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The main dining hall and the “tap water station” at the Olympic Village which will be used by the athletes during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Photo: AFP

Tokyo Olympics: athletes’ village has 700 menu options with ramen, Wagyu beef and tempura

  • The athletes village opened on Tuesday and will offer daily Covid-19 tests to its 18,000 residents, along with up to 48,000 meals a day
  • Athletes can’t go to local restaurants, so the pressure is on village cafeteria chefs to serve tasty meals including Japanese, Indian and Vietnamese options
Even under ordinary circumstances, feeding an Olympic Village is a mammoth task, with chefs preparing tens of thousands of meals a day for elite athletes from around the world. But at Tokyo 2020, there’s an added pressure: strict coronavirus rules forbid athletes from eating at local restaurants, so it’s their only chance to sample Japan’s famous cuisine.
“I feel it’s a lot of responsibility for us,” admitted Tsutomu Yamane, senior director of Tokyo 2020’s food and beverages services department. “We want them to enjoy [Japanese food] … but it’s major pressure.”

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The athletes’ village, which officially opened on Tuesday, offers daily coronavirus testing to the 18,000 athletes and officials who will stay at the 44-hectare village in Tokyo’s Harumi waterfront district. The cafeterias will serve up to 48,000 meals a day, with some open around the clock.

Anti-infection rules mean athletes can’t go anywhere but the village, training sites and competition venues. So organisers will provide 700 menu options, 3,000 seats at the main two-storey cafeteria and 2,000 staff at peak hours to meet the needs of all.

Menus are largely divided into three categories: Western, Japanese and Asian – which covers Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese options. And given Japan’s world-famous cuisine, there will be plenty of local flavour.

The focus will be on informal dishes rather than high-end dining, with ramen and udon noodles among the staples, Yamane said.

Ramen will be offered in two of its most famous broths: soy sauce, and miso – the fermented soybean paste central to Japanese cuisine.

There may be one big disappointment for Japanese food fans: no sushi with raw fish. Safety rules mean rolls will only feature cooked shrimp, canned tuna, cucumber and pickled plum.

Two other favourites will be available, though: grilled Wagyu beef and tempura – battered, fried vegetables and seafood.

Some less familiar Japanese dishes will also be featured, including two specialities from the western Osaka region: okonomiyaki and takoyaki.

The former is a savoury pancake cooked on a griddle that often contains cabbage and pork and is topped with a sweet sauce, mayonnaise, and bonito flakes. Takoyaki are small batter balls filled with octopus.

There is also Japanese home cooking, courtesy of locals who entered a competition to have their dishes featured.

Yoko Nishimura, a 59-year-old mother and housewife from Kamakura outside Tokyo, had almost forgotten about the competition after the event postponed.

“Then I was contacted and told I was chosen. I could barely believe it,” she said.

She was inspired by the summer heat to create a dish of cold somen noodles topped with grilled salmon, steamed chicken, edamame beans, broccoli, plum paste and grated yam. The dish, she said, “is full of things that are good for the body”.

“[It contains] salmon with its skin on, which has great nutrients like collagen,” she said. “The edamame beans are full of protein, and broccoli has antioxidants for your body.”

The main dining hall of the Olympic Village. Photo: AFP

Other meals chosen include oden – a Japanese stew with a dashi broth base – and a panna cotta made from edamame.

Ingredients used will come from all 47 regions of Japan, including areas hit by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, in keeping with the Olympics’ “Recovery Games” theme.

Although some countries still restrict food from areas affected by the Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan says produce from the region is subject to stricter standards than those used elsewhere in the world and items are rigorously tested.

So while organisers will indicate the origins of food served in the casual dining area, there won’t be any specific labelling to mark items from Fukushima.

Recyclable cardboard beds and mattresses for athletes at the Olympic Village. Photo: AFP

Meals will cater to just about every religious and dietary restriction, including the first gluten-free section at a Games.

In Japan, fears remain that the pandemic-postponed Olympics starting on July 23 could be a superspreader event, even though organisers recently decided to hold nearly all competitions without spectators.

The athletes’ village opened on Tuesday, one day after a fresh state of emergency took effect in Tokyo. In response to another wave of infections driven by the more contagious Delta variant, the emergency aimed at curbing the movements of people and entailing restrictions such as barring restaurants from serving alcohol is scheduled to run through August 22.

Strict rules will prevent athletes leaving the village except to train and compete. Photo: AFP

Olympic delegations have started to arrive in Japan since the beginning of this month for pre-Games camps, with over 2,200 expected to enter the country in the week through July 18.

So even though the pandemic will cast a long shadow over the Games, Nishimura hopes her dish will offer up something restorative.

“Athletes coming for the Olympics could lose their appetites because of the hot summer and training hard. They may also feel a lot of pressure from competing in such a big event,” she said. “I would even say that eating this [dish] will let them compete in top condition.”

Additional reporting by Kyodo

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: chefs raise their game to feed elite athletes
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