In Sunday nighttime’s episode of “Parts Unknown,” Anthony Bourdain centered much less on the place and more on man or woman. The man or woman in question became Masa Takayama, a Michelin-starred sushi chef with restaurants in the Big Apple and Las Vegas.
Takayama rose to prominence after moving to America, quickly becoming known for his modern and creative mixtures in sushi. He uses components like foie gras and risotto and a time-venerated Eastern approach to create unique (and quite expensive) dishes.
After high faculty, Takayama left his provincial fatherland of Nasushiobara to look at the well-known Ginza Sushi-ko in Tokyo. The prolonged direction is rigorous, annoying, and far from glamorous; Apprentices need to spend two years running inside the kitchen—generally starting washing dishes—before they may even be allowed to touch the rice.
Once they have mastered the rice, apprentices may move directly to cutting the fish. They’ll start making nigiri to serve visitors at the bar. Ultimately, the sushi chef will train them to collect the proper sushi. The whole schooling takes at least seven years, and plenty of do not finish now.
Takayama retook Bourdain to Ginza Sushi-ko to relive his glory days, which revealed that Takayama’s innovative impulses extend some distance beyond the kitchen. Throughout the episode, he is pictured as a person of many capabilities: operating with artisans to create the dishware for his restaurant, gambling the saxophone, or even beating a high schooler in a Kendo (Eastern fencing) opposition.
While still in high school, Takayama and his friends might make bonfires, cook fresh fish, and talk. They recreated this and reminisced on their youths. Takayama might have told his buddies that he would leave and visit America during that time. He, sooner or later, did, making a successful career for himself.
But, it might be wrong to mention that Takayama looks back to his U.S.A… and fatherland. For the renowned sushi chef, lifestyle is present in every innovation. His two homes and lives—a revered master chef in Big Apple City and a boy who grew up delivering sashimi on his bicycle in Japan—are the same. “We all come from somewhere,” Bourdain commented within the episode. Even though Takayama left Japan, its traditions have never left him.