Japanese Cuisine for Everyone

After being an exchange student in Japan, I found myself longing for the foods my host mom made, and decided to try cooking them myself! (Despite my absolute inability to cook previous to this.) This book provides recipies that taste exactly like the foods that could be found both at my host mom's table and at Japanese restaurants. They're easy to follow, include lots of photos to illustrate each step, and allow for improvisation for ingredients that are sometimes hard to find. I recommend Quick and Easy Japanese Cuisine highly for those looking to start (or continue) a cullinary adventure!

I bought this book from a Japanese bookstore in "Japan Town" in San Francisco on vacation. I am online now buying more for my friends. I compared this book with every other english language Japanese cookbooks in the store (and there were MANY). I found this one to be superior to the rest as it contained everything I would need to prepare meals. I should mention I have lived in Japan for 5 years and have a good feel for what is authentic. This book has allowed me to create some very nice meals at home approaching resturant quality of those found in Japan. I expecially like the pictures that show all the steps of the preparation including pictures of the ingredients. Also included is a section that shows how food is served (presentation on table). Honestly, I don't see how you can go wrong buying this book. Its inexpensive and contains EVERY aspect you need to be sucessful: tools and utensils, knife skills, ingredients, recipies, and presentation. Now I just wish I could find similar books for Greek, Italian, Thai, and so on... -Steve Maercklein Austin, Texas

This book was given to me over a decade ago by a Japanese exchange student Kay, who stayed with my family. She was a wonderful guest and she even cooked some of the things in the book for us. This was the book which sparked my interest in Japanese cooking. I still use it to this day. It's a great basic book for someone just getting started and a good reference book for anyone who is familiar with Japanese food. It has some good timeless photos, especially for being an older book. It also has several black and white pages with photos and drawings of cookware, utensils, table setting, the various meal courses and a guide to tea. Overall, it's worth owning, fair for a coffee table book and wonderful in the kitchen!

I have been living in Japan for 3 years and we are about to move back to the U.S. One of my Japanese friends pulled out her copy of this book to give me some recipes. She actually bought it when she lived in the U.S. so she would have English language versions of recipes to give her American friends. She found this book to be very close to her mother's and grandmothers' way of cooking. The recipes are easy to follow and the illustrations of preparation techniques are very helpful even for someone without any prior knowledge of Japanese food preparation.

After my wife and I left San Francisco and moved to the South, one of the greatest pleasures we miss is our izakaya (sake house) where they serve authentic, home-style Japanese food. Not to be outdone, I picked up a copy of this book which had recipes of many of the dishes to which we had grown fond. The author really does walk the reader through the fundamentals of Japanese cooking, from making rice to preparing dashi, the basic stock in many recipes. In addition, the book is loaded with helpful photographs and illustrations. My wife has been quite pleased with the results of my efforts, thanks to this book. I recommend it highly!