The Food Fights Back | Bangkok Post: feature

Over the past several years, the Japanese food craze has proliferated around the world. Nippon restaurants are mushrooming in large cities worldwide, while much of the Japanese culinary lexicon is comfortably entering the world's dictionaries.

In Thailand, the evidence is even more palpable. Today, not only can restaurants and supermarkets specialising in Japanese food be found throughout the country's metropolis, many Japanese food terms are more frequently used in local households without translation. Thais have become very knowledgeable when it comes to Japanese cookery. They are likely to choose otoro (fatty bluefin tuna belly) over maguro (ordinary tuna), buri (fully grown yellowtail) over hamachi (young yellowtail), Matsusaka over typical wagyu beef, and Amaou ichigo over common strawberry _ all simply for the sake of gastronomic indulgence.

As the overseas interest in Japanese food culture keeps rising, some may say that the circumstances stem from the sophistication of the Nippon cuisine itself. Yet, one can never leave out the important factor that the distinctive quality of Japan's food produce also plays a great role in heightening such appreciation. The immaculate image that had long been trusted until, unfortunately, last year's major earthquake in Japan.