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PBS station. >> ANTHONY BOURDAIN: In this episode, Dave Chang explores Japan in all its glory, drinks with his pal Peter in Tokyo... >> CHANG: This is the fanciest, most well made piña colada you're ever going to have. >> BOURDAIN: Travels to Kyoto's Nishiki Market... >> CHANG: This is one of my favorite places in the world to just run around like a little schoolgirl buying stuff. >> BOURDAIN: Spends time with the legendary kaiseki master Chef Yoshihiro Murata, and spends a few hours at a meal at Murata's Kikunoi. >> CHANG: Oh, my God, did you just see that move? >> This is so beautiful, it's hard to eat. >> BOURDAIN: Enter <i>The Mind of a Chef.</i> >> CHANG: Oh, man. >> Thank you! >> BOURDAIN: For chef David Chang, Japan is where it all began. It's here where he cut his teeth in the ramen world, and upon his return to the U.S. opened up his now legendary Momofuku Noodle Bar. He's returned several times over the years, and with each visit he discovers a new technique or style that changes how he does things in his restaurant. Japan, for Chang, is the center of his culinary universe. >> CHANG: When you land in Japan-- it's 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning-- you're not actually that tired, so it's great to go out for drinks. Ueno-san, the owner of Bar High Five, is this amazing godfather of bartending. Everything's, like, a perfect pour, a perfect measure. You want to drink a lot more. Amazing. Every aspect of culture, people get very focused on one thing, and Ueno-san? Cocktails. That's his universe. Do you make a piña colada? >> Well, I do, like, an original style. Difference between usual one and original one is you don't use ice, so it doesn't get any dilution. >> CHANG: Booze on booze. Sign me up. >> But I don't put the umbrella on it. >> CHANG: That's okay, I have an imaginary umbrella. I'm not afraid of saying I love my piña coladas. >> Make me a girlier drink than a piña colada. >> CHANG: Peter Meehan co-wrote the Momofuku cookbook. >> It's only taken me five years to get you to go to Tokyo with... >> CHANG: Yes, well, I don't want to be caught with a white guy in Japan. >> Unfortunately, here we are. >> CHANG: This is the fanciest, most well made piña colada you're ever going to have. Look at that! That's what I want to drink in the morning. That is so good. It's the best piña colada ever. >> So this is going to be a hard shaken drink. >> What's the theory of the hard shake? >> It's putting a lot of air inside to make the drink much lighter. This is called a spring clearing. Very refreshing drink. >> Oh, that's good. >> CHANG: Ueno-san does all the simple (bleep), but he does a twist on it, and it's so elegant and it's just better. >> ALL:<i> Kanpai.</i> >> Thank you for coming. >> CHANG: Thank you for having us. >> BOURDAIN: It's easy and even necessary to get lost wandering the streets of Tokyo. And given enough time, you'll hopefully find yourself in some strange and rewarding corners. >> (translated): Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Marianne. >> CHANG: Hi,<i> watashi wa</i> David Chang. >> (translated): What's your date of birth? >> CHANG: August 5, 1977. >> (translated): Okay, hold on one minute. August 5, '77. That would be the Year of the Snake in Japanese terms. You were born under the <i>godose,</i> which means that you are naturally gifted with managing things. Wow, I knew it! So you were born with really, really strong luck. You see this in a lot of celebrities. You are born under a fabulous star. Okay, I would like to do a hand reading next. Can I see your hands? Your hand shows that you have very sharp intuition, sensibilities, and basically have the potential of an artist. It seems that you have something else you want to do, but it will prove to be difficult. That's what I am seeing. >> CHANG: So how do I deal with these difficulties? >> (translated): Well, you will always make money with using your own skill. That's the star you are born under. I do not know what else you want to do, but I do not see satisfaction in your reading. >> CHANG: Will the success ever lead me to owning the Washington Redskins-- it's a football team-- or do I have to kill the owner? >> (laughing) (translated): You were born with unusually strong luck, so it's highly possible. Choose a stack. Here I go. As for the future, you have the best card. You have the World card, and it's saying that your dreams will surely come true. Yes, it will definitely come true. >> CHANG: That's good advice. She says I'm going to own the Washington Redskins. >> (translated): Thank you very much. Good luck with everything. In your very near future, I see you eating at a ramen shop in Golden Gai. >> CHANG: Lo and behold, I was in Golden Gai eating a bowl of ramen with my boyfriend, Peter Meehan. >> Super big wide noodles. This place, to me, seems like it would be totally unknown. >> CHANG: But that's the thing is, like, word gets around just like anything else. >> Yeah. This is the first, like, super seafood ramen you've had. >> CHANG:<i> Domo ari.