Nishimura

With 32 years history in Hong Kong, Nishimura Japanese Restaurant has been a pioneer in offering Japanese cuisine made with Japanese ingredients. Now, 25 years have passed since Chef Kato came to Hong Kong as a sushi chef. To adhere to the traditions, meticulous selection of ingredients is necessary. From fish to meat, vegetable and seasonings, only Japanese products are used. Chef Kato has learnt from his culinary experience in high-class restaurants including those in 5-star hotels that, to make delicious sushi and sashimi, using fresh and safe ingredients is the most important.

This time a colorful lunch box is introduced. It is popular among Hong Kong customers and is a collection of seasonal ingredients from all over Japan, including golden eye snapper from Tokyo, tomato from Hokkaido, bitter gourd from Okinawa, “Maitake” mushroom from Fukuoka, “Wagyu” from Miyazaki and Japanese prawns. The dessert after dinner, made with melon from Shizuoka and mandarin orange from Oita and “filled with the seasonal deliciousness of Japan from north to south", is Kato chef's pride. As a restaurant that has been certified, they are going to promote sake in addition to Japanese ingredients. In autumn, the restaurant will encourage customers to pair the oily Pacific saury from Hokkaido with sake from all over Japan.

On the prospects for the future, President Sato thinks that it would be essential to have a good coordination between Japan that wants to export items and the EU that wants to control imports. The EU has strict import regulations, and compared to other countries, many items cannot be imported because they use certain pesticides or contain certain animal products. As a result, products manufactured by Japanese companies in Europe are distributed more in the market than the food ingredients from Japan. Furthermore, while in the EU, products usually carry expiration dates, and in Japan, they generally carry best-before dates that are shorter than expiration dates. Such shorter length of best-before dates can also be an obstacle for the import. President Sato says, “If these issues are resolved, I have a lot of food items that I would like to import.” He has high expectations for the increase of imports following the conclusion of the EPA between Japan and the EU, and the increase in the number of products that are developed and manufactured for export purpose.