The tables were set with napkins and chopsticks neatly arranged. As I was seated, a female waiter, clad in a pastel-colored kimono, placed a napkin on my lap. Soon after, she poured hot Japanese green tea or ocha in my cup.
Then, a man sporting black Japanese-style clothes and an apron came toward me and gave me a polite greeting. His name was Toshi Obigane, the new head chef of Edogin, Hotel Mulia’s Japanese restaurant. He would be in charge of our culinary adventure that afternoon.
And had it not been for his long resume, we would have easily been carried away by his demeanor. At 18, he worked on a part-time basis for a restaurant called “Mimiyaka” while studying for his International Studies degree at a university in Kanagawa.
In 1991, he relocated to Vancouver, Canada, before embarking on his globe-trotting enterprises. He has worked for a number of hotels in Dubai, Istanbul in Turkey and in Manila.
He calls himself an “all-around chef” who can cook just about anything, from sushi and sashimi to meat-based dishes.
I took a look at the menu and found a list of Obigane’s signature dishes written in both Japanese and English. The evening indeed seemed set to be a culinary adventure.
The first delicacy that arrived at our table was a sumptuous plater of appetizers called sakizuke, which included baigai, tako cheese-de, hotate-motoyaki, and salmon tar-tar.
Baigai is a Japanese kind of escargot. And if you think only the French have a knack for dealing with snails, think again. Japan has its own superb version.
Obigane served us escargot marinated in spices. At first, consuming the snails with their shells still intact looked like a daunting undertaking, but we soon learned that we could excavate the meat inside using a toothpick.
For some, this variation of escargot tasted funny, and although we thought ourselves adventurous, the next course, tako cheese-de or sliced octopus with cream cheese, pushed the envelope.
After the roller coaster ride of exotic food, we were served hotate-motoyaki or scallops with a special sauce. The scallops were tender, and marinated in a sauce tasting of mayonnaise.
“It’s a homemade sauce. We Japanese like to serve our homemade sauce to honor our guests,” Obigane said.
It takes about two hours just to stir the sauce, but if we use a mixer, we can cut the stirring time down to 10 minutes, he said.
“That’s why it tastes different from the factory-made sauce. If you are on diet, you can help me make and stir the sauce in the kitchen for two hours,” he said jokingly.
Obigane is not only a good chef, but he never failed to make us smile.
The last appetizer was salmon tar-tar, in which the fish is mixed with olive oil, light soya sauce and a little bit of black pepper for aroma.
Following the appetizer, we were served gindara sakamushi wakame-ankake, or steamed Japanese black cod with light seaweed sauce.
Obigane, however, was quick to remind us that the Japanese diet is not only about sea food. After the appetizer, we were served wagyu toban-yaki kurokosho, or wagyu teppanyaki, with black pepper sauce.
“The pepper sauce is too spicy for me. But maybe not for you because I’ve heard Indonesians like chili sauce,” Obigane told me.
And he was right — I didn’t think it was spicy enough. The wagyu beef, taken from Australian tenderloin, was juicy and went well with the sauce.
We had not yet recovered from the wagyu dish, when yakionigiri-chazuke or grilled rice balls with Japanese soup broth and green tea was served. The grilled rice balls smelled very good, while the green tea felt soothing.
Some say that Japanese cuisine without sashimi is like Indonesian food without sambal, or chili sauce.
Obigane served a fine presentation of otsukuri, or fresh sashimi, on ice, comprising tuna, scallops, salmon and lobster. The lobster itself came straight from a fish tank in the restaurant.
My fellow diners at my table were thrilled to see the sashimi plater, and before long they were chowing down on raw seafood with their chopsticks, dipping it into a dish of soya sauce and wasabi.
Obigane served us well that day.
