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Though it became the official capital of Japan only in 1868, Tokyo has effectively been the administrative center of the country since the early 1600s. Then it was that Edo, as the city used to be known, was selected as the capital of the shogun rulers of Japan. Before its sudden elevation to power, Edo in the 1590s was just an obscure fishing village. By 1720, it had blossomed into a metropolis with a population of a million people and had become the largest city in the world.
As Edo flourished, so did its importance as a center of culture, tastily prominent among which is its cuisine. With a growing population, Edo had no shortage of mouths to feed, and so a great number of street stalls sprang up across the city to cater to the demand. Popular among the street stalls by the early nineteenth century were those serving the fried delight known as tempura. Though originally Portuguese, this dish of battered, deep-fried fish,
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shellfish or vegetable has became a mainstay of Japa-nese cuisine, best enjoyed directly after frying and then dipped in a sauce. A perfect accompaniment to tempura would be a dish of soba buckwheat noodles, among which cold zarusoba is a favorite.
To complement the tempura and soba, it would be hard to find a more fitting bevarage than good sake. Among the 13 sake breweries located in Tokyo is Toshimaya Shuzo Sake Brewery. Owned by Toshimaya Corporation, which traces its origins back to the early days of Edo, this brewery uses groundwater from Mount Fuji to make its sophisticated Kinkon series - the recipient of many gold prizes in the National New Sake Tasting Competition. Names to look for in the Toshimaya range are the dry, fragrant daiginjo Kinkon and the semisweet junmai daiginjo-Ginkon-exquisite sakes that reflect the perfected skills and experience of the brewing art. |
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