shares her award-winning kitchen secrets with Americans for the first time.

These elegant, effortless recipes reflect Harumi's down-to-earth approach to Japanese cooking. Simply written and featuring everyday ingredients, recipes include Pan-Fried Noodles with Pork and Bok Choy, Warm Eggplant Salad, Japanese Pepper Steak, Seafood Miso Soup, and Harumi's popular Carrot and Tuna Salad, along with a chapter on simple ways to make delectable sushi at home.

Demystifying Japanese cooking and celebrating freshness, seasonality, and simplicity, this delightful book introduces Americans to one of the food world's brightest stars, and invites us to cook with her, one gracious dish at a time.

Quick & Easy Tsukemono: Japanese Pickling Recipes

Ikuko Hisamatsu

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Among the many authentic flavors of Japan, tsukemono, or pickled vegetables, has been a must for everyday meals and with tea. For most of the Japanese nothing can replace enjoying plain hot rice with tsukemono, and dinner is not complete without it as the final course. Today most dishes are available at Japanese grocery stores or specialty supermarkets, but they often lack the seasonal quality and freshness of true tsukemono.

The term tsukemono covers a wide range of dishes from a marinated salad to preserved foods. Traditional tsukemono such as takuan or umeboshi might seem difficult to prepare but Quick & Easy Tsukemono makes these and many more, easy with its simple step-by-step, full-color photo instructions. There are myriads of methods to make them, some as simple as just rubbing fruits and vegetables with salt just before serving, while other require several days to fully marinate.
Packed with over 73 mouthwatering recipes for easily preserving fruits and vegetables, Quick & Easy Tsukemono is the perfect book for beginning cooks and seasoned foodies alike.

The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice (P.S.)

Trevor Corson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Nice Blend of People, Fish & Sushi 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not sure what a few of these reviewers expected from this book. Certainly this is not a novel. What you have in this book is a means to learn more about sushi, rolls and sashimi; More about the sea creatures and vegetation that adorn sushi; more about the Sushi Academy in California; More about sushi chefs; and more about the environment of all of this blended together. This book met those needs for me. I feel what author Corson has done here, is wrapped a lot of potentially dry information about sushi and fish and etc. around people who brim with personality and fun. Sushi is a very traditional food...but it is also a very fun food. Corson shows us this. In the journey of doing so, all the potentially dry facts are brought to life by the stories he weaves together...most brilliantly in my opinion. If you are new to sushi or maybe even well versed in the front end of the sushi restaraunt...you will enjoy this book. I learned a LOT. Armed with this book and a great Ken Sushi DVD offered on Amazon and books like The Complete Book Of Sushi by Hideo Dekura, Brigid Treloar, and Ryuichi Yoshii...I now feel comfortable and inspired enough to sit in front of a sushi chef at a sushi bar and even try to make my own! Good job Trevor...and thank you. Now...on to Tsukiji...another intriguing book I see.

Editorial Review:

Everything you never knew about sushi—its surprising origins, the colorful lives of its chefs, and the bizarre behavior of the creatures that compose it

Trevor Corson takes us behind the scenes at America's first sushi-chef training academy, as eager novices strive to master the elusive art of cooking without cooking. He delves into the biology and natural history of the edible creatures of the sea, and tells the fascinating story of an Indo-Chinese meal reinvented in nineteenth-century Tokyo as a cheap fast food. He reveals the pioneers who brought sushi to the United States and explores how this unlikely meal is exploding into the American heartland just as the long-term future of sushi may be unraveling.

The Story of Sushi is at once a compelling tale of human determination and a delectable smorgasbord of surprising food science, intrepid reporting, and provocative cultural history.

Nobu West

Nobu Matsuhisa, Mark Edwards

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Several New Things I've Got to Try 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 17 people found this review helpful.

I don't really read cookbooks. I don't believe all the great words on the back cover and flyleaf about how wonderful this cook is. Instead I start by scanning the table of contents. And in this book, the top item on the second column is Nobu-Style Paella. Hold On! This is a Japanese cookbook. Paella is a traditional Spanish dish, and one of my favorites. So I had to look. Now I've go to try it.

