Restaurant Antcicada, which offers insect foods and drinks, has opened in the Nihombashi area in Chuo Ward, Tokyo.
"The earth is full of undiscovered ingredients," owner Yuta Shinohara said. "I want people to taste the bounty of the earth with all five senses through a food experience full of surprises and discoveries."
The restaurant's signature dish is cricket ramen. The soup's broth is made of a blend of two types of crickets: the two-spotted cricket and the European house cricket, both of which were caught in Japan. About 100 crickets are required to make one bowl of cricket ramen. The crickets are crushed into powder and kneaded into noodles, and soy sauce used for the dish is made up of cricket protein
fermented with koji rice. Crickets are also used in oil and available as ramen toppings.
The umami of the dish is expressed with a light, elegant taste hinted with a savory flavor.
In collaboration with breweries and distilleries, the restaurant developed insect-based beer and gin. The beer, made with roasted crickets and malt added to the wort, has a sticky protein-derived foam. The gin has a pear and green apple bouquet due to the fruity aromatic pheromones of the giant water bugs used in the distillation process.
Shinohara is from Hachioji in remote western Tokyo. When he was a child, he liked to run around the mountains and rivers around his home and observe insects, wildflowers and nuts. These experiences in combination with his inquisitive mind naturally led to him eating bugs.
"In order to understand the insects I caught, I studied them in encyclopedia and kept them as pets," he recalled. "And in the end I ate them."
He began to spread the word about the eating of insects on social media when he was a student at Keio University. By using online platforms, he was able to organize a project and events where people could catch and eat insects in the fields and mountains. After co-developing with his favorite ramen restaurant a cricket ramen, he began to offer bowls of it at the events.
Together with chefs and fermentation researchers he met through these activities, he opened the Antcicada restaurant on June 4, naming it after the combination of "ant" and "cicada."
The restaurant has been well received with some of the customers telling Shinohara that their impression of insects has changed.
"Insects are often thought of as creepy, but they have been eaten in Japan and other parts of the world since ancient times. I'm happy if this restaurant becomes a place where people can eat the unique creatures and explore the unknown taste of insects," Shinohara said.
The restaurant is open Friday through Sunday. The cricket ramen is served from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, or until the soup runs out. A course meal with insects, wildflowers and game meet is available on Fridays and Saturdays by reservation only.
-- Good source of protein
Insect diets contain high quality protein, are easier to raise than livestock, and have less of an impact on the environment. In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released a report recommending insect diets as a solution to food shortages caused by population growth, and this has become a hot topic of discussion. According to the report, about two billion people, mainly in Africa, Asia and South America, are believed to eat insects.
In Japan as well, insects have been traditionally eaten in Nagano, Gifu and elsewhere, such as locusts boiled in caramel, bee larvae cooked in rice and so on. Crickets, in particular, are high in protein, and research on their use as a food source has progressed in recent years.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
