- [Tatsu] Kemuri means "smoke" in Japanese, so everything
we do, I try to incorporate a little bit
of some kind of smoke.
I just wanna incorporate the roots of Japanese cooking, and
my experience from being in Texas to create this, like -- I
don't know -- "John Wayne on acid in Tokyo" kind of situation.
You know what I mean, so.
(laughing)
Izakaya is a Japanese gastropub; it's essentially a go-to
place for, you know, people in the neighborhood in Japan.
And the whole concept is, you're drinking and
eating little snacks here and there, and you're just
shooting the (bleep) with your friends -- that's izakaya.
- [Takuya] To me, the vibe's great, you know. It feels like
kinda walking into Japan. There's all these still Texas
elements inside and really high energy, positive energy.
- It's like a roadhouse in Japan.
(laughing)
Or, izakaya in Texas.
(fire crackling)
- [Takuya] Ramen is very regional; you can tell, especially
as we've traveled all over Japan.
- We live in Texas, where we can find awesome barbecue.
- [Takuya] It's just the natural progression.
- [Tatsyu] Essentially, Texas ramen is regional to here.
When we started playing around with it in 2012, family
meal -- let's put a brisket on it, oh, that's pretty good --
that really started it all.
I think it's all about the balance.
For me, I think brisket can't be too dry; essentially, like,
it melts in your mouth.
- [Takuya] The thing about brisket and smoking, so many
different variables that they place.
People that eat ramen are like really passionate about it.
[Takuya] Same thing with barbecue.
- [Tatsu] A lot of people ask, "How does Japanese food work
with food from Texas and smoked stuff?" and I always tell
them, the core of Japanese cuisine is dashi: it's actually
smoked, petrified bonito shavings, and you make stock
out of that, and it's almost used in every dish.
There is a smoky, umami element to it, just, you know, kind
of hits you right there.
(sizzling)
[Tatsu] When you go to Japan, in usually, like summertime,
there's a lot of street festivals, and they have a lot
of street vendors. And one of the things I love
is street corn -- in Japan, essentially it's butter-soy.
This corn is grilled, we skewer it, we add a little
butter/soy, and we finish it off with the yuzu pepper aioli
we make, queso fresco, there's togarashi bonito
flakes, green onions.
In Texas, we have the Hispanic influence, so the Mexican
street corn, you know.
- [Takuya] Elote.
- [Tatsu] It's elote, so, marry those together, why not.
BBQ Boat: it's essentially this platter of barbecue, but
it's kind of on the rotation, whatever we are feeling
at the time, we'll smoke it and make a little barbecue boat.
- [Takuya] A sushi boat.
- [Tatsu] It's kind of a little play on a barbecue
plate, our way.
The boat is cool, because it's an eclectic mix, you get
to experience what we're doing here.
- Sometimes we'll put stuff on the boat
that we don't have on the menu, put three items on there.
Today we're gonna put a brisket, duck, and unagi.
- [Tatsu] Which is eel.
- [Takuya] Well the brisket is a Texas-style brisket,
so we smoke it.
The unagi is the freshwater eel, that gets cold-smoked, and
then we finish on the binchotan grill.
Binchotan is a Japanese coal that burns longer and cleaner.
And then we have a duck, that gets smoked, and then we
finish it on the binchotan grill as well.
We always try to put the brisket on there, and the other two
are kind of rotating. I feel like a lot of people wouldn't
order it, but the unagi, once they try it, then they'll want
to start ordering it again.
- [Tatsu] This space right here used to be a barbecue spot.
Essentially this spot worked out perfect.
It's not a planned thing, it's not like we made this
out of thin air, but it's something we lived through.
- [Takuya] Yeah, definitely a representation of us, being
Japanese-Texans.
- [Tatsu] Yeah, it's just natural progression
from who we are.
We're Japanese, and I'm an immigrant, and I was raised here, so
(laughing) it just happened, you know.
For more infomation >> Texas Bomb Squad Makes Easter Egg Hunt For Visually Impaired Kids | NBC Nightly News - Duration: 1:46. 
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