Grilled
Remon Suteki
Sasebo lemon steak — thin-sliced beef seared and finished with a lemon-soy sauce
Beef sliced thin is seared on a griddle and finished with a lemon-spiked soy sauce — said to have begun around 1955 in Sasebo, where American steak had caught on around the postwar U.S. naval base, when two brothers at a Western-style restaurant adapted it to local taste.
- Origin: Nagasaki Sasebo
- About 960 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A Japanese-style steak made by grilling thin, sukiyaki-cut slices of beef on an iron plate and finishing with a soy-based sauce spiked with lemon juice just before it's done. The combination of thin-sliced meat and lemon's tartness is said to make it a dish you can eat without feeling weighed down. It's positioned as a reworking of Western steak culture to suit local tastes.
How it's made
Beef is sliced thin and grilled on an iron plate. A soy-based sauce with lemon juice mixed in is poured over it just as it finishes cooking. Once the meat is gone, the local custom is said to be piling rice onto the hot plate and mixing it with the remaining juices and sauce. Slicing the meat thin is said to serve two purposes at once: cooking through quickly and letting the sauce cling to every piece.
Why it took this shape
American-style steak is said to have taken root early in Sasebo because of the U.S. Navy base built there soon after the war. Out of a wish for a lighter steak more suited to Japanese palates, a soy-based sauce spiked with lemon juice at the finish is said to have been devised, and it's thought to have taken hold as part of the city's own Western-style food culture. The brothers who devised it are said to have each opened their own restaurant, spreading it across the city.
Dishes in the same style
- Abutte KamoSmall damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Gohei MochiFreshly cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded, pressed flat on a skewer, and grilled with a miso glaze. Said to have originated in the mountainous Chubu region, it's traditionally made the night before a festival praying for safety in mountain work.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Nagasaki
- ArumadoA hard-boiled egg dyed pink is wrapped in fish paste and steamed into a kamaboko log that shows a pink-rimmed cross-section when cut — a Hirado specialty, with kin dishes called "arimado" in Sasebo and "ryugan" in Nagasaki.
- Goto UdonA hand-pulled noodle from Shinkamigoto, Nagasaki. Its technique is thought to trace back to envoys returning from Tang China, and the island's camellia oil is worked into the dough for a smooth, elastic bite.
- HanahajikiCucumber, carrot, deep-fried tofu, and shrimp are cut into strips and fanned out on a plate to be dipped in a hot mustard vinegar-miso — a dish from Isahaya said to be named for how the mustard "flicks the nose," traditionally served at Buddhist memorial services.
- HatoshiShrimp and squid paste sandwiched in bread and deep-fried, a Nagasaki specialty said to have arrived from China in the Meiji era, growing from a shippoku banquet course into a food loved across the city.
- HikadoFish or chicken and vegetables like daikon and carrot are diced fine and simmered, thickened at the end with grated sweet potato — said to originate in a meat stew eaten by Portuguese residents of Nagasaki, its name from the Portuguese word for "minced."
- HikitoshiChicken raised at home is butchered for this Iki hot pot, typically enriched with iki-doufu, a rich local tofu, and firm-boiled somen — said to have begun as a dish served to guests in the inner parlor, its name tracing to "hiki-toshi," leading a guest through.