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Wednesday, we went to Streets of Osaka at Zentan next to the Kimpton Donovan Hotel. We snapped Zentan executive chef Yo Matsuzaki and executive chef Nobu Yamazaki of Michelin-starred Sushi Taro, who collaborated on the event celebrating street culture from Japan.
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Zentan was transformed into a lively, Osakan street festival complete with food stalls, shochu and sake tastings, sushi, sumo watching, art pieces and live street music. Guests were given a raffle ticket upon entering, and all proceeds from the event raffle will go directly to the Human Rights Campaign to help support its mission of equal rights for the LGBTQ community. Here, Zentan private events manager Mariah Howes, GM Katie Miller, lead bartender Matt Allred and Nehan Spirits co-founder Jesse Falowitz — each holding a bottle of Mizunomai high proof barley shochu.
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The event started with a VIP reception where guests could learn Japanese cooking from chefs Matsuzaki, Yamazaki, and Zentan sushi chef Lin ZhenQun, who taught hands-on street food and sushi classes, and Allred treated them with a welcome cocktail. The reception was followed by the general admission session featuring new Zentan cocktails and enough food to train as a sumo wrestler. Here, Young Won executive director Christian Choi, holding Dassai sake, and Arize Bazaar’s Kris Marchu, holding Kubota Senju sake.
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A native of Osaka, chef Matsuzaki is an expert in Japanese street fare, and his specialty is robata, a Japanese cooking technique similar to barbecuing. Osakan classics prepared include kushikatsu (fried skewers of ham, quail eggs, onion and lotus roots), takoyaki (fried octopus balls), kimpira gobo (stir-fried vegetables) and beef tataki (lightly seared, thinly sliced marinated beef). Sushi prepared by ZhenQun included Hamachi yuzu rolls (hamachi, avocado, crispy shallot, cilantro, yuzu, tobiko), Fire Dragon rolls (spicy maguro, unagi, avocado, tobiko) and Sake to Me rolls (maguro, sake, hamachi, avocado, konbu). Here, FBR & Co.’s Casey Toggweiler, Akridge’s Michael Nathan and teacher Lindsey Gravitz.
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