Chinese eat high-level Chinese food pay attention to the distinction between the main and secondary, Chinese New Year's Eve meal elderly first, birthday feast life star as the honor, wedding banquet couple as the main, general dinner to do the biggest east, no matter which one, it is impossible to put the chef as the core, in China have seen the dinner by the chef to say a toast?
In the past few days, the term "Chinese food Rizuo" has been on the hot search, and after clicking into the entry, you can see a lot of complaints about a Chinese restaurant in Shanghai: "Big unjust set meal", "expensive and not enough to eat", "atmosphere suppression", "feeding dog type cooking"... Among them, there are also some long scoldings of diners' true feelings and witty passages of spectators.
(Source: Weibo)
This Chinese restaurant on the review site shows that the per capita consumption is as high as 2000+, although the price is indeed expensive, but after all, it is located in the bustling area of the first-tier city, this pricing is barely reasonable, not to mention that there are many restaurants of the same price and even higher prices in the magic capital, why do diners only spit this store on the hot search?
Friends who are familiar with Japanese food should be familiar with "Omakase", this form of ordering is simply that there is no menu, and you don't know what you will eat before serving, and the chef will eat what he does.
However, after Omakase was put on the Chinese food, it became two pieces of peeled eggs that had been opened, a dry fried beef river that was only enough to pull two mouthfuls, and a vegetable leaf with oil residue in one dish.
But if you return to Japanese food, Omakase has long been a commonplace existence, in the country has become synonymous with high-end Japanese food, the same form of ordering, why in Japanese food and Chinese food in the situation will be so different, is it really only Japanese food can play Omakase?
This has to start with Omakase itself.
Omakase is not just about opening a blind box
Omakase, おまかせ, "I entrust the chef with your freedom to eat whatever I eat" is the meaning behind this phrase, and this form of ordering brings diners more than just the pleasure of opening a blind box.
(Source: The Secret of Cooking)
Eating Okakase in Japan, although different restaurants and different chefs present different styles of dishes, they are basically served one by one in the order that makes the food taste the best.
"When serving dishes, we pay attention to the order in which we serve our dishes, basically following the principle of going from cold to hot and from light to strong – first the appetizer, then the sashimi, the roast, and the boiled thing, and finally the rice and soup."
INTERVIEWER "Omakase", a Japanese restaurant
Most of the restaurants offering Omakase use the traditional bar layout of Japanese food restaurants, and diners sit side by side with the chef as the center, which is convenient for the chef to communicate with the guests when presenting the dishes, and for the chef to observe the customers to determine whether the dishes he serve are satisfactory to the guests.
(Source: ins-omakasejapan)
In the documentary "The Secret of Cooking", the chef of a high-end sushi house in Ginza says that he even looks at the size of the guests' mouths to adjust the size of the sushi in order to present the most delicious sushi you can enjoy.
Regardless of the size of the Omakase store, the number of customers will not be very large, and the meal will also have a concentrated period or only a few batches of guests a day, because the chef can take care of each customer wholeheartedly.
Diners come to eat Omakase, and what they come to eat is the taste, and the whole atmosphere of the meal will not be too lively, and everyone is looking forward to what kind of dishes will be served.
A dish does not appear until it is served, the chef explains the ingredients and cooking uniqueness to you, so that you can taste the taste of the dish when it is the most delicious, whether it is the value of the ingredients themselves or the chef's heart when cooking, they have played the best effect, which is the reason for the status of Omakase.
Omakase to the chef
In Japan, when a chef decides to open his own restaurant to make Omakase, he basically has a wealth of work experience in an established famous store before he dares to stand up for himself, and a fledgling chef does not dare to challenge.
Because free play is often much more difficult than proposition creation, this is no exception in the culinary world.
(The resume of another sushi chef in the documentary, Sukiyabashi Jiro, is the shop "Sukiyabashi Jiro" owned by Jiro Ono, known as the god of sushi in his early years.)
Chefs know very well that Omakase can't find a reason to do it well, the ingredients, methods, collocations, serving order, and the rhythm of the meal are all under your control, and you can't make something delicious, isn't it not that the cooking skills are not perfect, and the ability is insufficient?
In order to allow customers to derive satisfaction from their own おまかせ, the chef takes care of every detail. Choosing ingredients yourself is the most basic routine, and if you use raw fish in your dishes, you must also get up early at the seafood market to buy ingredients. In addition to the main ingredients of the roll, the accessories are also very rolled, and the spices used in some stores are special products customized with the manufacturer.
Closely connected to the table, not so much the kitchen, but rather the chef's battlefield and show, Omakase restaurant is not a long business day, but it does not mean that the chef only works for a few hours, and the preparation before the opening is the most time-consuming.
When the guests are seated and the business officially begins, the display of cooking skills is also part of the Omakase, and the customers pay more attention to the process of cooking because they do not know what they will eat.
The chef regards おまかせ as the highest trust from customers, and in order not to live up to their trust, he will do everything he can to make customers satisfied with their dishes and even surprise them.
The diners gave the chef trust, and the chef surprised the customers with feedback, becoming a perfect おまかせ.
