The health of our customers is our number one concern,' says Erik Idos, the executive chef of Nobu InterContinental in Tsim Sha Tsui. 'The sushi chef and I made a map of where all our fish comes from. If our customers have a question about the fish, we can show them it's not even close to the affected areas.' Idos is explaining how he sources ingredients from Japan for the InterContinental hotel's premium Japanese dining outlet.
In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that precipitated the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant, chefs of top Japanese restaurants have not stopped buying Japanese ingredients. While other eateries have steered clear of Japanese imports, these high-end chefs are taking a selective approach, staying away from the hardest-hit areas of the country from around the stricken power plant. In some cases, they've had to look for alternate sources of ingredients because Japan's fishing industry has been greatly affected and the famous Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo has been operating at limited capacity.
Radiation leaking into the air and sea from the Fukushima plant has sparked fears among the public about contamination of Japanese food imports. The Hong Kong government last week banned vegetables and dairy products from five quake-affected prefectures after samples tested were found to be up to 10 times over the radiation limit. Seawater samples from around the plant on Tuesday had levels of radioactive iodine 3,355 times the allowable limit, Japan's nuclear safety agency said yesterday, meaning the crisis shows no sign of abating.
Imai Masakazu George, executive chef of Miyabi Japanese Fine Dining in Tsim Sha Tsui, says about 90 per cent of the ingredients he used before the disaster came from Japan; now, he gets about 30 per cent from other countries.
'We will import more seafood and vegetables from other countries, such as tiger prawns from Thailand, abalone from South Africa, razor clams from Scotland, beef and lobster from the United States, eggs, abalone and beef from Australia, lobster from Indonesia and white fish from the South China Sea,' he says.
Masakazu says that because sales are down due to diners fears, he's ordering far less fresh produce and seafood, although none of his ingredients come from the hard-hit northeastern areas. The chef hails from Kyushu in the southwest of Japan, so favours ingredients from that region as well as from another less-affected area, the northernmost island of Hokkaido.