A taste of Nikkei cuisine

After returning from his culinary discovery trip to Lima, Peru, Chef Vijayakant Shanmugam shares his learnings about the colourful world of Nikkei cuisine.

- ARISTA KWEK

You might say that Chef 'Vijay' Vijayakant Shanmugam was fortunate. Waiting for him at the end of a nearly 30-hour flight was some serious jet lag — but also a world of cuisine that was bold, lively and deeply satisfying, the perfect antidote to any oncoming fatigue.

Indeed, a Nikkei restaurant isn’t the kind of place you go to for languid conversations punctuated by half-hearted bites of food. The sharp, punchy and wholesome flavours make you sit up, take notice, and inadvertently polish off everything that’s on your plate.

More than a fad

Despite its globally celebrated status today (the world’s sixth best restaurant is a position currently helmed by Maido, a Lima-based Nikkei restaurant), Nikkei food is more than just some trendy, new-age fusion cuisine.

Its heritage traces back to the 1800s with Japanese immigration to Peru. The end of feudalism in Japan had led to massive unemployment and poverty. Lured by the promise of owning more land and earning more money than they ever could back home, many Japanese readily signed labour contracts in Peru to work on what they believed were well-paying plantations.

Unfortunately, these first-generation immigrants soon discovered that Peru was far from what they had imagined. Neither land nor money were doled out to them in exchange for their hard work on the plantations. Discrimination and disease were also rife.

And yet, this resilient population stayed on, and eventually made a reputation for themselves as ]reliable and productive members of society. Amongst their many contributions, one of the greatest is undoubtedly Nikkei cuisine.

Greater than the sum of its parts