Eat like Bourdain: Masa’s Japan

Bourdain ate: sea urchin, kanogani (snow crab), grilled eel livers, and giant oysters

Lunch date: Masa Takayama, chef and owner of Masa in New York City. 

Bourdain ate: sea bream over rice, grilled rockfish, bamboo shoots, and Wagyu beef with soy sauce and mirin

Dinner dates: Masa Takayama and his friend Yaeko, owner of the Fujinoya tea house

Bourdain ate: iwana (char), Hokkaido scallops, wild Japanese boar, grilled fukinoto, and soba noodles with duck, green onion, and dashi sauce

Dinner dates: Masa Takayama, friend and art adviser Haruo Konishi, and artist Akihiko Izukura

Bourdain ate: seared horse mackerel over green onion and ginger, maguro (bluefin tuna), Japanese tiger prawn, octopus, fluke sashimi, striped jack, anago (sea eel) rolled in seaweed, and tamagoyaki (breaded shrimp eggs and fish paste)

Dinner dates: Masa Takayama and Mamoru Sugiyama, head chef at Ginza Sushiko

Bourdain ate: motsuni(tripe stew), sashimi (thinly sliced raw fish), uni (sea urchin roe), and otoro(tuna belly)

Dinner dates: Masa Takayama, his mother, Ishi, and his daughter Catherine, a pastry chef at The French Laundry, in Napa Valley, California

Bourdain had: kimoyaki (grilled eel liver), umishi-tamago (eel and egg custard with bean curd, bonito broth, and kelp), hitsumabushi (eel over rice), and sake

Dinner dates: Catherine Takayama and Kazuo Takayama, Masa’s brother and chef-proprietor of Sugimura

Bourdain had: sukiyaki (meat slowly cooked, tableside, in a broth), Tochigi beef with maitake (type of mushroom), and home-brewed sake

Dinner dates: Masa Takayama and his friends from high school