- We are Sorted, a group of foodies from London
who today are way out of our comfort zone.
- Feel like I need some moral support.
- [Narrator] We've been sent to Tokyo in Japan
and tasked with cooking up a food and sake pairing menu
for some locals.
- I'm so nervous.
- [Narrator] So, first job is to immerse ourselves
in the culture, food, and sake,
to work out how we achieve probably
our biggest challenge yet.
- This might be the hardest thing we've ever done.
- Hello, I'm Jaime, this is Ben,
and this is Fridge Cam.
- We've spent over 10 years cooking together
and yet I think this was perhaps
our most challenging challenge ever.
- [Narrator] Previously on Sorted.
Our five protagonists have spent the last 48 hours
in Tokyo experiencing extraordinary new food,
restaurants, and sake.
- Wow.
- [Narrator] They have sought the wisdom
of brewery presidents, master chef,
sake experts, and this wonderful man.
- [Jaime] One shot, one shot!
- [Narrator] And have learned the lessons
of 1000 winters but one lesson stands above all others.
- Sake with seafood, the tool that allows your tongue
to taste in three dimensions.
- Such an incredible expression on the palate.
- That is incredible.
- [Narrator] They have designed their menu with this in mind
but with standards and expectations so high,
will they succeed in their challenge.
(upbeat rock music)
- James and I have a rough plan and we're trying
to work through a list of things that need doing
in a certain order to get where we need.
The guys are helping every which way
but kind of playing to their own skill set.
Mike, attention to detail, one job
that'll take it a while to get it done
but he does like to sit.
- One of the amazing things about Japanese food
is the amount of care they take in prepping
and making and the attention to detail.
It does not help when you're in a rush.
- [Ben] Barry was put in charge of styling
and dressing the restaurant.
- So I've now just got to lay the table,
get this all set, make sure we got all the crockery
ready to go.
- [Ben] And Jaime was helping James
and I out in the kitchen.
- I might be peering into the future here
but if we fail this challenge,
there's gonna be one reason for that.
- One of the stand out lessons from our trip
was that sake really accentuates the taste of umami
when paired with the right food.
So our first dish would consist of a Japanese take
on an Italian dish that is normally made
with pasta in a broth
except we were gonna swap out the pasta
for kishimen noodles and then make a daishi broth
with konbu and bonito flakes.
Now comes the seasoning.
We're gonna use some of our sake
in the daishi broth to season it with salt and mirin.
- I'm makin' the pickles.
We're using a recipe from, an old recipe,
which was bread and butter pickles.
- [Jaime] But with added mushrooms and daikon
and the pickling liquid was made with rice wine vinigar
and shichimi seasoning.
- He's saying words to me in Japanese
and I don't understand.
Teaspoon, tablespoon, it's the same thing right?
- And mushrooms sauteed with chestnuts,
sesame oil and shiso leaves on toast.
- All paired with a rich, full-bodied sake
from the Misumi brewery that we'd picked a day earlier,
hoping to replicate some of
that seafood and sake combination
that'd we'd experienced at so many points
throughout the trip.
- Wow.
- I just realized we forgot to buy salt.
Luckily the place that we're in has salt
and they've very kindly given it to us.
- They don't use salt in Japan, they use soy and mirin.
- You've been here five minutes.
- Time is currently not a concept for me.
I'm just getting on with what I'm doing.
I'm not really sure how long I've got to go
or what I've got to do left.
I'm just trying to get it done.
(upbeat rock music)
- [Jaime] And for our main courses, charred prawn
and tempura battered whitebait with Japanese dips.
- So the prawns have been shelled
and now I am butterflying them.
This is a job that I'd probably take two hours to do
and need to be done in about 20 minutes.
- [Jaime] And daishi poached salmon
with vanilla, burnt leeks, and Japanese pear.
- Tad more sugar.
Umeboshi which is like a sour plum.
That's gonna go in a sauce.
Look how sour it is.
(bleeps)
- An hour and 25 minutes to go.
Mike is still butterflying prawns.
- I'm being hurried.
I know I'm being slow so I'm trying to speed this up
but it is a bit fiddly.
Trying to make them look good
and still do them quickly.
(clock ticking)
(upbeat rock music)
- I'm waiting to be given a new job.
- Teriyaki mayonnaise.
It's very, very simple.
- Delicious.
- Still here.
- Moved to the salmon which we bought as filets
and thought we're pretty much good to go.
Take 'em out of the packaging.
They definitely need deboning.
We don't have tweezers.
It's a very time consuming job.
- [Ben] To ensure our guests have an authentic experience,
Jaime and I tried out some Japanese.
(speaking in Japanese)
- Welcome.
(speaking in Japanese)
I was saying ida chai earlier
and apparently that's what babies say
because they can't pronounce sh
so I just sounded like a toddler.
This is hard.
- Some gorgeous flowers.
We'll just use one or two petals here and there.
(man mumbles)
- Oh my god.
(clock ticking)
- People are gonna start walking through that door probably
in about 20 minutes.
Ben and James are puttin' the finishing touches
to prepping so that they have hot food
when they sit down.
- I've been gettin' all the plates ready,
settin' the scene, been working on the ambiance.
No, the Feng Shui.
- I don't think that's offensive but it could be.
- 20 minutes to go.
(upbeat rock music)
- [Ben] And 10 minutes before guests were due to arrive,
James hit a snag.
- I almost burnt my caramelized Panko breadcrumbs.
- [Ben] Mate, that's not just a bit burnt.
That's ruined their pan.
- That hob, quite hot.
