![]() ![]() Unfortunately, you can’t exactly re-create this cocktail as I make it at Katana Kitten without a few drops of a key ingredient, a cypress tree distillate, but I’ve provided a handy workaround to create an approximation. To re-create this sensation, I had to source the essence of hinoki, which did not exist. When sake is poured into a masu, the scent of cypress becomes part of the experience. At one table, I see someone drinking a boilermaker, and then at another table a group is drinking Cabarnet, and at another table they’ve already spent 500 bucks after one hour drinking cocktails.” I see that every night - at every single table there is something for everyone. What I love about dive bars is that they’re so approachable it’s everyone’s everyday bar. “The most important thing is atmosphere,” Urushido says, “The best way to put it is that Katana Kitten is a dive cocktail bar. In New York City, Urushido manages to pull together a blend of these Japanese-style bars with the all-American dive bar, making any type of customer feel at home. In Japan, there are several types of bars, from cocktail bars - where there are few seats and the guests are meant to remain quiet and attentive to the mixologists while they serve with grace and virtuoso - to tachinomi, standing bars where one goes to imbibe a quick beer or highball before catching a train. Not only does the blend of Japanese and American drinking cultures inform the cocktail menu at Katana Kitten, but it also influences the atmosphere of the bar itself. If it weren’t for this book, I might not have realized how fortunate my upbringing was.” I never really realized these things until the process of writing this book, and extracted these things from me. Without even really paying attention to what’s happening in the garden, naturally those things come to the dinner table. Unconsciously, I came to understand, ‘Oh, it’s this season or that season’ because that’s what I saw at the dinner table. ![]() “I had my grandparents’ garden at the back of my dad’s house and I got to see these seasonal vegetables. And I remember my friends had brought food from convenience stores,” he says. “At lunchtime, my mom would give me a bento box for baseball practice. “It’s a privilege that I have, that my parents gave me, growing up in the setting of Minowa, where I was born and raised and where my grandparents had a farm and rice paddies,” he says.įrom a young age, he was unknowingly being trained to become a professional in the food-and-drink industry, simply by eating and appreciating the food that his family made for him. Rather than learning about the science behind making a perfectly balanced cocktail, Urushido relied on the Japanese method of education - watching and learning and discovering from his own experiences. It’s sweet and whimsical, warm and joyous, and it rocks.” Wondrich adds: “But there’s another side to Japanese culture, and that’s the one that produced My Neighbor Totoro and The 5.6.7.8’s Hello Kitty and Tampopo. ![]()
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