From Mikado to Yamato: A 25-Year Arc of Japanese Food

My love for Japanese food didn’t start in Tokyo or Osaka – it began in Gothenburg, Sweden, some forty years ago at a small restaurant called Mikado.

I ate there so often the staff started recognizing me. I even celebrated my 25th birthday there with my closest friends. One of them, Magnus, gave me several odd-shaped canvases for me to paint on. Possibly one of the most thoughtful presents I’ve ever received.

Mikado did serve sushi, but if memory serves, the main event was the teppanyaki bar in the center of the room – culinary theatre long before “food experiences” became a thing.  The chef’s metal spatulas clinked against the hot plate under the sizzle of beef and vegetables. Garlic hit the steel and bloomed. Soy and butter caramelized the green onions and glazed the tender meat.

The measured simplicity hooked me.

Back then, Japanese food in Sweden was a little bit like a secret – you had to seek it out, and know it wasn’t “like Chinese.” Instead, it was beautifully presented: sliced and diced, balanced, colorful yet restrained. Always visually appealing.

Over the weekend, we visited Yamato Koji Park soy sauce factory, and it was across the alley that I shot this lunch tray: deep-fried squid, marlin, and cod. Hot from the oil, lightly salted – as delicious as fried fish can be, more texture than flavor, but still tasty. The crunch gave way to bounce and flake, and the soy we’d just learned about tied everything together.

Forty years later, Japanese food remains my favorite. Mikado planted the seed; alleyway lunches in Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, and now Kanazawa, as well as countless bowls and plates elsewhere, kept it growing. If pressed, I’d still call Japanese food the tastiest cuisine in the world – followed closely by the Greek kitchen.