FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS Open everyday 11am – 9pm Dine-in · Takeout · Delivery 4660 S Yosemite St, Greenwood Village dumplingfactoryco.com (720) 420-9461 CAFE Asian Fusion BY ASHLEE REDGER ® Reading Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! feels like having a conversation with a friend — if your friend were an expert in Japanese American culture and had a story for each one of his ex- cellent restaurant recommendations. In his new book, Denver-based author Gil Asakawa narrates the past and present of Japanese food in the United States while weaving in stories from a childhood that combined two cultures into one delicious culinary identity. Asakawa is a third-generation Japanese American who lived in Japan until the age of thirteen, when his family moved to northern Virginia, then to Denver in the 1970s. His father was born in Hawaii and joined the U.S. Army, so Asakawa felt an American infl uence even before emigrating. “My dad was very culture-fl uid. He would speak English to us in the house and English with all his GI friends. He would even speak English to my mom, too. But my mom always spoke more Japanese,” Asakawa says. “I feel like we had this bicultural upbringing, and it never felt like one was fi ghting the other.” In the book, Asakawa tells stories of his mother making hamburgers or spaghetti for dinner, or his father grilling a steak — meals that were served with an ever-present bowl of rice. Often, he says, his mom would have rice, salmon and some pickled vegetables while he and his brothers ate the more “American” dishes. “She had a very obsti- nate intake of Japanese cuisine,” he jokes. On special occasions or when they had out-of-town visitors, the family would go to Benihana. While chronicling the last century of Japanese restaurants in America in Tabemasho! Let’s Eat!, Asakawa recounts the experience: “It’s hard to explain now how amazing it was to dine at a restaurant in the 1960s that presented Japanese food as something that regular, ev- eryday Americans could enjoy, and with their entire families no less. Benihana made it ‘safe’ for middle America to like Japanese food, even if it wasn’t exactly the dishes that a Japanese in Japan might choose to eat.” While food has always been a big part of 18 Asakawa’s life, it hasn’t always been a subject of his work. In fact, one of his fi rst gigs out of college was as Westword’s fi rst music editor, starting in 1983 at the then-six-year-old news- paper. Throughout his nearly four decades in the print and online media industry, he’s been involved in countless Colorado outlets, from eTown radio in Boulder to the Denver Post and Colorado Public Television. In 2004, he published his fi rst book, Being Japanese American, about the broader experience of having a blended heritage. Asakawa says he doesn’t think of Tabe- masho! Let’s Eat! as a followup to Being Japa- Author Gil Asakawa loves taking photos of his meals. nese American; rather, it’s a new lens on his cultural identity that has evolved from chang- ing technology. “[Being Japanese American] was really before social media and having really good smartphones with cameras so that you can take ‘food porn,’” he notes. “It’s before I realized how much of a foodie I had become. I take pictures of almost everything I eat. ... I’ve become really immersed in food.” His obsession shows throughout the book as Asakawa reminisces about eating deli- ciously unctuous tonkotsu ramen in the dish’s home region of Kyushu in Japan or drinking Calpis (a cultured milk drink known as Calpico in America) as a kid. Denver readers of Tabe- masho! will be delighted with the many refer- ences to local restaurants such as Tokio, Sushi Den and Ramen Star. The chapter on Japanese American ingenuity describes Colorado-made Karami Japanese Salsa, a jarred condiment that has roots in a Japanese side dish called tsukudani that is made with Pueblo green chiles (instead of more traditional wakame seaweed) and mixed with soy sauce and sugar. You can fi nd Karami salsa at Pacifi c Mercantile Company, at 1925 Lawrence Street. Another chapter on donburi (rice bowls topped with meat and vegetables) describes the evolution of a beef-and-rice dish called gyudon. Asakawa explains how, in 1899, the Japanese gyudon fast-food restaurant Yoshi- noya was established and eventually set up its fi rst offi ce outside of Japan in Denver in 1973. While the chain eventually pulled out of Colorado, one of its executives remained and took over a few of the locations, reopening them as Kokoro restaurants. Today you can still get gyudon (plainly called beef bowls on the menu now), as well as “Sobaghetti” yakisoba and a variety of other Japanese American dishes at Kokoro’s two locations, in Arvada and on South Colorado Boulevard in the University Hills neighborhood. The story behind Kokoro is only a taste of what Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! has to share. For Denver foodies, Japanese cuisine en- thusiasts and fellow Japanese Americans, Asakawa has created a casual history that is detailed but easy to enjoy, and opinionated without being pretentious. If you want to learn unexpectedly delightful history while discovering a new set of restaurants to love, grab yourself a copy and get hungry. Tabemasho! Let’s Eat!: A Tasty History of Japanese Food in America is available from online retailers, including Tattered Cover, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org and Amazon. SEPTEMBER 15-21, 2022 WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | westword.com GIL ASAKAWA
