![]() ![]() Have you found any good bars here in Vancouver? You can’t just do exactly the same for your neighbors. Still, you can’t copy things because they might not apply in your neighborhood successful drinks are designed for locals and localities. You come back home with a different perspective of looking and thinking. Getting the chance to travel is an amazing thing. What’s the difference between Katana Kitten and a random sushi place where you can eat cheap and they have lychee tea and make colorful, sugary Happy Hour drinks? The difference is that freshness of the ingredients is important for us.īeing exposed to inspirational people is big too, like here in Vancouver. How important is having an appealing concept and vision? To be honest, we don’t really do anything special. We make sure that we can keep delivering the same taste and the same temperature and same textures. We wake up in the morning and come to work and do the right thing: to serve guests delicious drinks and food. ![]() At Katana, we just do what we are supposed to do for guests. How does a bar stand out in a world where every city has a million cocktail bars? I was like, “Wow, you don’t separate the trash?!” The bartenders were taking all these canned pineapple cans, cocktail napkins and garnishes and tossing it all into the same bin. To be honest, one of the first culture shocks, in addition to working in a busy New York City restaurant bar, was on my first day at work. PENTA : What was it like moving to New York from Tokyo? Did you have culture shock? The results were splendid, playful, and decidedly Urushido, such as The Hunt: gin, vermouth, ao-togarashi chili pepper, green yuzu and koji, a Japanese culinary mold. Recently, Penta caught up with him at the elegant Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver, where he had been invited to create a cocktail pairing experience with the hotel’s Botanist restaurant. Since then, Urushido’s reputation has spread far beyond New York. 14 on the World’s 50 Best Bars list that year. After a successful stint at Saxon + Parole as head bartender, he opened Katana Kitten in 2019. Still, it was a tremendous learning experience and in 2008, Urushido decided to set out on his own, relocating to New York full-time to work in the bartending industry. “But what I was doing was lots of copycat things.” “It was a big deal, writing menus,” he says. Yoshihiro sent him to New York City to pick up ideas for cocktail menus. One of Tokyo’s biggest restaurateurs, recruited him to work on some new restaurant openings. “It was about how to cut ice from big chunks, how to stir, how to shake,” he says. In his freetime, Urushido devoured the bartending manuals he found at the library. After graduation, he landed a job at Tableaux, a fancy French restaurant in Shibuya, first as food runner then bar back.Ĭocktail culture had been in Tokyo since the early 1900s, imported during Japan’s Meiji Restoration, when the country underwent a Western-style modernization campaign. At 18, his parents sent him to a private school in Tokyo. In high school, he struggled to focus, got into trouble, and eventually was kicked out. ![]() ![]() His father worked for Epson, the printing company. Just my opinion.The 39-year-old was born and raised in Nagano, Japan, a northern prefecture known for its ski resorts. The fittings are a little plain ,but at least they are of a good quality. Yes it does cost more at $220 ,but from experience its about the cheapest folded steel blade you are going to find that has a decent blade (1060), real hamon, and a nice tsuka with alternating wrap. If its a folded blade you want then my advice is to rather go for the Kris Yagyu katana ( ). Iv owned my fair share of Masahiro when I started collecting way back ,but I can safely say that the chances of me ever buying another one are very slim. The hamon is also definitely a wire brushed one and looks terrible. Masahiro are also extremely hit and miss when it comes to QC. My opinion give it a skip, for $120 I would either save some money and get the Musashi Bamboo which at least has a better blade or add a little and get a practical paul chen. The wrap was poor and the Ito of a very poor nylon like substance. The Rayskin on the tsuka is of really poor quality ( in fact so thin that its see through in places). The Blade on that Masahiro is horrible, the so called "folded" blade has an almost dull grey finish to it. Hi there ,I have seen and handled one and personally I would not waste my money ,rather get a practical Paul Chen or even a Musashi Bamboo. ![]()
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