♪
Mena: Some days you're off to grab sushi and you wind up
in an art exhibit straight out of Yayoi Kusama or Hayao
Miyazaki's frontal cortex.
That is Tokyo.
And this, this is Team Labs, a standing art installation
that makes you feel like you're in a live action
anime with floating grids of plants and flowers.
Right, plants, I knew there was a reason I was here.
♪
This is the largest megalopolis on the planet, and
yet there are no garbage cans on the streets of Tokyo.
Everything is clean and systematic.
It's organized chaos.
Nearly 40 million people calmly rocking their daily
business in silent queues.
Maybe everyone's chill cuz the food's so damn good.
♪
Whether you're in the city core, the temples, or an art exhibit,
the culinary magic of this place is you can't
get a bad meal in Tokyo.
Today, the typical Tokyo diet's meat heavy, but
Japan was originally a super veg forward country.
Geographically, they didn't have enough farmland to
raise animals en masse, so eating meat was basically
banned for over 1,000 years.
And the population didn't really start eating a lot
of meat till the 1950s.
We're meeting the chefs that are turning back the
page to the pre-war era, rediscovering the country's
vegetarian heritage in hyper creative ways.
Just wait till you hear about the concept of mitate.
So strap in for a ride through the traditional
futuristic megacity that is Tokyo.
♪
I'm Mina Masoud.
I'm traveling across the world and eating my way through
some of the coolest cities to show you how beautiful
meals, talented chefs, and restaurant tours are
making plant-based living delicious and attainable.
So join me as I show you how the world is evolving vegan.
♪
The iconic Shibuya Scramble Crossing sees over 2 million
people stream through it every day in endless
clock-like synchronicity.
Just one stop to the south, a young chef is
trying to disrupt the flow.
It's impossible to tour Japan without dreaming of sushi, yet
it's hard to find many vegan options.
So we searched out an up and coming plant-based sushi
chef, Chef Ko Tanimizu, to demonstrate how the
art is transforming.
His ghost kitchen's located in Ebisu, where he
preps for private events.
And here, he's going to teach me the way of
making nigiri and maki.
Chef Ko, thank you so much for having me here.
I'm very excited to be making vegan sushi.
How long does it take to become a master sushi chef?
(Speaking Japanese)
Mena: He's being modest.
Chef Ko's been studying sushi for 14 years,
learning the trade from non-vegan sushi masters
before stepping out to veganize his craft.
(Speaking Japanese)
All right, let's get to it.
First up, a koi fish inspired nigiri.
Chef says today's koi fish, nera, the topping,
is actually pickled radish with black and white potatoes.
It's striking how much attention is paid to
the visual presentation.
Chef goes out of his way to imitate the original
with dyes and textures.
(Speaking Japanese)
Mena: Wow, you do it so fast.
(Speaking Japanese)
Wow, that's incredible, and that's fresh wasabi.
(Speaking Japanese)
My rice ball is big.
A little bit.
We shape the nigiri with a series of deft and
not so deft on my part, pinches and twists.
(Speaking Japanese)
Cool.
Awesome.
Good.
Mena: Really, thank you, chef.
And the finishing touch to our koi imitation, a set of
painted on charcoal eyes.
Next, we're making the dragon roll maki,
which is typically made with tempura shrimp
and topped with avocado.
(Speaking Japanese)
Wow, that's very thin.
I understand why it takes you years to master this.
Mine looks--
Good.
It's good?
(Speaking Japanese)
We set the avocado aside and start rolling
out the rice on nori, which is trickier
than it sounds.
This may be the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
Here.
(Speaking Japanese)
All the way down there?
How? It's not enough rice.
(Laughing)
With my rice passively flattened,
time to fill our dragon maki with cucumber and broccoli.
(Speaking Japanese)
Okay.
(Speaking Japanese)
Good.
Mena: And plating.
Our maki masterpieces get a dose of soy sauce,
soy milk ricotta, and a dusting of paprika.
Okay.
With a few moderately successful maki,
chef pulls out the reserves and creates a
spectacular looking plate.
This looks like a work of art.
This is absolutely phenomenal.
Do you get a lot of pushback from your community,
from the Japanese culture, that you're veganizing sushi?
(Speaking Japanese)
I can't wait to dig into the maki here.
There's just a finesse about this.
The creaminess from the ricotta and the avocado
just play beautifully with that broccoli.
