you
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
so what’s for dinner
that’s an everyday dilemma for
foreigners living here in Japan and
often the answer is I don’t know but
that I don’t know for me was the start
of a great culinary and social adventure
let me elaborate so there are a lot of
different restaurants here in Tokushima
and they often take advantage of the
agricultural and marine products that
are here in this prefecture and they
seek to create community not chain
franchises I’m lucky because many of my
Japanese friends have introduced me to
many of these restaurants eating at
these places is more than a meal it’s an
educational and a cultural experience
that has enhanced my time here in Japan
for instance one Japanese restaurant
that I go to has been around since the
Edo period and they taught me that
Hamill or Pike eel which is sold in
Kyoto’s Nitschke market for a premium
price is for the most part caught right
here in the waters of Tokushima and is
locally available not only that they
told me that most Japanese think that
it’s best in the summer but actually
Hamill tastes best in the autumn when it
has a higher fat content another place I
went to is a suspicious secret exact
ayah down a small alley and it has no
sign and no name but if you open the
hidden door there is a world of gourmet
delights
I have tried smoked pickles from Ikeda
fracture a Prefecture fried rabbit
fritters and barnacles that look like
turtles feet
so every visit is a chance for me to
expand my repertoire of Japanese foods
but think about it for a foreigner who
doesn’t have a grasp of the language it
can be a daunting task to go out and
discover new places on your own what if
there’s no plastic food in the window to
point at or what if you can’t read the
prices on the menu
if the fish comes alive when it’s on the
plate or how do you know you’re not
ordering innards when you want choice
cuts of meat
I feel foreigners want to discover and
try new Japanese foods but it can be a
little difficult without the help of a
Japanese friend and you can’t really
impose on them all the time so many
foreigners go with the tried and true
because they’re familiar with the food
or they go for the cheap and dirty
because 100 yen 280 n it’s very
consistent but five years ago I wondered
how can I share my knowledge of
restaurants with the foreigner community
so they can appreciate the bounty that
Tokushima has to offer without having to
take each person to each restaurant
one at a time it was then that I
remembered a quirky event called a
progressive dinner it’s popular in
America and the UK and in this event a
group of friends will go from house to
house and the host of each house will
cook one part of a meal in this way you
can share the load of the cooking and
you can also enjoy the diversity of the
dishes in a sense breaking up the meal
creates an experience that’s greater
than the sum of its parts
and so our mystery dinners came into
being it’s a dining out event that’s
designed like a progressive dinner so I
take small groups of diners to three
different restaurants and we eat one
part of the meal at each place so at the
first place we’ll have an appetizer so
it could be an antipasto platter or a
fusion dish like a caprese salad made
with a locally grown tomato and a yuzu
dressing or at one place we were
surprised by a whole tuna head grilled
to perfection then after one hour we
move to the second restaurant and we
have the main dish now maybe that’s an
acqua Pazza
made with a sea bream from the waters of
Naruto or a cutting board that is piled
with French roasted chicken with
homemade sauces and flavored salts or
maybe it’s Hawaiian coconut shrimp that
works for me and then we go to the third
place and we have the finishing course
or the dessert so will it be homemade
Indian curry or oyster pizza or will it
be a fig tart or churros with hot
chocolate the fun and the intrigue of
this event is in the mystery you see the
participants don’t know where they’re
going until they get there and they
don’t know what they’re eating until the
prearranged dish is placed on the table
in front of them so in this way they can
explore three restaurants and they also
get to try cuisines that they may not
have ordered by themselves and by taking
them to three restaurants I can showcase
the diversity of what Tokushima has to
offer and that’s a lot better than
creating one little event at one place
most importantly now these diners can
feel more comfortable coming
back to this restaurant in a sense the
mystery dinner has demystified the
eateries for them and the restaurants
benefit too
they get PR because I’m introducing them
to potential customers by speaking the
customer’s language now we pay for all
of the food and there is a rule that at
each place the diners have to order one
drink and so the restaurant makes some
money and we also do the events on a
Sunday which is generally a slow time
for restaurants it’s a win-win situation
for everybody it’s important that would
pay fair menu prices because if you want
people to appreciate the good things
here in Tokushima you have to go to
those places you have to patronize the
establishment so that they can stay in
business and continue to create good
food with local ingredients so since
2011 we have done about 20 mystery
dinners at 50 restaurants with a hundred
and seventy-five participants we have a
Facebook group and we send out event
