Today I spent a bit more time researching the grilling technique I wrote about yesterday, so today’s “Been There, Read That” will take us a little further into this subject (this may actually be the beginning of a new food tangent for me).
I will admit that until the bincho-tan demonstration last week, my experience with Japanese cuisine was limited to the sushi bar (good, even great sushi bars, but mostly raw nonetheless) and tempura (love fried food!). I had never been to a “robata grill” restaurant, though I have heard of them – so, I was unfamilliar with Japanese grilling techniques.
What I am most interested in is not so much the foods cooked on the grill, but the conical shaped grilling technique. So far I’ve found little discussion of this technique, altough I found an article online from Gourmet Magazine’s August 2008 issue, “Robata Grilling: Simple But Sublime” that features a gorgeous photo of the conical-shaped grill at none other than Aburiya Kin’Nousuke – the restaurant of the chefs who conducted the demonstration!
I’m going to have to do a lot more research into this subject to sate my curiosity! So far, the only lead I have was a book referal from David Arnold (our in-house tech etc. guru!). Here it is… The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking: A Traditional Diet for Today’s World
If you have any information on this subject, I’d love to hear from you!