Crunchy Japanese Skewed Fries
Translator
Editor
Selasa, 1 September 2015 05:52 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The fries is made of bread crumbs and prawn, then skewed with bamboo sticks. But it is not tempura. It is kushiage or kushikatsu, a Japanese fries.
“Indonesian people are basically love variety of fries. That is what we are trying to target,” said Daisy Hermawan, General Manager of Fujio MSP to Tempo after the opening of the second outlet of Kushiya Monogatari.
The first outlet was opened in May at AEON Mall. Kushiya Monogatari is known as a self-service kushiage restaurant. It was first opened in Osaka in 1997 with a purpose to bridge fine dining data-style with street food data-style.
Because of its self-service concept, you will not find cooks accompanying you while having your meal. You’ll be your own cook. After selecting your own fries you can then smear the skewed fries with egg and powder emulsion and bread crumbs. Each table is provided with small frying pan where guest can fry their meals.
“The stoves will always have constant temperature, which is above 100 Celsius degree,” Daisy explained.
With such high temperature, you will need less than five minutes to have the meal ready.
“The frying place is specially designed to match original design in Japan,” Daisy said, guaranteeing that the hot frying oil wont burst.
Still, a cover is provided for the frying pan to protect guests from oil splash.
When we tried the kushiage, we found that not all ingredients are needed to be wrapped with bread crumbs. Takoyaki or okonomiyaki, narutomaki, processed fish, and taiyaki are some examples.
We tried the peanut sauce, cheese-flavored mayonaise, and shoy sauce that afternoon. The sour shoyu is Kushiya’s signature sauce. Also, we only allowed to dip one skewer to the sauce once and it must be eaten immediately. The reason behind the rule is hygiene. Dipping the food twice into the sauce is considered unhygienic.
Other tips for kushiage dining is to alternately eating other type of dish such as pasta, rice, salad, soup, curry, or fruits every now and then to avoid feeling full of fries. We believe that kushiagi would fit Indonesian taste buds. That day, three of us finished 50 skewers of crunchy fries in one and a half hours.
KORAN TEMPO