Nobu Now
by Nobuyuki Matsuhisa
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nobuyuki MatsuhisaEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-10-11
ISBN: 0307236730
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Book Reviews of Nobu Now
Book Review: For the coffee table, not your kitchen.
Summary: 4 Stars
This book has two parts to discover:
1.The "difficult to get proper fresh ingredients" cookbook.
2. The beautiful styled color photographs amply filling half to more often a full page, face to face, well deserving a spot on someone's coffee table.
When you actually look at the required ingredients for each recipe, the majority are not ever going to be cooked by you, unless you can place a request weeks in advance with an insider at an Asian/Japanese market in a very large city.
One can easily make the Banana (and Chocolate) Egg Roll, the whimsical Cherry Jello, and the Mango Pudding from the dessert section. It gets harder obtaining fresh sea urchin eggs, baby turban shells, baby octopus, shiso leaf, pate brique, bayberry, Abalone in the shell, asari clams, Matsutake mushrooms, baby ayu (or other baby fish) and first rate Foie Gras, or Kobe beef, to name a few key ingredients.
I'd like to try the Sea Eel "Fish and Chips" if I could get fresh eel, and cook some of Nobu's other goodies, if I could only get the fresh Ray, mackerel, and tuna cheeks.
I'll pass on the Shark's Fin and Sea Urchin Pudding, or the Shark's Fin with Tuna and Black Bean Sauce.Having seen a dying "finned" shark helpless, upside down on the sandy bottom, with it's fins cut off, left to starve and die over several days unable to swim or eat, this "fin" is not for my cup of soup...and the fin is "just" dried cartilage that is prized mainly for it's expense, and less for "virility enhancement" to impotent Asian men. Let the impotent old guys take an effective Viagra, and let the sharks keep their fins and go on their way. Death by Starvation prolonged for days kills my appetite for this Asian tidbit.
At least he has left out the Japanese Whale meat recipes, and some of the other live-eaten critters that some may desire...I do enjoy eating most everything else.
Yes, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the books unwritten intent is that you must go, need to go, have to go only to one of Nobu's 13 restaurants, to try these magnificent appearing dishes, as you are not going to create them in your home without mucho work!! You will also realize that these shots are taken as if your eye is inches from the food...and from the photographers' lens...for it never looks this good in the restaurant...however close enough is good for the many who wait for weeks for a Saturday night table at one of his reataurants, to be served by one of his acolytes.
Having done some food styling and photography, I applaud the fine quality, however I've cooked more happily from cookbooks without pictures, when they had ingredients I could collect over even several days before cooking.
I like to cook and eat my own food, more than I like to look at stylized gorgeous photos. That goes even more so for even these beautiful dishes, with scarcely a fleck of Shimchi Togarashi, or even a Ginaan nut appearing even a millimeter out of perfect placement.
I take one point off for this being a high end restaurant coffee table book, rather than one with recipes adapted, or with new "doable" recipes, that a decent level home cook can make at home. Perhaps his next book will have recipes that moderate to advanced home cooks, not living by a superb Asian market, could gather ingredients within a couple days, for a similar beautiful meal. I do look forward to eating at one of his restaurants.
Summary of Nobu Now
Even for those who have never eaten in one of his restaurants, the name Nobu conjures up a magical world where diners enjoy luxurious food in a chic and glamorous setting.As one of the most celebrated chefs today, Nobu Matsuhisa is also one of the most international. His ever-expanding worldwide empire of fashionable restaurants now numbers thirteen, and they remain very much the places to eat and to be seen in each city.
His first book, Nobu: The Cookbook, a collection of his favorite seafood recipes, was an international bestseller. Nobu Now presents an exhilarating taste of how Nobu?s repertoire has continued to develop, enriched by his travels and experience in South America, the United States, and Europe, and by the cuisines of the nations in which his restaurants operate. Reflecting a new emphasis on fewer ingredients and a more home-cook-friendly sensibility, the dishes in Nobu Now are more inviting than ever to make.
You will find unique delights such as King Crab White Soufflé and Octopus Carpaccio, with nods to Western haute cuisine in dishes like Baby Turban Shells with Escargot Butter Sauce. A Mediterranean flair is evident in White Fish Somen with Pomodoro Sauce and in Black and Red Rice Risotto. Recipes such as Coriander Soba and Sea Eel ?Fish and Chips? give expression to his ingenious brand of fusion cuisine.
For the first time Nobu ventures beyond seafood and shares the exquisite meat and poultry dishes he has crafted, including Kobe Beef New-Style Sashimi and Lamb Chop with Miso Anti-Cucho Sauce. For the vegetarian, there are treats like Fruit Tomato and Vegetable Ceviche, Mushroom Toban Yaki, and Avocado Egg Pudding.
Nobu?s inspired desserts also encompass a broad reach of intriguing flavors and textures. Bamboo Jello and Banana Egg Roll lie alongside Passion Fruit Pasta, while Yuzu Soup with Apricot Ice Cream and Fruit Sake remind us of the basic Japanese sensibility underpinning all his food.
Indeed, the essence of Japanese cuisine?using simple techniques to bring out the flavors in the best of ingredients?is still at the heart of Nobu?s cooking. In Nobu Now he demonstrates how widely and how beautifully this tenet can be applied, resulting in the food that his admirers adore?light, modern, clean, and fresh.
Nobu Now, by food master and restaurateur Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, is a challenging book for the cook in this sense: Can you even begin to find these ingredients? And, having found the ingredients, can you decipher the code-written recipes well enough to come anywhere near the picture-perfect results tantalizing you on page after page? You just might be better off booking a reservation into one of the dozen Nobu restaurants scattered about the world and let seasoned professionals ease you in to a world of food that descends from the heart of Japanese fairy tales.
If this isn't a cookbook but a food book come to us mere mortals from the absolute heights of food porn, well, what a delicious book it is. Why take home a copy of the menu from Nobu when you can take home the book and page through so many glorious and exotic food possibilities, Hamo and Foie Gras with Japanese Truffle Sauce, say. "I am proud," Nobu Matsuhisa writes, "that Nobu cuisine remains, beyond any doubt, quintessentially Japanese... as I have explored ingredients in those other countrues, and as I have learnt from their cuisine... this style has acquired a greater simplicity, and has come to display a kind of serenity." Praise must be shared with photographer Eiichi Takahashi who has managed to capture this serenity in stunning photos.
Nobu Matsuhisa is like those few mountaineers who are so far beyond anyone else's skill level that, should they get in trouble on a mountain, there's no one on earth with enough talent to rescue them. Nobu exists in a world of his own making. Nobu Now is the proof in the pudding. --Schuyler Ingle
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