In recent years, Japanese cuisine has grown in popularity throughout China.On the one hand because China and Japan are both Asian countries near the sea, and Japanese tastes are very similar to Chinese, and on the other hand because Japanese food is more in line with the increasing middle class consumption definition in China.
Unagi Don (Unadon Rice) is regarded as the "poem of Japanese summer," and every year in July, there is a Eel Festival, a special day to celebrate eating eels, which demonstrating how much Unagi Don is enjoyed by Japanese people as a classic dish. Unagi Don Grilled Eel Rice Bowl isn’t a easy dish to prepare.
Many Japanese restaurants in China are unfamiliar with the cooking techniques and processes of grilled eel, and the level varies, so this article will show you how to classify the level of a Japanese restaurant's unagi kabayaki cuisine from 6 perspectives, allowing you to advance from a foodie to foodie pro!
1. Look at the quality of grilled eel.
In Japan, the difficulty of grilling eels is described as "three years of learning how to play skewers, eight years of learning how to kill eels, and a lifetime of learning how to grill eels." A first-class unagi kabayaki restaurant has amazing knife skills, killing an eel with just three cuts,If more than three cuts are made on the eel, it is easy to see the knife marks.Each cut is made quickly, not slowly, and the eel is in good condition, with the thickness of the eel flesh matched neatly without excess knife marks and broken flesh.
2. Look at the utensils used.
In a first-class Japanese restaurant, roasted eel rice will be served with fine cutlery!
3. Examine the river eel species used.
Wild eel is occasionally used as an ingredient in famous Japanese restaurants, but wild eel is hard to find. Japanese eel is unquestionably used as a raw material in these famous eel restaurants. Some restaurants can use either European eel or American eel in their dishes, which can be difficult to discern for those who don't eat grilled eel on a regular basis.Since Japanese eel is different from European eel, the grease distribution of each eel is different, and the grease of Japanese eel is mainly concentrated in the meat, so the specific taste difference with other eel species is that the grease is mixed with the lean meat and the taste is more delicate.
4. Look at the method of grill eel.
Premium Japanese restaurants are definitely using the same day freshly killed and grilled eel, required that the eel is grilled just right.If you do not grill the eel long enough, the surface will not be sufficiently charred, and the taste will be lame. If the eel is grilled for too long, the fat bakes off, leaving an unrefined flavor. So, to demonstrate the level of grilled eel, examine the skin of the eel, which requires excellent eel with small and numerous charred spots and evenly not foaming.
5. Examine the soy sauce used in the eel grilling process.
The eel's front and back are repeatedly coated with soy sauce which also called”kabayaki”. The grilled eel at this eel restaurant lacks soul if ordinary soy sauce is used, and a premium Japanese restaurant must use their own secret soy sauce to grill the eel. The soul of a bowl of eel rice is the elusive soy sauce.
6. Look at the quality of rice
The rice for eel rice must be evenly cooked and full of grains, neither too dry nor too wet, and it needs to maintain a certain degree of water absorption to fully absorb the sauce and the oil of the eel itself.
When tasting the rice, if you add a little of the sauce into the rice, it is best if the rice absorbs the sauce immediately and is not too rough.
About Sinofrost
We began exporting frozen roasted eel fillets (Unagi Kabayaki/Frozen Grilled Eel/Frozen Prepared Eel/Frozen BBQ Eel) to Russia in 2009, then we are extending our operations into new countries.
In addition to frozen roasted eel fillets, we can supply frozen roasted eel sushi slices, frozen roasted eel unadon cuts, frozen roasted eel flakes, frozen roasted eel dices.
We can pack the items in IVP (Individual Vacuum Packages) or BULK according to the clients' specifications.
The flavor and percentage of the sauce, as well as the type and time of roasting, can be tailored to the preferences of the customers.
Small orders or mixed loadings of our IQF frozen edamame, IQF Frozen mukimame, or dim sum (spring roll, samosa, etc.) are also possible. Until now, we have over 25 reputable suppliers in more than 5 Chinese provinces.
All our suppliers are serious and reliable with BRC/ISO/HACCP/SEDEX certificates,some of them have HALAL certificates.
We have grown to be one of the major suppliers of the good quality frozen prepared eel (unagi kabayaki) in several countries.
Feel free to get in touch with us for further info!
Email: cwl@sinofrost.com.cn