The Japanese Food Festival
A Once-a-Year Chance to Celebrate Japanese Food

On October 27, the Eighth Japanese Food Festival, sponsored by the Japanese Restaurant Association of Southern California in order to promote Japanese food, was held at Little Tokyo’s New Otani Hotel & Garden. Just like in past years, from the time the doors opened at 11:00 a.m., the hotel was thronged with a large crowd of visitors.

This year, general admission tickets were $50, and with a system of purchasing food tickets and a buffet-style set-up, there wasn’t the congestion like there was last year: food could be smoothly tried at whatever booth one visited, and this year’s event was very popular for the participants.

Attending the festival for the third time, Ms. Nikki Wolf said cheerfully, “I look forward to this every year. I am now quite a fan of Japanese food and I have sushi without fail once a week. It’s great to be able to eat a variety of foods at one time, and it is also very exciting to encounter Japanese foods that I don’t know.”

Chairman Hara of the sponsoring organization JRA said, “Every year what’s popular is sushi, but this year, in order for guests to be able to eat more smoothly, we made the booths bigger. And we also increased the variety of the available foods. There are still other delicious foods in Japan; and, together with Japanese culture we would like to introduce some of those foods.”

Of course there was sushi, and a rich variety of other foods were also provided that included sashimi, kaiseki, tempura, yakitori, soba, curry rice, and okonomiyaki. For fans of Japanese culture it was a hugely satisfying event.

In addition, tastings of beverages, including Japanese sake, shochu, beer, green tea, and soy milk were held as well.

Especially at the sake booth, it was not as crowded as it has been in recent years, so it was possible to take one’s time and taste at a leisurely paste. A scene where visitors eagerly asked questions could be witnessed, and the height of interest in Japanese sake in America could be felt.

At the venue there were also koto performances and a performance by the Taiko group Kokura Gion to entertain the audience.

One event that enlivened the show this time was the demonstration of how a tuna is dissected. A 175-pound Bigeye Tuna caught off the coast of Hawaii was carved up, and since the dissecting of a tuna is not something one can normally see, those in attendance were amazed by it. Another of the main events, held for the seventh time, was the Sushi Contest. The participating chefs competed with one another on the basis of the products of their everyday practice. This year four people participated, and using the ingredients provided they vied to make beautiful sushi creations within the allotted time of 15 minutes.

Takashi Hiranaka of the Japanese Consulate, who served as one of the judges for the contest, offered his impressions of the day: “The skill level of all the chefs was incredibly high and their works were very creative, so I wavered when it came time to pick number one. I think the level was so high that there was almost no difference between the first place and the fourth place chefs.”

Participating in this year’s event were: Tom Neguyen, the owner of Kinya Sushi; Edward Brik, owner of Hadaka Sushi; Aung S. Soe, a sushi chef at Geisha House; and Toshi Seki of Professional Catering Service.
Exquisitely creating sushi using a wide variety of ingredients, a fierce battle was waged among the chefs and notching a brilliant victory was a sushi chef with 30 years of experience, Toshi Seki of Professional Catering Service. Seki now has two victories in a row, as he also won the Nigiri Sushi Contest held at the Mutual Trading Restaurant Show that took place on October 6.

Editors from Sushi & Sake magazine sat down to speak with Mr. Seki.
SS: Congratulations on your victory in the Sushi Contest.
Seki: Thank you. I was able to meet a variety of different people and it turned out to be a good experience for me.

SS: Your victory at the Nigiri Sushi Contest held at the Mutual Trading Restaurant Show on October 6 coupled with this victory makes two wins in a row. Did you feel any pressure regarding this?
Seki: No, nothing out of the ordinary. I just intended to show what I can do. I did not know in advance what kind of ingredients or what kind of style would be used, so at the venue I thought about it and then decided for myself.

SS: We’ve heard that you have 30 years of experience as a Sushi chef.
Seki: I turned 45 this year, but (and) my uncle operated a sushi restaurant Shinagawa in Tokyo. I would say sushi restaurants in Japan are probably very busy on holidays and at the end of the year as well. Ours was a small sushi shop, so it was busy, and since that was the case, from the time I was a student in junior high and high school, I helped out with things like deliveries and dishwashing. From about the time I became a high school student, my uncle took me to places like the Tsukiji Fish Market. And by the time I graduated, I was allowed to cook the eggs (for sushi) and to make sushi rolls. However, I was not allowed to make “nigiri” sushi. I got the chance to come to America because I wanted to come to study international commerce. I was introduced to a Japanese restaurant in San Diego, however, and began to make nigiri sushi at that restaurant.
At 19 years of age I had just come to America, but I did have the know-how on how to make sushi. I was in San Diego for seven years, and then I moved to the East Coast. Until last year I operated my own restaurant, “Toshi Japanese Restaurant” for 10 years in Hartford, Connecticut. A figure skating practice facility, International Skate Rink, was close to the restaurant, and I have the good memory of Shizuka Arakawa, who participated in the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics and won a gold medal - as well as Daisuke Takahashi and Miki Ando - coming to the restaurant on numerous occasions. When I had the chance to get married, I returned to L.A. And in the near future I would like to open my own restaurant here.

SS: As for your way of thinking with regard to sushi, did your uncle have a big influence on you?
Seki: Yes, there is some of that, but perhaps a bigger influence has been actually eating sushi myself. On those occasions I returned to Japan, from Otaru in the north to Fukuoka in the south, I went to sushi restaurants that were said to be delicious. I tried the sushi in those places, and when I thought ‘this is delicious,’ I looked into making something that came close to that flavor. I am currently still doing that.

SS: How has this past one year been for you?
Seki: This past year has been a turbulent year for me. I have returned to L.A. after a long time, and I don’t know the situation here and have only a few friends. From here on, I plan to slowly but steadily make progress. On the other hand, I was able to participate in this kind of event and win, so it has been a very meaningful one year.

SS: What are your aspirations for the future?
Seki: Even if it is small, it would still be good, so I really want to be the owner of my own restaurant. And in parallel with that, I would like to do some catering. Rather than making and delivering sushi, it would be more like making and serving fresh sushi in front of guests at the party site and have it be said that ‘this is really delicious.’ That’s the kind of catering I want to do. In places like California, in particular, there are many customers who understand the flavor of sushi; therefore, I would like to use good fresh fish and have them eat sushi about which it can be said, ‘this is real sushi, this is Tokyo-style sushi.’

SS: From here on, we hope you are more and more prosperous in your endeavors.


BACK ISSUES: Interviews
September