The most exciting cuisine development in Thailand in the past decade has been the emergence of Thai-style Japanese restaurants. Previously in Bangkok, real Japanese cuisine was found only on Soi Thaniya or Sukhumvit Road.

A good Japanese meal used to cost several thousand baht and was only available in a few restaurants. Now, "Japanese" restaurants are mushrooming and a meal costs just a few hundred baht. Of course, affordable prices are only found at the popular Thai-style Japanese restaurants like Oishi, Fuji, Zen and Yasai, where most of the ingredients such as shrimp, squid, tuna, mackerel and red snapper are local. Imported items such as octopus, giant clam, sea urchin, yellowtail, tuna belly (toro), and eel (unagi) are usually prohibitively expensive.

Following Thailand's 1998 campaign to promote its national cuisine, other countries followed suit. Japan is a good example. In 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries set up the Export Promotion Office, which launched the "Oishi" (delicious) campaign in 2005. Ironically, the word "oishi" has since been adopted - famously - by a Thai entrepreneur for Thai-style Japanese food and tea products.

The most popular Thai- style Japanese food that Thailand has contributed to the world is sukiyaki - a hotpot dish, or steamboat, made from a variety of meats, vegetables and tofu in a hot broth. But the real Japanese sukiyaki is a soy-sauce-based dish with sliced beef, onion and tofu that is dipped in beaten raw egg.

When Daimaru, the Japanese department store, opened in 1963 at Rajprasong, Thais were introduced to ready-to-eat Japanese food including the famous pan-fried dumpling, gyoza. The first Japanese restaurant, Hanaya, was established in Si Phraya more than a hundred years ago.

Nowadays, there are hundreds of small nigiri-sushi stalls all over Bangkok. They are found in office buildings, at train stations, on the pavements, and even at petrol stations. Some of these places are not very hygienic. Worst of all, the vinegary rice-balls with their various toppings are often not fresh or even safe to eat. Raw fish, even cooked shrimp, spoils easily in the tropical heat, and the taste of sushi is quite easily destroyed. Sushi aficionados avoid such places altogether.

Any Japanese sushi chef visiting Thailand would have a heart attack at how the Thais interpret their sushi and the way it is prepared without any sophistication. For instance, bright-green seaweed is not healthy and the local shrimp roe is heavily dyed with artificial colouring.

The proliferation of Japanese cuisine in Thailand also has to do with the Thai chefs who have learned how to cook Japanese dishes. These young men, many of them from Isaan, started out as kitchen hands in real Japanese restaurants. After a few years, they moved up the ladder and began handling the knives and cooking the dishes. Those who've worked for seven to 10 years will know how to cook basic Japanese food and will have memorised the Japanese names. The best among them are sometimes recruited to serve as chefs for Japanese ambassadors around the world. For the Japanese Foreign Ministry, it is cheaper to employ Thai chefs. Those with English-language skills eventually look for positions in New York or London where high-end Japanese restaurants are popular and they can earn good salaries.

Cookman Redux

The Nation

 The writer can be contacted at cookman@nationgroup.com.