Japanese cuisine isn’t all raw fish and seaweed. Southern comfort food such as chicken karaage and buttery fish-roe pasta are increasingly popular across the country – and now it is available in the US and UK, too
What do you think of when you think of Japanese food? Raw fish? Rice? Seaweed? Healthy, clean ingredients? This is one side of Japanese cuisine, but it is far from the whole story. There is growing interest in Japanese comfort food, particularly dishes from the south. Diners are swapping sushi and soba for calorific, crisp karaage fried chicken, indulgent tonkotsu ramen broth spotted with pork fat and buttery pasta with chilli-cured fish roe.
It all started with the ramen craze, which has taken US cities such as LA, San Francisco and New York by storm in the past couple of years. The trend then spread to London, where there is now a fistful of excellent noodle shops, including Tonkotsu, Bone Daddies and Shoryu Ramen. Several restaurants, such as Kurobuta and the Bone Daddies pop-up Shackfuyu, are now going beyond the broth to serve playful dishes including miso-grilled chicken wings and mentaiko mac’n’cheese, a take on the hugely popular mentaiko pasta (think carbonara but with spicy pollack roe).
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