So as a first bite, I couldn't ask for anything more.
(Speaking Japanese)
Thank you very much.
Mena: Next, Chef Ko's creation, the minagi beetroot ohagi.
A bed of green onion sprouts topped with mashed potato and
pickled radish dyed red with beet juice.
Gorgeous.
♪
Mmm!
The textures here are so satisfying.
The spice from the menegi leafy green counteracts
beautifully with the potato and the rice.
Again, fantastic, Chef.
And finally, our koi nigiri.
What is the symbolic importance of koi fish
in Japanese culture?
(Speaking Japanese)
♪
Mena: Wow!
I love how you've pickled the radish and
then you have that bite that you typically get from a radish.
Just a fantastic nigiri here.
(Speaking Japanese)
Mena: That perfect texture,
balance, and the occasional dye job
make for unforgettable nigiri in the kitchens of Tokyo.
♪
Beauty is everywhere in Tokyo.
On even the tiniest streets, you wind up
walking past enchanting, whispering little shrines.
The only problem is you never get to your destination on time
'cause you pass some mystical place you gotta check out,
like Fruits and Season,
Japan's first all-vegan fruit sandwich store.
This is all vegan? Woman: Yes.
All vegan, amazing.
Pineapple, pineapple.
Pineapple. Pineapple.
See, I know a little bit, just a little bit.
Here, they take freshly sliced fruit,
layered on top of silky soft bread,
and slather it with fluffy vegan whipped cream.
Trust me, you gotta try it.
(Speaking Japanese)
♪
Mm! Mm!
Magic.
(Speaking Japanese)
Delicious.
♪
(Dynamic music)
♪
I'm heading to the Jindaiji Temple in Chofu,
a western suburb of Tokyo.
Built over 1,200 years ago,
it's one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the region.
This is soba territory.
Joining me is Ryoya Takashima,
aka YouTuber Peaceful Cuisine,
who built his following veganizing traditional
Japanese dishes.
Ryoya's introducing me to master chef Jiichi Mihayashi
for a lesson in the ancient art of making soba.
Chef Jiichi, it's gonna get messy.
We're gonna make soba noodles.
Hi. Hi, yes.
What kind of flour is this?
(Speaking Japanese)
Mena: I can add it for you, chef, just tell me when.
Okay, okay. Mena: Okay.
Almost messed it up there.
And you can see it start to form there.
All right, there we go.
(Chuckling)
Chef Jiichi takes a break and graciously lets me
try rolling out some soba dough.
Like this?
Okay, so basically forming
a big ball of dough here.
Yeah, it's good, right? It's good, yes.
That's instinct. That's instinct.
I didn't know to do that.
(Chuckling)
I feel like I'm almost impressing
Chef Jiichi with my dough making technique.
I've got it shaped into a nice tight cannonball.
Yeah, it's good.
Clapping is good in any language.
Next, carefully flattening the dough.
It has to be done gently to avoid cracking the surface.
It's okay, I've got, got good muscles, Chef.
(Laughing)
We're supposed to gingerly roll out
the dough to a precise thickness.
I'm gonna get Ryoya to do this part because I'm getting tired.
You can get in here, man.
Where's your muscle?
You brought me, you brought me here.
You're making me do all the work.
Chef, how many times do you make
soba noodles a week?
Every day.
Jiichi: Five.
Mena: Five times a day. Yes.
You make soba noodles five times.
Jiichi: Every day. Mena: Oh, wow!
50 years.
Amazing. And do you think
this is a dying art form here in Japan?
Fantastic.
Once the dough is paper thin and
Chef Jiichi's happy, it's cutting time.
♪
Wow.
♪
After watching the master, I have to give it a shot.
♪
All right.
Yes.
After finishing the soba noodles,
Chef prepares us a traditional Buddhist meal
called the shojin ryori.
It's naturally plant-based, simple in flavour,
and features a flotilla of small dishes.
Potatoes, shiitake mushrooms, lotus root, and of course,
our handcrafted soba.
♪
All right, well, shall we dig in?
Maybe we should start with the soba noodles
that we made before.
Mena: Yes. Yes, good idea.
Dip them in here. Ryoya: In this sauce.
♪
Can you feel the subtle aroma from soba noodles?
Yes, yes, and the soba, it's cooked perfectly.
It's still got some texture to it.
It's not mushy, and it doesn't just dissolve in your mouth.
