When good  food takes precedence over language

When good  food takes precedence over language

Japanese chef Shimomura Kazuya cannot speak English but lets his gastronomic experiments do the talking

Shimomura Kazuya,  is one of those bashful chefs who likes to keep behind the kitchen counter.  The new Head Chef of Megu a Japanese restaurant at The Leela Palace New Delhi cannot speak English. On occasion when guests beckon him to speak to him, appears with a big smile, he gestures emphatically wishing them an enjoyable meal, and a courteous bow later disappears. But when his food arrives on the table, the barrier of language begins to crumble expeditiously. After tasting it, we end up chatting nineteen to a dozen but not in the way you know it, but through the vocabulary of admiration.

All his 26 years of culinary experience was laid out in the new menu in front of us. Kazuya, with each course, showed us exactly how modern Japanese has seduced connoisseur the world over. Either from serving Washoku or traditional Japanese for a large part, to progressive Japanese influenced by the Western world post The Meiji Revolution. This event brought down the Tokugawa shogunate (military government), established an Imperial rule, and brought in Western ideas in every sphere of life, including food.

Kazuya’s sensibility reflects a nuanced contemporary calibre with presentations such as the Cold Tomato Soup with Snow Crab; Goma Tofu, Simmered Duck, Smoked Chicken with Plum Sauce, and a minimalist dessert that came with neatly tucked fruit and gelly inside a scooped orange. While the soup was mildly seasoned, the tofu and duck had a smokiness to them. The Smoked Chicken’s was moist and its earthy flavour complemented the sweet-tarty plum sauce.

Vegetarians can sample Crispy Asparagus with its sparsely seasoned crunchiness, the Cottage Cheese Teriyaki with its tanginess, the Vegetable Tempura (okra, enoki, baby corn, onions, ooba) with its golden crispiness, and the Potato Croquet with Mushroom-Truffle Oil with a distinct oakiness. These dishes are expressions from Japanese culture that values not just food but also the social context its set in given the 21st century’s modern flavour profile. The Jap cuisine made many improvisations to its ancient form to embrace indigenous meats such as deer and boar, fishes like Amur Goby and Ayu and Western meats of chicken, pork and beef.

Kazuya habours a steadfast ambition to keep his food simple and sincere, upholding the benchmark that traditional Japanese cuisine was always known for. At every post he’s served – Hinokizaka at Ritz Carlton Tokyo, or at the Michelin-starred restaurant Mizumi at Wynn Macau – he’s experimented with sensory perceptions of sound, sight and smell to achieve a bespoke presentation. Take the Crispy Potato prawn, Sea Urchins Sriracha, Sesame Sauce and Maccha salt dish he presented to us. Every ingredient thrown in had undergone careful visual scrutiny for their textures and olfactory profiles to supplement other ingredients, and even judge how they responded to a cooking fire.

Address: Megu, The Leela Palace New Delhi, Diplomatic Enclave, Chanakyapuri. 

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