Japanese-Brazilian Fusion the Next Big Thing?

I did a double-take when a buddy of mine told me that his favorite all-you-can-eat sushi bar, Todai Houston, has added a full-service Brazilian churrascaria (South American BBQ) to its ginormous, Japanese-inspired seafood and sushi buffet.

Say what?

By itself this isn’t particularly interesting — big buffets like
Todai are always trying new menu items — except that I also recently
picked up the faintest buzz of a new restaurant in London (UK) called Sushinho that bills itself as a true Japanese-Brazilian fusion restaurant.

That’s interesting.

I dug deeper. And what I found was a potentially exciting new culinary fusion concept that is founded on a national/cultural exchange that started over 100 years ago.

Did you know that Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan? I sure didn’t.

Seems that toward the end of the 19th century, Brazil’s coffee
plantations experienced a labor shortage due to the abolishment of the
African slave trade. Also, Brazil’s attempts to recruit impoverished
Italian workers were blocked by the Italian government due to reports
of low wages and poor working conditions (many Italians would
eventually immigrate to Argentina where they profoundly influenced the Argentine culture).

Then at the start of the 20th century the end of feudalism in Japan
created a large population of rural, unemployed laborers. Brazil saw an
opportunity. In 1907, Brazil and Japan signed an agreement to send
Japanese workers to Brazil. In 1908, the ship Kasato Maru from the port of Kobe, Japan arrived in Brazil carrying 790 Japanese farmers. Many more Japanese immigrants followed.

Today, there are over 1.5 million Brazilians with some Japanese
ethnic origin (compared to 1.2 million in the US). On June 17, 2008,
Prince Naruhito of Japan arrived in Brazil to mark the centenary of
Japanese immigration to Brazil.

In London, Sushinho is an ambitious attempt to explore this
Japanese-Brazilian fusion through food. Opened in December 2008 to
generally good reviews, its menu offers provocative dishes such as
grilled tuna with cassava puree and chimichurri sauce, as well as
exotic cocktails like the Sakeirinha (a Caipirinha with sake instead of Cachaça ).

In the US, the Japanese-Brazilian concept has been monopolized in recent years by the New York-based Sushi Samba chain of upscale restaurants (which are clearly influenced by the hugely successful Peruvian-Japanese concept of the Nobu restaurant empire).

Back in Houston, the Japanese-Brazilian concept at Todai is
undoubtedly more a marriage of marketing convenience rather than a true
culinary fusion.

The marketing strategy for Todai’s corporate parent is to locate their Japanese seafood buffets in major metropolitan
markets with an Asian population of at least 5 percent. Indeed
Houston’s Asian population is almost exactly 5 percent of the total.

But that number did not sit well with Todai Houston’s Chef/Owner
Mark Shim. Why limit yourself to only 5 percent of the population in a
food-and-restaurant-crazy city like Houston? So with the blessing (or
at least knowledge) of Todai corporate, Chef Shim introduced the
churrascaria concept to Todai Houston about a year ago (no other Todai
franchise has a churrascaria).

The choice of churrascaria was a natural one for Chef Shim.
Obviously, a large percentage of Houston’s restaurant-going population
are steak-loving carnivores. But more personally, Chef Shim is the son
of Korean parents who immigrated to Argentina where he grew up.

A visit to Todai Houston is a fascinating experience. Located in a cavernous space in the Marq*E Entertainment Center,
your first impression is of the faint aroma of grilled meat. Servers in
black uniforms and headsets roam the elaborately decorated dining room
with the meat-laden skewers that are emblematic of a churrascaria.
Toward the back wall is a brightly lit and seemingly never-ending self
service buffet of seafood, sushi and other hot and cold dishes. A small
but well-appointed wine list is made available.

Though not as conceptually ambitious as some of the
Japanese-Brazilian fusion restaurants around the world, Todai Houston
may join their ranks as an unwitting precursor to what may be the next
big thing in culinary trends.