Although the "craftsman spirit" has a bit of irony now, a good Chef Okakase really has to bring this spirit to present a good spirit, after all, they gamble on their reputation as a chef.
Japan has long had Chinese food Omakase
In Japan, there are many restaurants that offer Okukase, so what kind of shops are they?
The first category is that Omakase can be said to be the shura of sushi, and the top sushi chefs have their own sushi house to present their own Omakase as their career goal.
The chefs who make Omakase sushi are full of talents, the price is naturally not cheap, and the sushi house on the Japanese website OMAKASE is very touching, and you have to make a reservation 3 to 6 months in advance.
(45,000 yen per person, about 2,400 yuan.) Source: OMAKASE, restaurants are randomly selected, not recommended, the same below)
The price of the new store is slightly cheaper.
(23,000 yen/person, about 1,200 yuan)
Japanese food, cut cooking, and kaiseki cuisine, as representatives of high-end Japanese food, are also a very common category in Omakase, and the price is equally touching.
(Prices at several stores in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto are 38,500 yen per person, 33,000 yen per person, and 35,000 yen per person, respectively, which is about 2,100, 1,800, and 1,900 yen)
In addition to these more "expensive" dishes, the pyrotechnic roasted bird, teppanyaki, and grilled meat are also a member of the おまかせ.
(The price is 8,800 yen per person, 29,280 yen per person, and 18,000 yen per person from top to bottom, which is about 500, 1,600, and 1,000 yuan.) ）
As well as traditional Tempura.
(Price 25000 ~ 38500 yen / person, about 1300 ~ 2100 yuan)
Can foreign dishes be made with Omakase? Of course!
● Vietnamese cuisine
(7800~8800 yen/person, about 425~480 yuan)
The promotional picture of the dish looks like this, and it is quite small and fresh.
● Italian cuisine
(13,750~16,500 yen/person, about RMB 750~900 rmb)
● French cuisine
(13200~22000 yen/person, about 720~1200 yuan)
● Also, Chinese food
This Chinese restaurant "Yiping Restaurant" specializes in Cantonese cuisine, and judging from the promotional photos of the dishes and the photos on the Japanese food review website Food べログ, it is also a small amount of exquisite Chinese food.
(19,800 yen/person, about 1,100 yuan)
(Promotional image)
(Source: Tabelog)
This Omakase Chinese restaurant called Tea ZenHua did not specify what chinese cuisine it specializes in, and it can only be seen from the shop setting that tea drinking is a major feature, and judging from the photos submitted by diners, it seems that the world is a little bit stained.
(33,000 yen/person, about 1,800 yuan)
The Omakase Chinese restaurant, called Tomono, said in its store introduction that it is a new Chinese cuisine, and the cooking method is not limited to Chinese cuisine, but also draws inspiration from Japanese and Western methods to innovate.
(24,200 yen/person, about 1,300 yuan)
(Promotional photo, a large Chinese porcelain plate with a roast duck roll, actually a little cute)
Overall, Omakase is still very popular in Japan, not limited to the main seafood cuisine, and has a strong inclusiveness in terms of type and style.
Japanese Omakase in China
In China, there is a little blind date trick circulating, "If you want to speculate on the economic ability of the other party when you meet for the first time, then make a meal at a Japanese food store."
The reason why I say this is because the price of Japanese food stores in China fluctuates greatly, as low as 200 to 2000, and the Japanese food stores that have booked what price can basically see a person's general economic level.
If this meal ended up at a Japanese restaurant that made Omakase, then this meal could not be lowered without a 1,000 soft sister coin.
China's Okukase Japanese food is not so much a way to order as a unique "cuisine", a dish that can make Japanese food that is not cheaper to sell more expensive.
In terms of store decoration and atmosphere, China's Omakase Japanese food store does have a good restoration of The Japanese flavor.
The atmosphere of Omakase's few people, clean, cold and exquisite shops has raised prices while pulling up the pressure.
But what about the ingredients, the taste, and the chef's attitude towards the cuisine? Is it restored as it was?
In China's Japanese cuisine, will there really be a chef who makes Omakase and gets up a few hours early every day to pick and choose from a first-hand seafood market for a better quality tuna?
I do not want to disparage any chef who makes Japanese food in China, but I really feel that Chinese Omakase Japanese food is more formal than content.
Do any friends remember a news piece at the end of last year? Wang Sicong bombarded a high-end Japanese food store in Modu on the review website because his friend had booked a Christmas Eve dinner at this Japanese food store, and as a result, he suddenly received news from the store near the date, indicating that he had to temporarily increase the price.
This shop happens to be a kaiseki restaurant that offers Omakase.
This Japanese food store is not a wild road from the shop, its own store opened in Tokyo, has twice been selected for the "Michelin Guide Tokyo", Shanghai this is a branch, by the chef's closed disciples to manage, per capita consumption of more than 3500 yuan, selected for the Shanghai Black Pearl list, many diners call it "Shanghai's most expensive Japanese food" "Magic City Japanese food ceiling".
