In Japan the idea of cooking at the table isn’t a novelty and has been developed over centuries. In the last 50 years or so, the use of gas helps enhance the experience of table one dish cooking, namely nabe. The idea of a single dish is fantastic and as you can see, there are so many variables.

The sukiyaki served here is not typical, the evening moves along with more meat, various cuts combined into mouth size bites. The chef/owner invites us frequently to his private restaurant, members only and its family style tonight.

The favourite this time of the year is onion, but it is more sweet than you imagine as he explains asking, “what is the difference between this onion and the normal winter onion?”, and he replies the winter onion is dried and these are fresh first of the season, so they are sweet.”

Then comes some more beef wrapped around a Japanese green Shungiku that is submerged into the sukiyaki brother and then eaten with raw egg. The stigma of raw eggs is something that scares most people, however salmonella lives in so many other places. Eating raw eggs became a stigma as a house mothers tale.

For almost 30 years we have been urged to avoid all raw or undercooked eggs, including home-made mayonnaise, mousse and hollandaise sauce. But the risks of contracting salmonella from eggs is very low. The French have been eating it since the 17th century.

in the 1980’s pregnant women, the elderly, infants were advised to avoid raw or runny eggs ever since some salmonella had been detected in egg. At the time, the Government was so worried about the risks that they told all members of the public to only eat them if properly cooked. Since it is a stigma and has passed over the globe by word of mouth.