Japanese restaurants told to get 'real'

Officials in Tokyo fed up with seeing inferior Japanese cuisine passed off as the real thing are offering a worldwide "authenticity screen" for restaurants that purport to be Japanese. The recently unveiled scheme is planned to lead to an equivalent of the Michelin star system for the world's 25,000 Japanese restaurants, whereby teams of "cuisine experts" will visit kitchens across the globe to assess how far they offer a genuine taste of Japan. While Government planners aim to frighten sham Japanese restauranteurs into adopting more authentic practices, many operaters in Australia are backing the "authenticity screen" as a way to differentiate Japanese food from imitation product. Master chef Kimitaka Azuma, of Sydney restaurant Azuma, recently told The Australian newspaper that he welcomed such scrutiny as his kitchen employs only experienced Japanese chefs and his ingredients were sourced from Japan wherever possible. His wife Yuki, general manager of the restaurant, said the rating system would have to take into account local conditions and tastes, as dishes were often altered for the Australian palate. "Japanese people like the nice texture of white fish, but Australians like tuna and salmon," she told The Australian. "Salmon sashimi is very rare in Japan."