Sake to the Hollywood Stars and Beyond

Dassai Junmai Dai Ginjo 23, 39, 45 and Nigori 45

In the late 1980s sushi and sashimi came to Vancouver, and along with it, sake.

At the time Japanese restaurants served sake warm, presenting them in silver buckets meant for ice, but instead filled with warm water.

Bluefin tuna crudo with blood orange

For a long time that's how many of us thought was how sake was supposed to be imbibed.

However it turns out warm sake is typically lower-grade sake to mask the harsh flavours, while premium ones are served chilled, much like white wine.

Last night I got a chance to try some sake by the brand Dassai, which I have tried a few times with Japanese food.

At the Governors Ball following the Oscars last Sunday, Hollywood elite were treated to Dassai sake to have with food prepared by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, along with sushi prepared by sushi chefs. And for those curious, it was Dassai 23.

But the exercise last evening was to sample the sake with Western-style food to show non-Japanese that sake can be paired with anything from cheese to pizza and steak.

Rice polished at different percentages

The Sake Samurai for Canada is Patrick Ellis and he loves talking about sake. He became a Sake Samurai in 2018, where he was inducted in an hours' long ceremony where he had to give a speech in Japanese about what sake means to him.

He explained that sake has umami, the fifth sense, described as savouriness which can be found in food like tomatoes, mushrooms, soy sauce, anchovies, cheese and dashi.

The numbers on the bottles indicate how much the brown rice has been polished. In the case of Dassai 23, that means 77 percent of the rice has been polished, and for Dassai 45, 55 percent of the rice was polished. The more the rice is polished, the cleaner the flavour and brighter the aroma.

We started off with a sparkling sake which was milky in appearance, followed by Junmai Dai Ginjo Dassai 23 Centrifuge paired with bluefin tuna crudo with blood orange segments. The centrifuge helps filter the sake from the lees for a cleaner taste, or so they say. This pairing extended the sweet taste of toro and chutoro.

Foie gras torchon with brioche and apricot

The tasting continued with Junmai Dai Ginjo Dassai 39, which tasted cleaner, and a bolder taste, paired with foie gras torchon on toasted brioche with apricot gelee.

The main course of USDA prime Omaha striploin was rolled with proscuitto and served with stewed San Marzano tomatoes, black truffle and whipped potatoes, and was paired with Junmai Dai Ginjo Dassai 45. This was similar to Dassai 39 with a clean taste that had no trouble holding up to the strong flavours of the beef.

For dessert, Madagascar vanilla panna cotta with poached pear sauce together with Nigori Dassai 45.

After dinner, Ellis also told us that Dassai sake ingredients were sent to the International Space Station last fall to try sake fermentation in space! It returned to Earth recently and will be made into sake soon. He was hinting that if we end up living in space, the easiest alcoholic drink to make there will be sake, not wine.

Striploin rolled with proscuitto in tomato sauce

Representing Dassai were two executives who specifically flown in to Vancouver just for this event and left today: Shohei Yamane, director at Dassai, and Takenari Yamamori, manager of international business.

I asked Yamane about how Dassai managed to get served at the Governors Ball and he explained that one of the Dassai partners is in the movie business. What a great marketing strategy! Apparently director Steven Spielberg pronounced their sake as "exceptional".

When I asked Yamane about the biggest sake market outside of Japan, he said it was China. Before it was Hong Kong, but like seafood and steaks, some of it goes across the mainland and it's hard to know exactly how much.

We also talked about Hong Kong, and he knew of a sake bar called Sake Bar Ginn that he had visited, and I had been too! Too bad it closed during Covid.

Yamane talking to the sake crowd

Dassai is hoping to grow sake consumption in Canada, and it starts with dinners like these to educate diners what sake is and how it complements pretty much everything you eat.