Yakitori Guy.
Yakitori Guy WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Have
Rosminah Brown
you ever eaten something that was so delicious refer to any assortment of meat or vegetables grilled over the and fascinating that you up and left your job, fire. Yakitori is a small bite, literally, and when done right, it is a rebranded your name and life to revolve entirely around this delightful preparation of chicken—juicy and grilled to perfection favorite food? And you made it your personal journey to learn on the spot. It is carefully cultivated, fanned with smoke, spritzed about it, make it and spread the word to others? That’s what with sake and, by the end, it is the edible embodiment of your yakitori did to one young man, now relationship with the cook, the heat and known simply as Yakitori Guy. the chicken itself. Yakitori is a Japanese preparation of Yakitori is a Japanese preparation Yakitori Guy graduated from UCSB grilled chicken and comes from the of grilled chicken and comes from in environmental studies, where his the words yaki (grill) and tori time working in the campus dining words yaki (grill) and tori (chicken). (chicken). It has erroneously been commons directly influenced his turned into a generic term for grilled food interests. Who says a university things on skewers dipped in teriyaki sauce. But Yakitori Guy is education is just about taking classes? It’s the whole experience! here to inform you that it’s strictly grilled chicken. After college, he worked in the Bay Area tech industry, but the The traditional Japanese sauce is known as tare (pronounced call of yakitori kept beckoning him. Eventually, he was making TAH-ray) rather than teriyaki, but can you see where the tareyakitori every weekend in his apartment for friends. Finally, he yaki came from. The term robatayaki, however, can be used to resolved to devote himself full-time to the art. He quit his tech 26 | EDIBLE SANTA BARBARA SUMMER 2022