One problem with esoteric cookbooks is that they often have esoteric ingredients that you can't get in my little town. The Paella recipie calls for Dashi, a soup base made from konbu and bonito flakes. A quick scan on the computer and behold, Amazon, in their Gourmet Foods section sells both of these. So I'll be trying this one day soon.

Then I find Ice Cream Tempura - two good things that have to be better together. And this book has a section on coctails. I have my own recipies for things like Martini's, Cosmopolitians, etc. But I'm always open to suggestions. How about a Lychee Martini?

All in all, several new things to try and what more could you ask of a cookbook.

Editorial Review:

Nobu draws upon his extensive training in Tokyo and his life abroad in Peru, Argentina, and Alaska, as well as his own Michelin-rated, award-winning restaurants worldwide, to create unusual and ingenious East-meets-West dishes like Chilled Pea Shoot Soup with Caviar, Oysters with Pancetta, Iberian Pork Shabu Shabu, and the Japanese Mojito, which herald his ability to explore a confluence of cultures and tastes.

Nobu style is synonymous with flexibility, freshness, quality, and above all, simplicity. Nobu West is for cooks of all experience levels, providing advice; descriptions of unfamiliar flavorings, ingredients, and techniques; and helpful step-by-step illustrations along with tantalizing, full-color photographs.

Washoku: Recipes From The Japanese Home Kitchen

Elizabeth Andoh

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

If the food of a culture has a pulse, in Japan that pulse would be called washoku. It's a set of principles in fives that takes into account color, taste, ways of preparing food, the diner's senses, and the outlook brought to bear on both the cooking and the dining experience. The result? Meals that are balanced, pleasing, invigorating, healing, and satisfying--all in ways that seep deep into the soul. It's the great good luck of the West that Elizabeth Andoh chose a life in Japan and a focus on food. Her expertise has brought forth the award-winning An Ocean of Flavor as well as countless newspaper and magazine pieces.

With Washoku Andoh takes the reader into the heart of the Japanese home kitchen. She explains the guiding philosophy then brings it into practical terms with a section on the essential washoku pantry. Her section on the washoku kitchen begins with cutting and ends with shaping and molding. Recipes are found in chapters on Stocks and Condiments; Soups; Rice; Noodles; Vegetables; Fish, Meat and Poultry; Tofu and Eggs; and Desserts.

You might never prepare an entire Japanese meal from beginning to end (though with this book in hand you certainly could), but there's no reason not to believe you wouldn't begin to include some of these recipes in an expanding foodway. The sauces and condiments are particularly exciting. As is the underlying thinking that goes into how you are cooking and why you are cooking--the washoku of it all. Not a bad lesson to learn from an exemplary teacher. --Schuyler Ingle

The Best 50 Sushi Rolls (Best 50)

Carol M. Newman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

A fun little gift item 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I think it's amusing to find everyone taking something--that's not supposed to be a serious book on sushi--so seriously! If you are a fan of some of the crazy rolls we see on sushi menus these days (and there are pletny of them), this tiny book plays up to that. At four bucks from a company with a line of these little 'Best of' series, what does one expect?

Excelent American sushi book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book does have many American stylized sushi in it. I thought sushi eaters are open minded. This book is great for getting sushi if you are use to what I call "lunch box sushi" Grocery stores around me really sell the midtown roll, California roll, and the Unagi (eel roll). Other are odd concepts, like the PB&J roll are odd. I really did make this roll; it's very odd for sushi but tasted good. I guess if you like your sushi traditional avoid this book or if you are like me get it. It's for people who like pineapple on their pizza!

Editorial Review:

Easy-roll recipes, some traditional and many innovative, are easier to construct than you think. While you are rolling, learn a little about Japanese etiquette and phrases.

