STEM SELLS GREAT FOOD
Serving up taste of Japan
He put Zest Japanese restaurant on the map, but after nearly nine years at the helm, Tatsuya Katagiri broke out his own moves at his own place. Last December, he opened Stem Japanese Eatery in South Burnaby, taking Zest sushi chef Yoshiaka Maniwa along with him.
Zest plotted its own course, too, rebranding to Yuwa with a new chef. It seems the best arbiters of Japanese food have found Stem — that is, Japanese-Canadians. Judging by their chit-chat with the servers, they occupied all but one table.
Sushi’s the big sell in Japanese restaurants, but there’s none here. Katagiri leaves that to the Japanese restaurant a couple doors down (Makoto). And while his food might strike one as izakaya, he puts the brakes on that.
“Izakaya is for young age, party, pub style,” he says. “This is more kappo, or koryori style,” he says.
Consider it a cross between a kaiseki restaurant and izakaya with innovative sharing dishes. The food is more high-end than a typical izakaya, which in Japan is akin to a good-time pub.
Katagiri cringes at the thought of using powdered dashi as many izakayas would, and he sources the best ingredients in season. His dashi (a broth of dried fish, usually bonito, and kombu, used in many Japanese dishes, including miso soup and sauces) is made from scratch.
“It’s very, very high cost,” he says. “If not good dashi, not good dishes.”
He make several kinds of dashi, shaving dried blocks of fish thick or thin, depending on the dish.
The first-timer might experience brain freeze with all the menu options. There’s a regular menu and a seasonal menu that runs a couple of pages, and you want to try everything upon eyeing dishes that sail past.
We began with an appetizer trio ($9.90): bigeye tuna with hatcho miso (takes a long ferment); spot prawn poke with fiddleheads; and tai snapper carpaccio with sweet plum jam. Everything was fresh and brightly flavoured.
Grilled onigiri ($6.90 for two) isn’t a fancy affair and for me,
it’s irresistible comfort food. In this case, triangles of rice were grilled and topped with soy scallion miso paste. I love the crisp exterior and biting into a cushion of lightly flavoured rice.
Speaking of rice, you’ll love the Staub gohan ($21, cooked in a little Staub Dutch oven). Now you might wonder what’s the big deal about rice with toppings. Everything.
Katagiri cooks premium California koshihikari rice in seasonal dashi. In winter, he adds B.C. oysters and shimeji mushrooms, and recently transitioned to clam dashi for spring. He topped it with clams, fiddleheads and dried shrimp.
“Lots of umami,” he says. It’s delicate and delicious.
A sashimi salad cleansed our palates with fresh seafood, grapefruit, greens, cubed omelette, kaiware (radish sprouts), ogo (the seaweed Hawaiians use in their poke), all tossed in dashi soy dressing.
Speaking of Hawaiian, you’ll be curious about the Hawaii references in the restaurant: on a T-shirt, Hawaiian music and a souvenir hula dancer at the bar. There’s no connection other than it relaxes Katagiri, kind of like white noise. In the crazy lead-up to opening, he was so stressed, he played Hawaiian music, he says.
“I love Hawaii. I feel so much more relaxed with Hawaiian music.”
The other two savories had interesting flavours going on. Haida Gwaii halibut cheeks ($13.90) were deep-fried and served in a dashi soy broth with a daikon relish.
Grilled Chilliwack pork jowl ($10.90) was hay smoked and served with fuki ( butterbur) condiment. (Shops like Tama Organic Life in Vancouver work with farmers to grow Japanese vegetables like fuki.)
For dessert, we shared anmitsu ($7), a traditional Japanese dessert of cubed agar jelly, which was served with mochi, green tea ice cream, and black sesame anko (sweet paste) with a green tea syrup. With 24-hour notice, there’s an omakase option, in the $80 to $88 range depending on ingredients used.
One of the chef ’s signature dishes is the Yarrow duck breast, tenderized in a shoyu koji marinade.
Other dishes I’d like to try? Inaniwa handmade silky udon from Akita prefecture (served
hot or cold) with a sesame dipping sauce and grated ginger. Oh, and the smoked seared hay-smoked Brant Lake wagyu beef with blackberry, cherry blossoms, aomori garlic chips and sweet onion ponzu. Also, the onsen tamago, poached at 64 C with steamed rice, dashi espuma (foam), finely chopped kale stem, truffle oil and a light dashi. There’s no end to the intriguing roster of dishes.
Katagiri has taken the WSET wine and spirits courses, is a big booster of B.C. wines and is big on winemaker dinners. I wouldn’t overlook the premium sakes, which pair so well with Japanese food. You can order a flight for a reasonable $12.