That's really good.
The typical shojin ryori meal is centred around
soy-based foods like tofu,
along with a table load of veg.
Plus, steamed daikon radishes with kelp
and persimmon sauteed in sesame oil.
Mmm!
And always a personal favourite, yuba.
♪
That's probably the creamiest...
yuba I've ever tasted. Oh, yeah.
I think it's sitting in some soy milk there.
Japan was a very vegetarian country.
Yes, yes.
Do you think it's circling back in that direction?
Nowadays, a lot of big restaurant
and cafe offers plant-based food.
Compared to when I became a vegan, like over 15 years ago,
now I can eat everywhere.
So you think it's, it's becoming more and more friendly.
Yes.
And here is another kind of tofu that we have.
Yes, but this is not made of soy beans.
It's not? Not.
What is it made out of? Kuzu.
Kuzu? Yes.
What's that?
It's a starch of arrowroot.
Mena: Arrowroot starch? Yes.
Mena: Wow.
It's so different from the tofu.
Mena: Mm-hm.
It almost tastes like peanut butter a little bit.
Tahini paste.
That would make a lot of sense.
I will say, out of all these foods,
I think my favourite little bite
was the soba noodle.
I mean, it's just simply amazing that it's handmade.
♪
After trying Jindaiji soba,
I'm delving further
into the culinary traditions of the temple.
I'm meeting tea master Shota Yamada
to take part in a Japanese tea ceremony,
set to counter the high pace
of everyday Tokyo life
with a Zen-like simplicity.
Joining me is our local producer, Naomi Funayama.
(Speaking Japanese)
Mena: Shota begins by mixing the matcha powder,
made of fine, ground green tea leaves,
with hot water.
(Tapping)
(Trickling)
Naomi: He will explain how to drink the tea now.
(Speaking Japanese)
Take it with your right hand
and place it on the palm of your left hand.
Naomi: Now you drink it.
Perfectly well balanced.
It almost tastes like there's milk in it.
But, of course, I know there isn't
because I just watched you make it.
Yeah, thank you. It's amazing.
Mena: The cleansing ends the ritual.
After that, you turn the cup counterclockwise.
Now you may set it down.
Why was it important for you to carry on the tradition
of tea making here in Japan?
Both: Arigato gozaimashita.
♪
Mena: In Tokyo, top flight restaurants
are tucked into all kinds of hidden nooks.
So, it's no surprise that off the path of a back alley
called the SAC is one of the highest-rated
vegan restaurants in the world, Saito.
It's run by Chef Katsumi Kusumoto,
the one cat in Tokyo I just couldn't wait to meet.
The visionary French-trained Japanese chef
elevating plant-based cooking to a whole other realm.
He's a flat-out mad scientist in the kitchen.
He greets us with some of his most stunning standout dishes.
Tell me about the word "Saito."
What does it mean?
(Speaking Japanese)
Chef's first dish
highlights his entire approach to cooking.
It's mostly just carrots.
Specifically, rare, sweet, reddish,
roasted kintoki carrots,
topped with a wasabi balsamic glaze
and burdock root fritters.
♪
Mm.
Mm!
(Laugh)
Mena: I can tell you've put a lot of thought into this.
It just comes out so beautifully like that.
Look at that colour there.
I wanna talk to you a little bit about your background.
Shortly after you trained here, you opened up
a members-only restaurant.
So, naturally, your introduction to the vegan world
was a little bit more refined or elevated.
Is that fair to say?
Mena: Chef's next showstopper is his plant-based take
on the ubiquitous unagi dish.
Standing in for eel with a blend
of tofu and root veg is near impossible.
But Chef pulls off the sleight of hand
with elegance and a smoky panache.
Wow.
This smells incredible.
I'm so excited to try.
You've said it's tofu on a bed of rice.
The tofu, is it just tofu
or have you mixed it in with something else?
Fantastic. I've never had eel before,
so this is the closest I'm gonna get,
I think, to it.
So thank you for that.
Mm.
Both: Mm! Mm!
That's very good. The texture is fantastic.
You definitely get that seaweed flavour as well.
The rice adds a nice vessel to go with all of this.
Why was it important to you to take
traditional Japanese dishes, like this unagi here,
and make them plant-based?
And that's called mitate.
Yes. (Laughs)
I'm excited for our next course.
Another mitate?
