Eat dirt at this Tokyo restaurant
Source: Agencies |
February 13, 2013, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IF you think the food at Toshio Tanabe's Tokyo restaurant tastes a bit earthy, you'd be right. The main ingredient is soil.
Tanabe's long interest in soil cuisine has finally culminated in a feast he's now offering customers, starting with soil soup and ending with soil sorbet.
"Man didn't create the sea, the air or the soil. They're simply all part of nature, and in a sense they are alive in their own right," said Tanabe.
"What I'm trying to do is reflect that feeling in food."
Tanabe trained in France and for the past 20 years has run a French restaurant in the Japanese capital but he has been slowly introducing his customers to samples of soil-inspired cuisine.
"I had to go all over the place to find soil, into the mountains and places like that. Places where there was no farming," he said. "Then of course I had to dig it up from deep under the ground."
Now Tanabe sources his soil through a Tokyo-based supplier which delivers about a kilogram of dirt a day, pre-checked for harmful substances.
After the dirt arrives, he cooks it to release the flavor, then runs it through a sieve.
The six-course soil extravaganza starts with an amuse bouche of soil soup, served with the merest fleck of dirt-engrained truffle, and ends with soil sorbet and a sweet dirt gratin.
Tanabe's pride and joy is the "soil surprise," a dirt-covered potato ball with a truffle center.
The feast costs 10,000 yen (US$110) per person.
"It was my first time to have soup made from soil," said diner Hiromi Fujie. "It was a bit gritty but not at all unpleasant, a little like vegetable soup. I liked it."
Tanabe's long interest in soil cuisine has finally culminated in a feast he's now offering customers, starting with soil soup and ending with soil sorbet.
"Man didn't create the sea, the air or the soil. They're simply all part of nature, and in a sense they are alive in their own right," said Tanabe.
"What I'm trying to do is reflect that feeling in food."
Tanabe trained in France and for the past 20 years has run a French restaurant in the Japanese capital but he has been slowly introducing his customers to samples of soil-inspired cuisine.
"I had to go all over the place to find soil, into the mountains and places like that. Places where there was no farming," he said. "Then of course I had to dig it up from deep under the ground."
Now Tanabe sources his soil through a Tokyo-based supplier which delivers about a kilogram of dirt a day, pre-checked for harmful substances.
After the dirt arrives, he cooks it to release the flavor, then runs it through a sieve.
The six-course soil extravaganza starts with an amuse bouche of soil soup, served with the merest fleck of dirt-engrained truffle, and ends with soil sorbet and a sweet dirt gratin.
Tanabe's pride and joy is the "soil surprise," a dirt-covered potato ball with a truffle center.
The feast costs 10,000 yen (US$110) per person.
"It was my first time to have soup made from soil," said diner Hiromi Fujie. "It was a bit gritty but not at all unpleasant, a little like vegetable soup. I liked it."
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