Why you should try pizza in Japan and udon in London, and the benefit of thinking outside the box when you eat overseas
- Some tourists seek out food from home while in a foreign country, others stick to local dishes, but having an open mind can lead to surprising discoveries
- Some of my favourite udon noodles are found in London restaurant Koya, while Pizza Studio Tamaki, in Tokyo, rivals the best pizzas I’ve had in Italy
Trying new (to me) food and drink is truly my favourite part of travelling around the world, though it hasn’t always been that way.
Paris, for many, is a bucket-list destination. I first travelled there as an undergraduate, suffering a nine-hour red-eye journey via MegaBus and ferry, arriving in the early hours of the morning only to miss most of the day passed out in the hotel. By early evening, the winter sun had already long set, and we were starving.
What might have been our first meal in the magical city of lights, you might wonder? A warming beef bourguignon? Coq au vin? Non. For some reason, after wandering the neighbourhood in the oppressive drizzle, we gravitated towards what seemed to be the most welcoming sight for a pair of clueless, young and slightly homesick Asians in a strange new city: a Japanese restaurant.
I don’t even remember most of what we ate, but distinctly remember we’d made a grave mistake – the “miso” soup was pale and insipid, served with a Chinese soup spoon, and had strands of vermicelli floating within.
Much is said about travellers who avoid the local fare in favour of what’s familiar – the archetypical tourists who seek out chain restaurants while on holiday, more interested in the sights than in experiencing the destination through its food.
But on the flip side, I think there’s a lot of potential if you think outside the proverbial box. What if, for example, instead of the appalling Japanese restaurant we ended up eating in, we had stumbled across Kunitoraya near the Palais-Royal?
Japanese take on Sichuan dishes now available in Hong Kong – via Singapore
This long-standing restaurant is known for its exceptional udon, and laid the blueprints for one of my all-time favourite noodle joints in London – Koya Bar, which was opened in 2010 by two alumni from Kunitoraya. I would not hesitate to say that I would travel to London just to eat a bowl of its noodles.
I’ve been to Japan more times than I can count, but I still rate Koya as one of the best examples of the genre – not only are the noodles textbook perfect in texture and appearance, they effortlessly combine seasonal British ingredients (wild garlic or samphire, say) with more traditional Japanese flavour profiles (a very solid dashi soup base).
They’ve also done great work collaborating with food-industry icons to create inventive new udon dishes – in 2023, John Javier, previously chef at Happy Paradise in Hong Kong, presented a clam and coriander udon, while British chef Helen Graham created a hummus and burnt miso option.
Back in Asia, it’s taken me a while to give up my usual rounds of yakiniku, omakase sushi and izakaya meals in Tokyo to finally make space to try out a pizzeria – I’m not one to crave pizza often, and have always been sceptical about just how good it could be, even in Japan.
Obviously, I was happily proven wrong after a meal at Pizza Studio Tamaki (PST) in the Higashi-Azabu district in the Japanese capital. Like Koya, the restaurant has a solid foundation when it comes to the basics (excellent slow-fermented dough), but adds the X factor by way of integrating local ingredients
Recently, it has been promoting a Hiroshima oyster and lotus root pizza, and before that a Hokkaido octopus and Shizuoka wasabi pizza.
It might not be canon, but the fatty yellowtail pizza with pickled radishes, fresh from the wood-burning oven I tried, was every bit as memorable as the pizzas I’ve had in Italy.
If you don’t believe me, I hear Hong Kong might be getting its own PST sometime soon, so you can try its take on pizza yourself.