</i> The noodles are really good. Do you know what you got? >> I have no idea what I got. He warned me that it was small, so I might be having ladies' ramen. <i>Domo arigato.</i> Oh, thanks. >> CHANG: Well done. >> Let me get down with this. (slurping) >> CHANG: Noodles are good, huh? >> Mm-hmm. >> CHANG: I'm on the reverse Atkins diet. >> (laughing) All carbs. So it's fishy and it's smoky and it's definitely got, like, a soy sauce thing going on. >> CHANG: It's really seafood-based, taste a lot of anchovy, a lot of mackerel, pork shoulder. Hokkien-style noodles, so I mean, really thick. I've only seen that in sort of Malaysian-Chinese cuisine. I really like the sheets of noodles, the two types of noodles. I've never seen that before. >> Sheets are delicious. >> CHANG: But it is seafood-heavy for sure. Do you have ground pork in yours as well? >> Yeah, the ground pork is a nice touch. The raw onions are also good. >> CHANG: Manegi. >> Manegi. >> CHANG: I thought my Japanese has been improving since I've been in Japan, but you know what has improved more? Your chopstick skills. I think your eyes are getting not more round but more slanted. I feel like I need to have, like, several beers in me. >> Should we do it? Thank you very much. >> CHANG: So we have kombu here, and a variety of kombu. The best kombu-- which isn't a seaweed, it's a cousin of the seaweed-- comes from the cold waters north of Hokkaido. Hokkaido arguably has some of the best kombu in the world. Kombu is a very important step in terms of how we make broth, how we cure fish, how we do a lot of things, but particularly, our Momofuku ramen, we build it in stages, the broth in layers, and it's our first layer that we build upon. Wow, that guy's awesome. >> (speaking Japanese) (grunting loudly) >> CHANG: Oh, man! >> Thank you! >> CHANG: Oh, man! There's a lot of nori. It's basically pressed seaweed that's been dried and roasted and unseasoned. Traditionally in ramen you always see a slice of nori. We put it in ours because I think that it adds just a little bit of that hint of the ocean at the end. It's more for the flavor. We use Japanese nori, but I actually prefer Korean, not because I'm Korean but because it's seasoned. This is Korean nori. It's more coarse and it's seasoned with salt, sometimes some sesame oil. I snacked on this as a kid. Because it is sort of masked by some of the seasoning, you don't get the pure flavor of Japanese nori. It's also a great way to deliver acid. Cops will never think that you're carrying around acid in a package of nori. I love Japanese food because cooking is ingrained in their culture. It is who they are and it's very important to them. They cherish their food. You see a lot of modern chefs today going into the archives of Japanese cuisine and trying to find inspiration, because all the beautiful stuff has already been done in Japan. Going to a place like Kyoto is a wonderful escape from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. It is the place where you go to eat the Japanese equivalent of fine dining. It has a special place in my heart. >> BOURDAIN: Kyoto, Japan. The first thing you notice in this ancient capital city is the sheer number of temples, gardens and shrines. But the real joy of Kyoto for Chang is Kyoto's insanely refined culinary scene. To begin to understand Kyoto's rich culinary history, one must get lost in its markets. >> CHANG: We're at Nishiki Market in Kyoto. This is one of my favorite places in the world to just run around like a little schoolgirl buying stuff. I want to buy ridiculous little stuff, like stuffed dolls. What the (bleep) is my problem? Everything here is great. I love walking in a group of Asian, Japanese people, wherever I am in Asia, because I feel like I can blend in and you guys have no idea where I'm at. It's like I'm wearing plaid clothes against a plaid wall. Nishiki's a little bit of a microcosm, I think, of the Kyoto food culture, so when I'm here in Nishiki, it inspires me to think about food in different ways. This is the egg dish dashimaki tamago, so it's made with dashi, eggs, and you can see they're selling their organic eggs. Japanese eggs are insanely good. A little bit of kuzu, which is a starch, very powerful hydrocolloid. And then they mix it very lightly with chopsticks, and basically it's an omelet, but instead of cream they use dashi instead. <i>Domo.</i> It's just a rolled egg, man. And it's so good. I'm burning myself. (coughs) It's so good, though. Delicious. This is my favorite store. It's a store dedicated to pickles. It's amazing. It's like an icicle radish. Soy pickled turnip, just pickled with soy sauce. This is pickled eggplant. Nobody would think about eating a pickled eggplant, but it's delicious. These are turnips and turnip greens. Nobody ever eats the tops to vegetables. They're delicious! Want to have a pickle party? >> I already tried this. >> CHANG: You like this one? >> Yes. >> CHANG: Oh, that's the mountain yam. You just want to see me make a bitter face. That's good! <i>Oishii.