Yes. (Laughs)
Mena: Chef's play on a potted plant
is filled with raspberry mousse,
crunchy almond and cocoa stones
with a sprouting matcha sponge cake.
Finally, savoury bitter gourd and juniper berry gelato
layered onto dehydrated tomatoes
and curried beans covered in dried fruits and veg.
It can only be described as
a Saito original.
Wow, that is... gorgeous.
This presentation is sugoi.
Katsumi: Arigato gozaimasu. Thank you.
Wow.
Look at that.
I don't think I've quite ever tasted anything like that.
You have struck a phenomenal balance here
with the ice cream.
It's just a hint of sweetness,
but it's so refreshing
because of the citrus element in there.
And your play on textures
is beyond words.
It just works.
I've never tasted anything quite like this.
This is... this is special.
Thank you, Chef.
All right, I want to dig my way into this dish.
See what I did there?
Because there's a little shovel.
Wow.
♪
Mm.
♪
(Laughter)
You're playing with textures
in such an elevated way,
and got the crunch from the almonds.
And, of course, that beautiful, soft
raspberry cream on the bottom.
It all comes together so well.
I want to thank you for giving me
a very special experience here in Japan.
And I'll definitely be back here
because I'm so incredibly excited
to see what you keep creating here at Saito.
Thank you, Chef.
Arigato. Arigato.
♪
Mena: Tokyo lives in constant awe
of the volcano rising to the south.
Iconic, oft painted and photographed,
it's a hologram burnt into the psyche
of the Tokyo city dweller: Mount Fuji,
and its pastoral neighbour, Mount Ashigara.
I've stepped out of the city to visit the mountains
and surrounding rice farms
after hearing about a family preserving
a cultural tradition that dates back
more than a thousand years,
making mochi, a Japanese rice cake.
Mayumi and Shinji Kasama
teach Japanese and tourists alike
how to pound mochi.
How long have you lived here and made mochi for?
(Speaking Japanese)
Wow, five generations.
Yes, yes.
Wow, that is incredible.
Mayumi and Shinji farm two types of rice here:
regular uruchimai rice
and a sticky glutinous rice
known for its high starch content,
best used to make mochi.
Mena: Shinji puts me on hot water detail.
We gotta keep the stamp mill and the pestle piping hot
to help the steamed sticky rice break down faster.
Wow.
Getting right in there.
It's like a dance in here.
Kneading the rice allows all those little pieces
to start combining together.
You're using your hips.
Hips.
Yeah, there's a hip thrust here.
I gotta get the hip thrust.
Try.
Yes, I'm ready, I'm ready.
Hips.
Yeah, I see.
Like that, right?
Is this good? Is this good?
Very good.
Mena: We're just getting the starch out of it
and really just binding it?
Is that the point of all this?
Mena: Shinji pounds the rice
in rhythm with Mayumi as she folds.
It makes the mochi airy, almost creamy.
(Clunk)
It's my turn, Mayumi, give me a shot at this.
(Laugh)
That was very weak. She's laughing at me.
Okay, it's better, better.
One, okay.
(Thud)
One.
(Thudding)
(Laugh)
Hey. Hey.
This is hard work for mochi, man.
Good, good.
It's good, it's looking good?
(Speaking Japanese)
Okay, it's a taste test.
Taste test. Taste.
It almost has a consistency of, like,
a mozzarella cheese right now.
Shinji: Okay.
Mena: It's okay?
Okay.
All right, great.
Shinji says it's good
and I'm all sledgehammered out.
So, it's time to assemble and eat.
Mayumi's prepped three traditional toppings:
azuki bean paste;
kinako, which is roasted soy flour
with added sugar and salt;
and nori.
So, this is the fresh mochi experience.
I've never had mochi like this.
Mayumi pulls apart the fresh mochi,
pinching it into bite-sized rice cakes.
Then we assemble.
So excited to try all these different flavours.
Mena: The azuki beans are very flavourful.
They have just a hint of sweetness in them.
It's delicious. Oishii.
I'm gonna try this other savoury one here.
(Crunch)
I really like it.
I've had rice wrapped in seaweed
and they usually stuff them with different toppings.
So this is very similar to that.
All right, this guy here,
I'm most excited about this.
♪
That's really good.
I love the mixture of sweet and salty.
It's delicious.
Mena: Lucky, indeed.
Fresh mochi in the Japanese countryside.