pages and they fill up in a matter of
hours and we keep the group small about
10 diners so that it’s manageable for
small establishments and it’s more
intimate and personal for the
participants and it’s also something
really interesting happen when I started
these dinners Japanese people asked me
if they could join the mystery dinners
as well you see it turns out that it’s
an equally nerve-wracking experience for
Japanese people to walk through the
northern curtains of an unfamiliar
restaurant people who have lived in
Tokushima all their lives have never
gone out to try new places so for these
people the mystery dinners is a chance
to read
cover the good things in their hometown
and so I’m surprised to find an event
where foreigners and Japanese people can
participate on the same level and have
the same good time together and it’s a
wonderful project I have since expanded
and I’m collaborating with the Tokushima
Marche to create mystery dinners where
the chef’s used the local Marche
products to create original dishes and
these are even a mystery for me because
I don’t know what the dishes are until
the day of the event and the chef’s can
exercise their creative side as you can
see here with purple potato soup smoked
fish croquettes and a tricolor sweet
potato pizza these restaurants I’ve
developed this event so that these
restaurants can participate again in a
mystery dinner and reach out to more
customers and for many people are many
of the restaurants this is their first
time working with the Tokushima Marche
so they get to learn more about this
community organization so again it’s
bringing parts of the community together
to create a bigger more synergistic
whole so what have I learned from
developing these our mystery dinners
well I think that I might have a recipe
for a rewarding experience so you take
some fresh local restaurants and you
chop them into small pieces and you mix
them together with multicultural guests
and you put them into an odd-shaped dish
and you bake outside the box until well
warm hearted and it serves all who want
a taste of something different and that
could be a recipe for success for anyone
is there a problem in your community
that isn’t being solved by conventional
means well then don’t be afraid to be a
chef
mix together the best parts of good
ideas in a different format to create a
new experience but make sure you have
that win-win flavor that tastes good for
all who take part and voila a new dish
is born so what’s for dinner on your
plate in your neighborhood I don’t know
what you’re going to be cooking up but
it’s no mystery that it’s going to be a
delicious result for everyone involved
thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
so what’s for dinner
that’s an everyday dilemma for
foreigners living here in Japan and
often the answer is I don’t know but
that I don’t know for me was the start
of a great culinary and social adventure
let me elaborate so there are a lot of
different restaurants here in Tokushima
and they often take advantage of the
agricultural and marine products that
are here in this prefecture and they
seek to create community not chain
franchises I’m lucky because many of my
Japanese friends have introduced me to
many of these restaurants eating at
these places is more than a meal it’s an
educational and a cultural experience
that has enhanced my time here in Japan
for instance one Japanese restaurant
that I go to has been around since the
Edo period and they taught me that
Hamill or Pike eel which is sold in
Kyoto’s Nitschke market for a premium
price is for the most part caught right
here in the waters of Tokushima and is
locally available not only that they
told me that most Japanese think that
it’s best in the summer but actually
Hamill tastes best in the autumn when it
has a higher fat content another place I
went to is a suspicious secret exact
ayah down a small alley and it has no
sign and no name but if you open the
hidden door there is a world of gourmet
delights
I have tried smoked pickles from Ikeda
fracture a Prefecture fried rabbit
fritters and barnacles that look like
turtles feet
so every visit is a chance for me to
expand my repertoire of Japanese foods
but think about it for a foreigner who
doesn’t have a grasp of the language it
can be a daunting task to go out and
discover new places on your own what if
there’s no plastic food in the window to
point at or what if you can’t read the
prices on the menu
if the fish comes alive when it’s on the
plate or how do you know you’re not
ordering innards when you want choice
cuts of meat
I feel foreigners want to discover and
try new Japanese foods but it can be a
little difficult without the help of a
Japanese friend and you can’t really
impose on them all the time so many
foreigners go with the tried and true
because they’re familiar with the food
or they go for the cheap and dirty
because 100 yen 280 n it’s very
consistent but five years ago I wondered
how can I share my knowledge of
restaurants with the foreigner community
so they can appreciate the bounty that
Tokushima has to offer without having to
take each person to each restaurant
one at a time it was then that I
remembered a quirky event called a
progressive dinner it’s popular in
America and the UK and in this event a
group of friends will go from house to
house and the host of each house will
cook one part of a meal in this way you
can share the load of the cooking and
