FOOD SAKE TOKYO: The Terroir Guides
by Yukari Sakamoto
The Little Bookroom
May 2010
$29.95/paperback
color photographs
ISBN-13: 978-1892145741
Contact:Linda Hollick
212-293-1637
lhollick@nybooks.com
FOOD SAKE TOKYO de-mystifies the ingredients, traditional dishes, and culture surrounding all things culinary in Tokyo. Yukari Sakamoto leads the reader through more than a dozen neighborhoods to discover the jewels of the city’s food scene. She explains: how to navigate the depachika (epicurean basement food floors in department stores) and the world’s largest fish market; which sushi fish are in season throughout the year; where to find the best knives, lacquerware, pottery and kitchen gadgets; how to choose sake and shochu, and much more. The guide includes lively primers on sea vegetables and wagashi (Japanese confections), cheap eats, and dining customs, as well as all kinds of interesting information about how the specialty foods of Japan are produced and prepared, unique food traditions, and table etiquette.
About the Author
Trained as a chef and baker at the French Culinary Institute and as a sommelier at the American Sommelier Association, Yukari Sakamoto has worked as a sommelier at the prestigious New York Bar and Grill in the Park Hyatt Tokyo and Takashimaya department store. She teaches classes on food, wine, and shochu, the popular Japanese distilled spirit, and she was the first non-Japanese to pass the rigorous exam to become a “shochu advisor,” a sommelier for shochu. She conducts culinary tours of Tokyo’s shops and markets, as well as hands-on cooking classes. Her writing has been featured in such publications as Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Time, Saveur, The Japan Times, and Time Out Tokyo, among others, and she writes a column in Metropolis magazine to help foreigners in Tokyo access the food culture in Japan.