Somebody pinch me.
♪
(Upbeat rockabilly music)
♪
Posted up in Yoyogi Park,
every Sunday, these rockabillies,
or Roller-zuku,
get down in their '50s style denim
to old-school American rock 'n roll.
Why? I have no idea.
That's just Tokyo on a Sunday afternoon.
Okay, I'm hungry.
Back to business.
Some of my favourite eateries in Japan are izakayas.
Part pub, part resto, and all vibe,
they serve drinks and small plates
of Japanese bar classics.
They're one of the few places Japanese go to unwind,
unbutton a bottle of sake,
and get loud with friends,
like my pal Alex.
Fluent in Japanese and five other languages,
Alex is a vegan consultant
who helps Tokyo restaurants
get into the plant-based market.
And Izakaya Masaka is his top reco.
We're joined by Mayu Suzuki,
who helps run the joint.
Is there a specific meaning
to the word "izakaya"?
Stay drinking place.
So, quite literally what a bar is.
(Laughs)
We're starting with gyoza, or fried dumplings,
that are traditionally stuffed with minced pork or beef.
Here, they're full of soy meat, Chinese cabbage,
and spring onions, ready for dipping.
Wow, these look incredible.
And then chili oil and black vinegar.
That's amazing.
Mmmm, mmm!
Oishi. Oishi!
Thank you.
The wrapper is very thin, unlike some gyoza,
and the gyoza itself,
I mean, it's a two biter, maybe a one biter,
so you can just eat a lot of these.
You can eat, stay, place.
(Laughs)
Alex, you've been here now how many years?
For over six years.
How have you seen the vegan scene here evolve?
Because I came here about five years ago,
and there were plenty of options,
but I feel like this time around
there's many, many more options.
It's a lot harder to be vegan in Japan
than it is to actually eat vegan in Japan.
What do you mean by that?
Well, just because of the pressures to conform,
especially as a Japanese person,
it's a lot harder to be individualistic,
to be different, to be doing your own thing,
to be the only person at a regular restaurant
trying to order vegan food or not eating
because there's no options available.
In retrospect, there's a lot of delicious vegan food
that is here to be had.
And a lot of traditional Japanese food is vegan
or can easily be made vegan with very little effort.
And then of course, the dish that I'm most excited about
because it's so hard to find vegan is karaage.
Karaage. Right?
Karaage is an iconic Japanese staple fried chicken.
People go nuts over it.
And Misaka's plant-based version is next level,
deep fried, golden, crispy, gloriousness.
This sauce is yuzu pepper mayonnaise.
Yes, yuzu, I love yuzu.
One of the things when I think Japan, I think yuzu.
That beautiful citrus that has such a unique taste to it
that you really have a hard time finding anywhere else.
So you already got me at yuzu.
Look at that. Alright.
♪
Get out of here!
Do you feel yuzu?
I feel the yuzu, yes.
Not what I was expecting on the inside.
I didn't expect it to all be plant-based chicken.
I thought it would be more dough.
And the yuzu mayo, I gotta get a bottle of that or something.
That is phenomenal.
I need a whole bucket of these.
(Laughs)
Do you find you get more Japanese people
coming to Izakaya Masaka, or more foreigners?
Actually more outside Japan. Outside Japan.
80% or 90%.
Yeah, plus (Unclear) from overseas.
Because foreigner want to experience the culture.
Vegan izakaya is rare in Japan.
Yeah, it is rare.
Yeah, to me, izakayas are one of the only places in Japan
where you'll find that Japanese people
can get a bit louder than usual.
Yeah, yeah. Right, right.
The train's like dead silent, right, but izakayas...
Yeah, they're open mind, they become open mind.
So you get looser here. Yes.
I feel like Japan does a lot of things right
that other countries could learn from.
The streets are clean,
there's a lot of respect between people.
Level of emotional intelligence is very high, I think,
just thinking about what other people
are thinking right now, what other people want.
In general, the food is also amazing.
I will say this, that Japan may not
have the most vegan food, but in my opinion,
it has some of the best, if not the actual best,
vegan food on the planet, 'cause the quality's
just so high that it's just a joy to be here.
(Dynamic instrumental sting)
♪
♪ ♪
There's an exquisite phantom bowl of ramen I haven't
stopped dreaming about for six years.
Steaming, fragrant, served up with a clangorous thunder
in a Tokyo train station.
