WASABI: AN ENCOUNTER WITH A GREAT CHEF!

I have recently had the pleasure to make a new friend, namely Dominique Corby, a great French Chef who learned his craft at the Tour d’Argent in Paris, among others, before coming to Japan to look after the kitchen of the Sakura Restaurant in the New Otani Hotel in Osaka and of the 6eme Sens in Tokyo.

Dominique is a chef always looking for fresh seasonal natural ingredients for his cuisine which is resolutely a marriage of Japanese and French culinary traditions.
As he recently wrote a post on his blog on wasabi, I took the opportunity to send him a few samples of fresh wasabi grown in Shizuoka City, Utogi, Abe River for the simple pleasure of introducing him to one our great products in Shizuoka Prefecture.

They were almost one metre-high full with stems and leaves (all edible) and freshly uprooted in the very morning (I sent them by cool box just before lunch to reach him just in Osaka just before lunch the next day).
Dominique and his staff appreciated them to the point that a dish was created for the benefit of some customers on the very day.
See above picture. Dominique described it as follows:
-“sur une feuille et tiges de Wasabi, Sawara et Agi abute, kogomi,wasabina, nobiru, mousse de lait au wasabi fraîchement râpée, petite réduction de jus de homard”
-“on a wasabi leaf and stems, sawara and aji abute (grilled large mackerel variety and saurel), kogomi (young ferns), wasabina (a kind of Japanese lettuce), nobiru ( a kind of wild garlic), freshly grated wasabi milk mousse, reduced lobster juice.

A great compliment to a great product by a great chef!
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