Quick & Easy Japanese Cuisine for Everyone

Yukiko Moriyama

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Quick & Easy Japanese Cuisine for Everyone 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

I have been living in Japan for 3 years and we are about to move back to the U.S. One of my Japanese friends pulled out her copy of this book to give me some recipes. She actually bought it when she lived in the U.S. so she would have English language versions of recipes to give her American friends. She found this book to be very close to her mother's and grandmothers' way of cooking. The recipes are easy to follow and the illustrations of preparation techniques are very helpful even for someone without any prior knowledge of Japanese food preparation.

possibly the best cookbook I have ever bought 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book from a Japanese bookstore in "Japan Town" in San Francisco on vacation. I am online now buying more for my friends. I compared this book with every other english language Japanese cookbooks in the store (and there were MANY). I found this one to be superior to the rest as it contained everything I would need to prepare meals. I should mention I have lived in Japan for 5 years and have a good feel for what is authentic. This book has allowed me to create some very nice meals at home approaching resturant quality of those found in Japan. I expecially like the pictures that show all the steps of the preparation including pictures of the ingredients. Also included is a section that shows how food is served (presentation on table).

Honestly, I don't see how you can go wrong buying this book. Its inexpensive and contains EVERY aspect you need to be sucessful: tools and utensils, knife skills, ingredients, recipies, and presentation.

Now I just wish I could find similar books for Greek, Italian, Thai, and so on...

-Steve Maercklein
Austin, Texas

Editorial Review:

Even those unfamiliar with Japanese cooking can follow the steps in this book and feel confident in achieving great tasting, authentic results.

Sushi: Taste and Techniques

Kimiko Barber, Hiroki Takemura

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Buy it! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

The photos in this book are beautiful and inspiring. I cannot read it without wanting to make sushi.

Contents include under these major categories:
-Basics
-Making
-Eating

The best part is the simple and clean photography, especially of the fish which the show what they look like both whole (scales and all) to cut up.

The "pressed sushi" section is my favorite, very impressive!

Great book for the beginner and connoiseur!! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Absolutely loved this book. I like to make my own sushi and this book is simply amazing. Excellent photos with very detailed instructions.

I especially like the section with all the different types of fish and how to cut each one.

Editorial Review:

This beautifully illustrated guide will enable readers to master and appreciate the art of sushi. The quintessential book for any sushi lover, Sushi: Taste and Technique shows you all you need to know about this exceptionally delicious and healthy cuisine, how to locate the freshest ingredients, how to use the right equipment, and how to master the etiquette of eating sushi correctly. From makizushi to hand rolls to vegetarian versions, this book teaches you how to create any kind of sushi.

Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes

Christopher D. Salyers

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

face food is great eye candy 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

If you need recipes and cooking guides this is NOT your book. There are many other books with recipes (Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go, and Manga University Culinary Institute's: Manga Cookbook both come to mind), and many groups (like eat_my_bento on livejournal) just waiting to help you figure out how to make bento. What this book offers is inspiration; Stunning, unbelievable, "how did they DO that" inspiration.

Focusing on "character bento" this book is full of pictures of theme bento boxes. From the simple and "easy to picture myself doing" box depicting three little pigs (the pigs are rice balls with ham ears and noses)to the Disney Cinderella who is depicted with enough realism (in ham and cheese and spices) to look like a licensed image!

there are NO instructions given on how to duplicate these bento Boxes. the only "instructions" are for the two line drawings in the back by the author suggesting a "Pac Man" and starry sky scene bento box. The ingredient listing given for each box is helpful, but doesn't tell you what is being used in which area of the design. This book is mostly useful for inspiring you to try something a bit beyond the "hot dog octopus" of the typical bento box.

Editorial Review:

All across Japan, parents come up with unique ways to bring attention to their children's lunch boxes. And what better way to make children eat than to turn their midday meals into a cartoon? With Face Food, Christopher D Salyers documents the very real phenomenon of crafting food into visually creative and appealing forms, such as Pikachu, Daraemon and Cindarella, bringing health, heart and imagination to the bento box. How-to guides and articles by designers and chefs accompany photographs, all of which illuminate the dynamic reasons behind this wholly Japanese pursuit.