It feels a bit odd to be seated around a shiny table in a multi-star hotel and be served barbequed chunks of birds and other meats on small wooden skewers that rest delicately on nests of grated radish.
Yakitori, that’s best had in small Japanese restaurants and bars after a hectic day in office with chilled beer, is like any other street food — it’s about more than just satiating hunger pangs.
All street food is about giving in to those evening cravings of course, but it’s also about unwinding or bonding with friends, colleagues, family. It’s comfort food best enjoyed with people who make you comfortable.
Prawn yakitori
It’s also about your favourite local joint where you know just what the food tastes like, and when it drips on your clothes, you just lick it off, not worrying too much about the stain because it’s a memory, a reminder of an evening well spent.
This sort of cosy, intimate, casual experience can’t be recreated, especially not in another country, for another people. And turning it into a fine dining experience would be totally counterintuitive.
Yet, Pan Asian, at New Delhi’s Sheraton Hotel, tries its best to simulate the experience with chairs placed around an open kitchen where chef Deepak, trained under both Japanese and Filipino master cooks, first served us delicious Thai pomelo salad and then proceeded to juggle sharp objects with the spunk of a street performer while his robata grill with wood charcoal, which gives the meat a smoky flavour, was beginning to crackle to life.
“I learnt Japanese cooking from Japanese chefs and showbaazi from Filipino chefs,” he said while explaining that in the 1960s yakitori — traditionally just chicken on kushi (a type of small skewer) cooked on charcoal grill — was very popular, and even today it remains Japan’s second most favourite street food after Okonomiyaki, the Japanese egg pancake.
Fish yakitori
Evenings, he says, is the best time to have yakitori, and each serving doesn’t take more than 8-10 minutes to make and serve, beginning with chopping, because there is no marinade.
While traditionally only teriyaki sauce — made with soya sauce, sugar, chicken bones and sake flambé — is used, to serve the Indian palate well, chef Deepak is using four different sauces and will serve chicken, of course, but also pork, fish, prawns, tofu, mushroom, bacon-wrapped on asparagus and anything else you may fancy.
We began with Prawn yakitori with Teriyaki sauce, which was worth repeating. I also quite enjoyed the Pork belly with Honey glaze sauce that had a kick because of the Mustard miso sauce.
Fish with basil sauce was delicate and subtle, and Aspara-Bacon with Gochizan Miso Sauce was mildly spicy, which was a nice change after sauces that were all slightly sweet.
While I’m not a big fan of chicken, the chunks of chicken on skewers were nice, but the green peppers stuffed with minced chicken was dull and I would skip it the next time.
Surprisingly I quite enjoyed Tofu with Peanut butter despite the fact that bean curd is one of the few food item I have placed in my “Never Eating…” food list, after shalgam, parmal, snail and Stilton (smelly) cheese.
Life’s too short to give yuckies another chance, I tell you.
If you thought barbecue didn’t use butter, do sit at the open kitchen to see how, after grilling the meats, it’s really brought to life on the hotplate where a bit of butter is added first to enchance the sauce and add a nice shiny glaze.
I’d recommend chilled beer with yakitori, rather than the red wine that we were served.
Though there’s no carb to go with yakitori, you could ask for a serving of steamed rice.
We were served two types of sushi — salmon, which was decent, and mango sushi (alphonso) which was a strange seasonal concoction that I’m still mulling. Seemed like a fun idea that should have been killed after the first tasting.
Yakitori Food Festival is on from 8 to 15 June at Pan Asian, Sheraton New Delhi, from 1 to 2:30 PM, and 7:30 to 10:30 PM. It costs approx Rs 1,845 (+taxes)