(Introduction of this Japanese restaurant on shanghai cultural tourism promotion website)
However, such a Japanese restaurant with such a large beginning, personally managed by a Japanese chef, the branch in China treats diners with such a faithless and sitting on the ground, from which we can more or less see the low sincerity of Chinese Japanese food stores, and it is no wonder that more and more diners feel that China's Japanese food has the suspicion of cutting leeks at a sky-high price.
China's Omakase Japanese material homogenization is very serious, review sites, shop APP search almost all sashimi, sushi, and Omakase no menu mystery is used as a tool for vague pricing, to put it bluntly, anyway, most customers can not eat the quality of the ingredients, then the restaurant price of 100 or the price of 1000 can talk to themselves, the reputation is played, some people come to pay.
(Source: Little Red Book)
Since The Japanese food Omakase is so profitable, what does the Chinese Omakase want to learn this time is the Japanese Omakase ordering method, or this kind of charging method that is convenient to raise the price of dishes?
As mentioned above, Chinese food Omakase is also available in Japan, and the evaluation of those stores is not bad, indicating that Chinese food and Omakase are actually not in conflict, so what is wrong with this Chinese Omakase restaurant that will be so wildly sprayed?
Personally, I believe that the presentation of dishes and whether they can be eaten are more subjective factors, not the key to the problem, and the point of the problem is actually the conflict between the concept of "Chinese food and Japanese food" and Chinese diners.
When it comes to eating high-end Chinese food outside, I think most Chinese should think of a series of banquets such as Chinese New Year's Eve meals, birthday banquets, and wedding banquets.
Chinese chinese food, which is worth paying a high price, is a big pot of rice with joyful emotions and festive atmosphere, but Chinese food Omakase is difficult to do.
The most contradictory point is that the restaurant that makes Chinese food Omakase does not even have to directly follow the layout of the Japanese store, and obviously no one can sit down, and all of them are surrounded by chefs.
(Photo taken by the Little Red Book blogger while eating at the controversial Chinese restaurant)
(This is a Chinese restaurant specializing in Shunde cuisine Omakase, the opening time seems to be earlier than the head stove known as the first one, the store publicity map can see that this store also adopts a bar layout, source: public number - ShanghaiWOW )
You know, Chinese eat high-grade Chinese food pay attention to the distinction between the primary and secondary, Chinese New Year's Eve meal elderly first, birthday feast life star as the honor, wedding banquet couple as the mainstay, general dinner to do the biggest, no matter which one, it is impossible to put the chef as the core, in China have seen the dinner by the chef to say a toast?
This Chinese restaurant collects the price of high-end Chinese food, but it cannot let Chinese diners enjoy the feeling of high-end Chinese food in their minds, if the chef is really like the review, "turning his head and leaving", it is completely reasonable to suffer a lot of bad reviews in a short period of time.
After the fermentation, an article introduced the diners "Luka" in this Chinese restaurant dining experience.
Unlike most reviews online, Luca had a good impression of the head stove. In the Omakase model of a Japanese restaurant, the chef and the guests sit face to face and communicate in various ways. On the day of going to the head stove, Luca brought an Italian customer, and the roast chicken that many netizens complained about became a dish praised by this foreign friend. "It looks like roast chicken, but the taste is roast duck, the customer is shocked, the foreigner's cooking method is very simple, he knows through this dish that Chinese cuisine originally had so many ways of presentation."
Another bamboo shoot soup also made the Italian curious, "Is this a bamboo shoot eaten by the national treasure giant panda?" The Italian asked, the chef answered with Chinese, and Luca translated, and this atmosphere of communication made Luca think that the head stove was valuable. As for the two Shanghai greens, Luka said that there was a different kind of sweetness, "Anyway, the supermarket can't find it, otherwise I will buy it every day." ”
- Everyday People
Foreign friends who have no established concept of Chinese food are full of praise for the dining experience, which further confirms that the problem is not that the restaurant is too avant-garde to innovate, but that they do not combine or even consider the local audience's dietary concepts, and are rigid.
This is also why Chinese food Omakase works in Japan but not in China, and The Japanese Omakase Chinese restaurant does Chinese cuisine, but everything else is in line with the Japanese dining style.
Omakase, a word that evolved from the Japanese language, is destined to have a Japanese cultural background, and copying it in its entirety would only be a tiger rather than an anti-dog.
Of course, Chinese diners hope that Chinese food and Chinese cuisine can be innovated and progressed, and can be more profoundly inherited and carried forward in the introduction of old and new, Chinese food refinement, Chinese food in small quantities, Chinese food In Japanese cuisine, Chinese food in Western cuisine... Innovations like this, if you can add new vitality to Chinese food, is of course a good thing, but no matter what the new way of playing, you should take into account the people who eat this dish to have fun.
I hope that whether it is a Chinese Japanese food store with 2,300 or a Chinese restaurant with a bold desire to innovate, it can show a little more sincerity to Chinese diners.
... ...
Resources:
japanembassy, Japanese restaurant "omakase"
Daily People, who eats 2200 people in Shanghai for "Chinese Food Japanese"?
This article is from the WeChat public account: Japan Pass, author: Zorro
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