Today I had Ramen at a Japanese restaurant in Christchurch, New Zealand. That restaurant was very small in spite of the location in the city, but the taste was good. Today I went there after a long time travel, so I expected the same.
But what I saw was totally different exterior of the restaurant, it became a large size restaurant. Maybe the taste was good enough to collect more customers.
I waited for the Ramen and finally I had it.
Then what I had was completely different taste and it became worse against the larger size of the space. I was really disappointed with it.
When eating Japanese food overseas, we often see Korean or other countries poeple run Japanese restaurants as if they were Japanese. Of course, if we eat food there without knowing it, often taste brings us disappointment. The food taste is a culture, so if someone not Japanese tries to imitate it, often it turns outto be a fail. This is REASONABLE disappointment.
When food becomes international, food itself grows beyond the eyes of original nation, so this happens. International food can’t aviod the world imitation. If the imitation becomes the NEW original, that’s one of the food evolution.
BUT ! today’s restaurant is run by a Japanese, I know that. Although he made good taste before and he absolutely knows the real taste of Japanese food, the taste got worse, which means he certainly doesn’t keep the same passion as the starting time of small restaurant. This disappointment is far bigger than Korean run Japanese food restaurants. This is UNREASONABLE !
He must know that all the customer at his restaurant understand Japanese taste through his food there. If the taste made by Japanese persons is terrible ( I think so ), how can we spread the food culture ? Or how can we convey the real taste of Japanese food ?
That restaurant might be closed in the future because the taste became really bad today.
If he prefers making money than making good food, he should retire the food business.
When a business grows big, this kind of bad trend often happens. To my dismay, this was the bad example I saw in the last 5 years since I first came to Christchurch.
In the world, there are some honourable Japanese restaurants like NOBU ( photo), their contribution to the food industry made Japanese food international. They didn’t stop their effort to enhance the taste for matching the demand of people of the world.
To the restaurant I went today: Please don’t break the Japanese food status made by predecessors with tears and sweat ! Otherwise, I WILL write your name here next time !