One batch of mushrooms burnt.
- We got three minutes.
Three minutes people are outside,
people are outside.
- I was really calm and collected
and now it's just hit home what we're doing.
- You're not their first point of contact.
I could ruin it before we've even begun.
Everyone good?
One o'clock, it's go time.
Here we go.
Hello, hi, welcome.
- Mike spent all morning learning Japanese
and then every time he's opened the door, he said "hello".
(speaking in Japanese)
- No one looked disgusted.
(speaking in Japanese)
Don't do it.
You, move.
- I've got the shakes, actually got the shakes.
(speaking in Japanese)
- Panic is in the prep.
This bit should be okay right?
One minute to service.
- [Narrator] And then it was time to serve
our three appetizers and accompanying sake.
The first being a Japanese take on a (speaking in Italian).
- It's an Italian dish but it's made
with a daishi broth, so konbu and bonito flakes,
seasoned with sake which we'll come to later on
and then it's also finished with some kishimen noodles
and a selection of vegetables
finished with a few more bonito.
- It's the first taste.
If they walk out now we know we've done a bad job.
- Just thinking about plating dishes two and three,
the two pickled perfect, three our mushrooms on toast.
We forgot that they're being served with chopsticks.
That might make dividing it quite difficult.
The next two plates are some home pickled vegetables
and they're served with bread, toast, and butter
and a miso mayo.
A selection of mushrooms cooked in a little bit of miso,
sesame, spring onions.
- So to celebrate that, our first sake
is (speaking in Japanese) from the Misumi Brewery.
- [Narrator] We hoped our daishi and sake pairing
would unlock that amazing elevation of flavors
the sake and seafood can deliver
but had we picked the right combination?
- [Ben] Initial reactions seemed good
but with us not being able to speak any Japanese,
it was really hard to tell exactly how the diners felt.
- Hello everyone, I'm just gonna explain the salmon dish.
We thought this would pair really nicely with the sake
so the sake inspired the dish rather
than the other way around.
The sake pairs perfectly with fish.
We were inspired by a restaurant that we went to
called Sushi M.
They paired vanilla with prawns
so we've paired the vanilla with salmon.
It's cooked in a broth of ginger,
a little bit of daishi, garlic, and vanilla.
And they're served with burnt leeks,
caramelized Panko, and Japanese pear.
- Just to explain a little more about the sake,
as you pointed out it's a sparkling sake,
lightly clouded, fermented in the bottle.
It's a junmai, pairs beautifully well with fish.
- And the last plate for you, do tuck in.
It's the whitebait kakiage
with some blow torched prawns
and the whole thing is served
with two different dips.
A teriyaki mayonnaise and a sour plum ketchup.
- Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming.
- [Narrator] With the lunch service over,
we breathe a sigh of relief.
The atmosphere in the room seemed mostly positive
but in order to get an honest opinion,
our guests left the restaurant to give their feedback.
(speaking in Japanese)
- I was surprise abroad people understand daishi,
right, 'cause it's really Japanese, you know,
traditional things.
- Fusion usually means the best of two things put together
making a mediocre combination
but on this lunch I was particularly surprised
by the combination of ingredients.
The pairing of that particular Nagano sake
with that salmon was really beautiful.
(speaking in Japanese)
- The sake elevated it to a new level of scrumptiousness.
(speaking in Japanese)
- And exhale.
Chefs, the feedback was insane.
Boys you absolutely smashed it.
- For however long it's been,
the few days that we've been here,
we've nailed how much we've learned.
Like, we've taken so much in.
- Japanese food has to look beautiful
and I think that's some of the best food
that's ever come out of Sorted ever.
- There were a lot of compliments
on all of the elements that you guys made as well
so don't give all the credit.
Pickle, mayonnaise, you know.
(men laughing)
- For 24 hours from when we sat down
and tried to hatch a plan and a menu together
and what we've been inspired by.
I thought it was pretty good goin'.
- I've definitely had some of the best food
of my life in Tokyo
but the thing I'll be taking home
is just understanding and respect
and what that really means.
Not just for the food but for the people,
for everything around the food itself.
- We did it.
Well done, well done.
- Do we bow at each other?
Is that how that, I've not really learnt
how this works.
(speaking in Japanese)
(upbeat music)
- Or maybe all the diners were just being super polite.
You guys, you can be honest.
How do you reckon we got on and perhaps
what was your favorite dish that we created
on that lunchtime.
- That whole trip was a completely life changing experience
for me and it's all thanks to you guys commenting,
and talking to us and telling us
that we should go there and experience
these kind of things so thank you very much.
And also obviously a massive thank you to JFOODO.
I don't know how else we would've found
those experiences otherwise.
- If you like seeing us out of our comfort zone
and hopefully bringing you something
that you can learn from too,
then make sure you give the video a like.
The more likes it gets, the more chance we can do
more of these in the future.
- There's only one way that I can now muck this up
and that's with a terrible dad joke of the week.
What's the best way of getting in touch with a fish?
- I have no idea.
- Just drop him a line.
Anyway, it's been great.
Thank you so much.
- [Ben] You should've quit while you were ahead.
- [Jaime] I'll see you, bye bye bye.
As we mentioned, we don't
just make top quality YouTube videos.
We've built the Sorted Club where we use
the best things we've learnt to create stuff
that's hopefully interesting
and useful to other food lovers.
Check it out if you're interested.
Thank you for watching and we'll see you in a few days.
(beeping)
- Everything's too calm.
Might burn one of these pieces of toast
and set the fire alarm off.
Do you think it'll cause a little bit of (gasps)?