Chef Hidekazu Tojo's face lights up when he talks about ingredients. He mimics pulling an apple, heavy with sweet juice, from a tree and closes his eyes for a moment as he explains what it meant to him to taste the fruit for the very first time as a child.
Tojo, who is known for his award-winning eponymous Vancouver sushi restaurant, being the "inventor" of what we came to know as the California Roll, and his famous friends and clientele, is now one more thing: the subject of a documentary film, The Chef and the Daruma.
The 90-minute doc is screening on October 5 and 6 as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
The film focuses on stories from Tojo's life that shaped his culinary career, including how he came to make a roll in the early 1970s that would become known the world over as the "California Roll."
Culinary historians will agree that while Tojo gets the credit, it is possible that around the same time, other sushi chefs opted to work with similar ingredients and break traditions as Tojo-san did.
How Tojo's 'inside out' roll became the 'California Roll'
However, Tojo explained during an in-person interview and tasting at his West Broadway restaurant that what he created was an "inside out" roll, designed to decrease the appearance of the dried seaweed sheets that some customers weren't yet familiar with. He then decreased the size of the roll to help up its appeal with women, who told the sushi chef they didn't like how hard it was to eat larger rolls demurely. A shaking of sesame seeds on the roll's exposed rice exterior was done for the ingredient's health factor.
But the name California Roll? That wasn't his idea. He explained that because he was breaking so many rules of sushi making, his popular roll drew the interest of the Japanese media, who lumped Vancouver in with the entirety of the West Coast of Canada and the U.S. and dubbed the sushi dish the "California Roll."
Documentary, menu chronicle Tojo's life in food memories
Moments like that guided all of Tojo's career, but some memories were quieter, like when he visited a special restaurant with his family and tasted a dashi (a flavourful broth) used to enhance the quality of an otherwise homey dish, the Oyakadon. Its name means, basically "parent and child" or, in this dish's case, chicken and egg, both of which are served with sliced veggies atop rice and dashi. As Tojo makes it, the dish is simple but elegant, and proof that the hallmark of Japanese cuisine is that there is nowhere to hide when you let your ingredients shine.
Tojo uses local ingredients at the restaurant and has a loyal and longstanding relationship with area farmers who apparently joke that when the chef retires, so will they. And when there was nowhere to source locally-grown ginger the Tojo was looking for, a grower went to great lengths, even working with a UBC scientist, to figure out how to grow the tropical rhizome here in Vancouver.
Apples and daruma dolls
Perfectly timed with apple season in B.C. is the lobster and scallop dish, called the "Daruma Cup," served in a hollowed-out apple with crispy-sweet thin slices of apple and fragrant shreds of yuzu with a creamy sauce.
It's no accident the apples look a lot like the "daruma dolls," which are round, red good luck charms, or "wishing dolls," in Japanese culture. The tradition is to set a goal by filling in one of its blank eyes and filling the other when the goal is achieved.
To align with the film, there are several daruma dolls inside Tojo's, though not as many as there are accolades on the wall or pictures of the many famous guests who have eaten the chef's acclaimed food over the years.
The special Chef and the Daruma omakase menu will be available through October. The offering features six courses, including the "Daruma Cup" and the Oyakodon, and is $150 per person.
There are two remaining screenings of the film through VIFF: Saturday, Oct. 5 at 1:15 p.m. at Fifth Avenue Cinema (19+ only) and Sunday at 8:45 p.m. at SFU Woodwards. Book through VIFF.
UPDATE OCT.7: VIFF has added seven additional screenings (post-festival) of The Chef and the Daruma: October 16 and 22 at the Vancity Theatre and October 25-27, 29, and 31 at the Lochmaddy Studio Theatre.
Watch: Chef Tojo serves special menu of food memories
@forkingawesomevia Did you the California Roll was created in Vancouver in the early 1970s? Chef Hidekazu Tojo didn’t name it that (Japanese media writing about Tojo’s rule-breaking inside-out roll with crab generalized the whole west coast as “California,” which is why it’s not the Vancouver Roll.) A new documentary about Tojo is screening at VIFF and for October 2024 a companion menu is available at the Michelin Guide recommended Tojo’s. #forkingawesome #vancouverbc #sushi #californiaroll ♬ Japanese style. Japanese instruments express the beauty of Japan, cherry blossoms and ancient cities(74708) - Minaco
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