THE EAST IN EDEN Adventures in Asian eats and drinks Up North
By Anna Faller
For decades in northern Michigan, folks with a craving for Asian cuisine had few options — generally, a Chinese buffet or two on the outskirts of town. But as the region’s population and demographics have expanded, so too has its cultural reach. Thai and Asian-fusion eateries in Traverse City, Petoskey, and Frankfort led the charge, and today, you don’t have to go far to find a market or menu featuring eats and drinks from several countries of the East — India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, and Vietnam among them. If you’re looking to venture beyond the Styrofoam clamshell of General Tso’s chicken, your usual California roll, or an in-mouth squirt of squeeze-bottled sake at your local hibachi, consider letting one of these knowledgeable and passionate local guides to Far East food and drinks lead the way.
MATT DURSUM Blue Goat Wine & Provisions, Traverse City In Japanese, sake simply means alcohol. The beverage most Westerners consider sake is actually a spirit known as “Nihonshu.” Loosely translated, Nihonshu means Japanese wine, and though it’s not derived from grapes, its countless flavors and aromas also spring from a single source. As Matt Dursum, the resident sake expert at Blue Goat Wine & Provisions explains, the base of all sake is polished white rice. “Every rice grain has a husk on the outside,” he says, “and all of the sugars are concentrated on the inside.” As such, the percentage of husk that’s left intact is a style choice made by the brewer. Once polished, the rice is steamed and sprinkled with a traditional enzyme, called koji, which breaks the starch down into simpler sugars. From there, the fully-formed starter is mixed with more steamed rice, water, and yeast before undergoing fermentation — it’s here that alcohol joins the party. But, unlike typical fermentation, sake’s fermentation is conducted at cold temperatures, which slows the process down. “Sake is fermented between six and 14 degrees Celsius,” says Dursum. “It’s similar to ‘lagering’ in the beer world and can take a long time.” What do you get when you mix cold conditions with a lengthy fermentation process? Survey says: more alcohol. “No other alcohol has a higher percentage when it’s all said and done,” says Dursum. “Sake can be up to 20 percent alcohol easily, so it’s a pretty powerful brew.”
From here, sake falls into four main categories. The first two, Ginjo and Daiginjo are subsets of the larger Junmai, or pure rice, style of sake. “Anything without added alcohol is called Junmai,” Dursum says. “Then, you can divide it into polishing ratios: Ginjo is polished so that up to 60 percent of the rice grain remains, while Daiginjo is polished less, no more than 50 percent, making it a slightly more premium brew. The third style, Honjozo, is defined by the addition of brewer’s alcohol and water, resulting in a clean and easy-sipping spirit. “Then you have Nigoori sake,” says Dursum, “which is the cloudy sake. It has a little bit of fermented rice left in it to make it cloudy.” Blue Goat’s in-house sake selection includes all four types, plus a few extras. “A few years ago, when the ownership changed, they expanded their alcohol selection in general, and sake was on that list,” says Dursum. “Right now, we have about six types, and we’re looking to expand.” For a beverage beginner, Dursum recommends serving sake with food. “Try a couple of them, compare them, and eat food with them,” he says. Sushi and sashimi come immediately to mind as suitable pairings, but sake need not be limited to Asian meals any more than French wines are limited to French foods; seasonal pairings, like soft cheeses, asparagus, and even fried fish are great complements to sakes, says Dursum. One warning if you’re revisiting an already-opened bottle: Don’t. Aged sake should be left to the brewers, not your bar cart. “Sake does not last long after opening,”
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says Dursum, “so, unless it specifically says “aged sake,” don’t age it. Drink it fresh and drink it immediately.” But above all, don’t be reluctant to try a variety of sakes. “Look at it as a journey into
discovering something new,” says Dursum. “Sake is so complex, and there’s so much out there, it’s a shame when people don’t try it, because they’re missing out on [that] journey.”