you can also enjoy the diversity of the
dishes in a sense breaking up the meal
creates an experience that’s greater
than the sum of its parts
and so our mystery dinners came into
being it’s a dining out event that’s
designed like a progressive dinner so I
take small groups of diners to three
different restaurants and we eat one
part of the meal at each place so at the
first place we’ll have an appetizer so
it could be an antipasto platter or a
fusion dish like a caprese salad made
with a locally grown tomato and a yuzu
dressing or at one place we were
surprised by a whole tuna head grilled
to perfection then after one hour we
move to the second restaurant and we
have the main dish now maybe that’s an
acqua Pazza
made with a sea bream from the waters of
Naruto or a cutting board that is piled
with French roasted chicken with
homemade sauces and flavored salts or
maybe it’s Hawaiian coconut shrimp that
works for me and then we go to the third
place and we have the finishing course
or the dessert so will it be homemade
Indian curry or oyster pizza or will it
be a fig tart or churros with hot
chocolate the fun and the intrigue of
this event is in the mystery you see the
participants don’t know where they’re
going until they get there and they
don’t know what they’re eating until the
prearranged dish is placed on the table
in front of them so in this way they can
explore three restaurants and they also
get to try cuisines that they may not
have ordered by themselves and by taking
them to three restaurants I can showcase
the diversity of what Tokushima has to
offer and that’s a lot better than
creating one little event at one place
most importantly now these diners can
feel more comfortable coming
back to this restaurant in a sense the
mystery dinner has demystified the
eateries for them and the restaurants
benefit too
they get PR because I’m introducing them
to potential customers by speaking the
customer’s language now we pay for all
of the food and there is a rule that at
each place the diners have to order one
drink and so the restaurant makes some
money and we also do the events on a
Sunday which is generally a slow time
for restaurants it’s a win-win situation
for everybody it’s important that would
pay fair menu prices because if you want
people to appreciate the good things
here in Tokushima you have to go to
those places you have to patronize the
establishment so that they can stay in
business and continue to create good
food with local ingredients so since
2011 we have done about 20 mystery
dinners at 50 restaurants with a hundred
and seventy-five participants we have a
Facebook group and we send out event
pages and they fill up in a matter of
hours and we keep the group small about
10 diners so that it’s manageable for
small establishments and it’s more
intimate and personal for the
participants and it’s also something
really interesting happen when I started
these dinners Japanese people asked me
if they could join the mystery dinners
as well you see it turns out that it’s
an equally nerve-wracking experience for
Japanese people to walk through the
northern curtains of an unfamiliar
restaurant people who have lived in
Tokushima all their lives have never
gone out to try new places so for these
people the mystery dinners is a chance
to read
cover the good things in their hometown
and so I’m surprised to find an event
where foreigners and Japanese people can
participate on the same level and have
the same good time together and it’s a
wonderful project I have since expanded
and I’m collaborating with the Tokushima
Marche to create mystery dinners where
the chef’s used the local Marche
products to create original dishes and
these are even a mystery for me because
I don’t know what the dishes are until
the day of the event and the chef’s can
exercise their creative side as you can
see here with purple potato soup smoked
fish croquettes and a tricolor sweet
potato pizza these restaurants I’ve
developed this event so that these
restaurants can participate again in a
mystery dinner and reach out to more
customers and for many people are many
of the restaurants this is their first
time working with the Tokushima Marche
so they get to learn more about this
community organization so again it’s
bringing parts of the community together
to create a bigger more synergistic
whole so what have I learned from
developing these our mystery dinners
well I think that I might have a recipe
for a rewarding experience so you take
some fresh local restaurants and you
chop them into small pieces and you mix
them together with multicultural guests
and you put them into an odd-shaped dish
and you bake outside the box until well
warm hearted and it serves all who want
a taste of something different and that
could be a recipe for success for anyone
is there a problem in your community
that isn’t being solved by conventional
means well then don’t be afraid to be a
chef
mix together the best parts of good
ideas in a different format to create a
new experience but make sure you have
that win-win flavor that tastes good for
all who take part and voila a new dish
is born so what’s for dinner on your
plate in your neighborhood I don’t know
what you’re going to be cooking up but
it’s no mystery that it’s going to be a
delicious result for everyone involved
thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
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