</i> But still weird. The reality is, if this was in your local shopping mall and people saw this, they'd call the authorities on you. But there's nothing exotic about this. This food has been around forever. It's all goodness, this is all delicious. The lady just made me eat something I didn't even want to eat, and it's delicious. >> BOURDAIN: At the heart of Kyo-ryori, or Kyoto food scene, is the haute cuisine of Japan: the multicourse, ultra- refined, obsessively local and seasonal and very traditional kaiseki. And Chang's favorite place to enjoy it? Kikunoi. >> CHANG: Before you talk about Kikunoi, you have to talk about kaiseki cuisine. Kaiseki cuisine is an evolution of vegetarian Buddhist cuisine. And Kaiseki cuisine sort of reigns supreme as, like, the heaven of Japanese cuisine. Kikunoi has been around for 300 years. Every cook lives on the compound. And Murata-san, who's the chef there now, his ancestors were priests. And it evolved into the restaurant we know today, which is one of the greatest restaurants in the world, arguably the greatest Kaiseki restaurant in Japan, and it's just an extraordinary experience. We're going to get some exquisite kaiseki-ryori. >> So nice of you to take me here, so nice. >> CHANG: And you wore your white socks. >> Yeah, I didn't get the memo that we were supposed to dress like the Blues Brothers. >> CHANG: Well, I thought that going to a three Michelin star restaurant in Kyoto was self-explanatory. >> (laughing) >> (speaking Japanese) >> Hi. >> CHANG: Oh, my gosh. That's insane. >> I'm two spoonfuls into this and he's already got me. >> CHANG: The thing about yuzu is you don't really eat the fruit. The thing that's unique is the rind. >> And it seems like they probably cooked this tofu in this piece of citrus. >> CHANG: They steam it in the yuzu, so it's just a really fragrant, light way to start your meal. We're going to get crushed. Holy (bleep). What I like most about Japanese cuisine is embodied in a meal at Kikunoi-- extraordinarily simplistic dishes that are extraordinarily difficult to prepare. There's always a component of nature on every plate. They'll spray plates with water to make it look natural. So we have here smoked salmon, and they rolled it into sushi with flower petals, and mullet roe wrapped in squid and pickled sakura leaves. It's delicious. Get ready for a surprise, Peter. >> Ooh. >> CHANG: I love this type of plating. >> What are those? Sweet black beans? I'm actually now surprised at how few people they have to make food that's this pretty and manicured. >> CHANG: No, they're like the special forces. Murata-san changes the menu every month. It represents the seasons. Whether it's cherry blossom season, whether it's the beginning of fall with the use of oak leaves or maple leaves, they really do put nature and color into the plate. That's just pretty. >> I rarely get the "this is so beautiful it's hard to eat," but I'm just going to take these chopsticks and start making it look worse and worse. >> CHANG: Do you want to synchronize it? On three. One, two, three. So nice. >> All right, so we have a lily bowl dumpling stuffed with quail and foie gras, served with baby daikon radish tied with carrot and tuber melanosporum, also known as the black truffle. >> CHANG: And I'm sharing a wonderful moment with you. >> You sound so pained in saying that. You haven't broken anything here the entire time. >> CHANG: I know, it's amazing. It's not like you break something and you're like... >> "I got it." >> CHANG: Yeah, I'd break this and be like, "I can get you another one." >> Have you ever made pottery? >> CHANG: Do I look like I've made pottery? >> (laughing) We can do the thing that annoys all potters and just start referencing<i> Ghost.</i> >> CHANG: Speaking of<i> Ghost,</i> most underrated movie by Patrick Swayze? <i>Road House.</i> >><i> Road House.</i> >> CHANG: He goes from city to city ridding the world of evil as a bouncer. The best part is he has a master's in philosophy from Columbia. It's like, it makes sense! "There's no point in me actually teaching or learning any more philosophy. I might as well rid the world of evil." >> Go and put philosophy in action in roadhouses. (laughing) >> CHANG: Oh, my God. Did you just see that move? That was like a behind-the-back pass. It was a Triple Lindy. Oh, my God. Did you try the uni? No, I haven't found the uni yet. >> CHANG: You're going to hate it. I'll try it. >> You're gonna try my portion. >> CHANG: The abalone's insane. I've never had a slice of abalone like this. Amazing. How did you cook it? >> Steam. Only steam. (Chang speaking Japanese) >><i> Arigato.</i> >> BOURDAIN: It's impossible for any cook, any chef, to visit Japan, be exposed to the positively fetishistic appreciation of ingredients, the perfectionist approach to technique, the mind-boggling sheer volume and variety of good stuff to eat without being changed forever. You leave Japan a better cook, or you give up cooking altogether. Japan tends to focus the mind in wonderful new ways.