It was the best bowl of ramen I had in my very first
visit to Tokyo in 2018.
I tracked down the chef, Masako Shimokawa,
who served up that fateful bowl of noodles.
No surprise, she's expanded to five locations
across the city, and I can't wait to learn
the secrets behind that perfect bowl.
At T's restaurant in Meguro City.
I've experienced a little bit of your cooking, and so
I'm very, very excited to be here.
(Speaking Japanese)
Yes, yes.
What's the significance of ramen here in Japan?
(Speaking Japanese)
And so doing a vegan ramen opens up ramen
for a lot of people here.
Now hopefully I can get Masako's secrets
to that phantom bowl.
Usually this is a pork base, but because it's vegan,
what is this creamy base?
It smells very good.
Nuts.
And nuts.
Okay, all right, I'm getting the secret one by one.
(She laughs)
All right, beautiful vegetable broth.
Looks amazing.
Masako boils up the noodles and adds them to
the steaming hot broth.
What is it made out of?
Soy bean.
That's amazing, I can't wait to try that.
Okay.
Yes, I love the sound effects and looks gorgeous.
Thank you so much, arigato, for allowing me to
come in here and see this dish.
So I'm gonna go enjoy it, arigato.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much for coming here.
Mena: I can't wait to share this bowl with the guy who
first introduced me to Japan, my friend and producing
partner, Ali Masayaki.
Wow, look at this.
Mena: Smells amazing.
Fantastic.
Thank you for joining me. Not that you have a choice,
because you're a producer on the show,
and you're here for every segment anyway.
I'm usually on the other side.
Well, you're on the other side.
How many times have you been here?
So I've been to Japan more than 50 times.
What are some of the things that stick out to
you about Japanese culture?
The food, number one.
It's the Mecca of just food.
You can't get a bad meal here, man.
So it's funny you say that, but like,
the origin story of Evolving Vegan actually
kind of started over ramen.
That's right.
And it started at this restaurant's
Ueno location, which is in the subway station.
And we tried it.
This is really, really good.
And I think we were like, yeah, let's see if there is enough
interest at this point in the market for a vegan food show.
Mena: Yeah.
Ali: And now we're sitting here.
Let's get into this.
I'm gonna slurp my hardest.
Because you're the one who told me about slurping and ramen
and Japan and the tradition.
It's basically an indication of how much you like it.
So the more you slurp, the better it is.
I mean, you wanna do it cleanly, but yes, right?
You don't wanna be all over it, but yeah.
Like, it's a slurping culture.
And man, that's good.
And then--
Oh, man.
Get into the ingredients.
That's so delicious.
Mm. It's got the perfect amount of spice to it.
It's not too hot and it's not too creamy.
You can get very creamy ramens.
You totally can.
And the spice is amazing.
What do you think of the soy meat?
'Cause this is my favourite part, I think.
It's so good.
The texture of it is fantastic.
The taste is just phenomenal.
The spice, all of it.
Mena: To wrap up this nostalgic meal,
Masako treats us to her Japanese curry.
One of our long time favourite dishes.
Man.
It's so good.
I wanna try yours. You wanna switch?
Switch.
♪
Mm.
Delicious.
Yeah, they're so good.
And this is such an easy dish to just have vegan
on a regular basis, and you don't feel like
you're missing out on anything.
And I think that was the whole point of the show.
Yeah.
To become literally someone who
evolves into a better diet, better health, and then
benefit from that individually.
And then societally,
the benefits that come as a result
of just eating less meat.
Yeah, yeah, I'll amen to that.
I'm glad we could come back and do Evolving Vegan here.
And so I just wanna say this slurp is for you, okay?
This is gonna be the biggest slurp of all slurps.
Slurp away, my friend.
Mena: Okay.
♪
That was a good slurp.
That was for you.
Thank you.
Oishii . Oishii .
♪
Mena: Everything here is oishii .
The truth is, everyone in Tokyo treats what they do,
the food that they cook, with such respect that
they just elevate it.
Whether it's making mochi, or sushi, or soba,
or avant-garde food art, there's never a bad bite.
Mm.
And today, there's a groundswell
of plant-based chefs
working their culinary magic in Tokyo
and leading the country back towards its vegetarian roots.
And it tastes just how it looks: exquisite.
♪
(Whirring)
(Musical flourish)
(Silence)