Sake Industry Night

Exploring the world of food and sake is always a delight. The host of the Sake Industry Night at Kakō was Oriol Sola, Director of Operations at the new JW Marriott Hotel Tokyo.

Sake brewery Kesennuma Otokoyama Honten from Kesennuma, Iwate, shared several interesting sakes from their portfolio.

Kako, the Japanese restaurant, is on the 29th floor has stunning views looking over Tokyo Bay.

The menu featured seasonal ingredients including Toyama hotaru ika firefly squid, hatsugatsuo skipjack tuna, takenoko bamboo shoots with kinome tender sansho leaves, kegani hairy crab, and nanohana rape blossoms.

Highlights include Ibaraki wagyu beef wrapped around bamboo shoots with a sweet finish and tanuki soba with uni, shirauo whitebait, and nori.

Our sake host, Hiroki Sugawara, generously shared nihonshu from their three brands Otokoyama, Miroku, and Sotenden.

Miyagi’s first sakamai (rice for brewing sake) Kura no Hana makes a food-friendly nihonshu. We were spoiled with an 8-year-old sake that was well-balanced. A delightfully aromatic and tart yuzu shu ended the evening.

The sake dinners are a way for people to connect over sake and our table was a mix of media and those working in the sake industry. I always love the minutiae of conversations – which rice, how much was it milled down, which yeast, the history of the brewery and how it was named, and more.

Sugawara san of Otokoyama also shared about local food in Kesennuma – which is one of Japan’s famous fishing ports – and how some of the sake that they make is for the fishermen to enjoy with their catch.