Serve with care

For Four Seasons Hotel,one of the best places in Mumbai to savour Japanese food,the demand for sushi and its ilk has remained undiminished so far,even as it is being reported that several countries have toughened their checks of Japanese food for radioactivity. This — claims its Executive Chef Clinton Cooper — has to do with the fact they “serve food made from only the finest quality products”. To maintain this tradition,the hotel has opted to import ingredients for Japanese dishes “only from Dubai,Singapore and Australia” until they are 100 per cent confident that they can again serve a safe and quality product out of Japan.

Explaining the move Cooper says,“Obviously,any seafood being brought in from Japan at the moment carries a certain element of uncertainty. While I sympathise with the situation in Japan; my priority has to be providing safe food for our patrons here in Mumbai.” Taj’s Wasabi By Morimoto,Fenix at the Trident and The Dome at InterContinental Marine Drive,too are thinking on similar lines. “Sushi is being served at the restaurant for now. We are waiting for our suppliers to get back and then we will take a further course of action,” says the spokesperson at Oberoi. Wasabi regularly imports certain fresh and dry produce from Japan. “At present,we have adequate supplies in store,which we received before Japan was struck by the earthquake. However,as a backup,we are currently in the process of working on alternative markets to source authentic produce and ingredients until the situation in Japan stabilises,” informed a company spokesperson for Taj Mahal Palace and Towers.

However,the supplies aren’t the only cause of worry for the eateries serving Japanese cuisine. Following the reports of radiation leak food,many foodies are preferring to stay away from Japanese food altogether. That,despite the assurances by the staff that no ingredients have been sourced from Japan after the catastrophe. “Sushi sales have dropped. Even with respect to other South East Asian cuisine,our guests now want to know where the fish has been sourced from and how close the place is to Japan,” says Chef Paul Kinny of InterContinental Marine Drive.

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Food critic Rashmi Uday Singh too shares this skepticism. However,her reasons have nothing to do with the radiation leak. “A couple of days ago,I was in Delhi. There,I heard people talking about avoiding Japanese food. It is because India is currently not importing fresh produce from Japan and with Japanese cuisine,freshness is mandatory,” she explains. However,sushi is a lot safer to consume during these troubled times in comparison to sashimi,she says. “Sushi,unlike sashimi,makes use of cooked ingredients like the tempura prawns and fried soft shell crab. Sashimi is just raw meat.”

However,Singh feels that now is a good time to check where the restaurants source their ingredients from. “Many may claim they are importing from Japan,but they could be getting the fish from Cochin.”