February 8, 2010
By Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun
Every day, Misa Tamura hand-punches gold and red-coloured maple leaves out of yuba -- membrane-like dried tofu skin -- to sprinkle on Japanese hotdogs celebrating Japan's figure skating Olympic hopeful Mao Asada.
The hotdogs, sold at her husband Noriki Tamura's popular Japadog street stand at Smythe and Burrard, are being snapped up these days by Japanese media in town for the Olympic Games, along with Japanese tourists and the stand's regular customers.
The hotdogs were created after Japanese media, in search of stories for home viewers, visited Tamura's stand and asked whether he offered anything in honour of the nation's skating star.
What emerged was the Mao dog, an almost $10 delicacy complete with a Kobe beef dog and tongkatsu sauce. But the crowning feature is definitely the sprinkle of colourful maple leaves.
"Why?" said Tamura with a laugh. "Because I am Japanese. We hope she will get the gold medal."
Japadog is not the only Japanese eatery doing good business by offering diners a chance to celebrate the skating star.
Kamei Royale, a popular business lunch spot at the corner of Georgia and Burrard, has been offering the Mao roll ever since last February, when Asada was in town to compete at the International Skating Union's Four Continents competition.
The roll -- which features wild salmon, raw shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, crabmeat, asparagus and thinly sliced baked egg -- was designed with the help of the skater herself.
"We came up with some samples, but she didn't like avocado," said Kamei store manager Hitomi Ishikura.
"Eventually, we settled on two rolls combined into the shape of a heart. She likes hearts and autographs her name with a heart."
It has gained such a buzz with Japanese tourists that Kamei is now selling four more skater rolls to cheer on Japan's other Olympic hopefuls: the Kozuka, the Akiko and the Oda for Takahiko Kozuka, Akiko Suzuki and Nobunori Oda, respectively.
Over at Japadog on a recent weekday, a group of TBS -- Tokyo Broadcasting System -- journalists were camped out in front of the Sutton Place Hotel on Burrard Street at Smythe.
Noriki Tamura proudly pointed out the thoughtful design of the Mao dog. "We cut the sausage three times to symbolize her triple axels."
Last year, Asada cleanly landed two triple axels, a first by a female skater in an ISU event.
Because the maple leaves on the Mao dogs have to be so painstakingly crafted, Japadog only offers the delicacy at its Burrard-Smythe location.
There are only 20 available each day and they're usually sold out at lunch, even though the sign on the cart, with a tiny photo of Asada, is only in Japanese.
"We have already been contacted by a lot of Japanese media," Tamura said.
Since he is set to launch a much-anticipated first storefront location for his hotdog business, the ex-Tokyo ad salesman who moved to Vancouver in 2005 welcomes the Olympics-related publicity.
He regularly counts a swarm of 20 to 30 people lining up at each of his two hotdog stands, which have become a Vancouver must-have for nori, daiko, ume and edamame-topped and teriyaki sauce plus Japanese mayo-smeared hotdogs.
The store, which he hopes to open during the Olympics, will be 700 square feet with 16 seats right in a cluster of new Japanese businesses on Robson Street between Richards and Seymour. It will allow him to offer a much wider selection of Japanized hotdogs.
"You can only do so much at a stall," he said. Some months ago, for example, health inspectors forced him to adapt his popular cheese terimayo hotdog, replacing the gooey, smoky melted cheese with a tidier cheese-filled sausage.
"With a restaurant and kitchen, we can do much more. We'll have lots of tongkatsu dogs, fry them. We can do rice dogs, sausages wrapped in rice."
Despite this, Tamura won't be getting rid of his stalls any time soon. "I'll keep them. I like them."
Meanwhile, the Asada-inspired culinary treats in Vancouver raise a question: With just as many, if not more Korean expats, especially international students, in Vancouver, what's out there for Korean Olympic skating star and Asada's chief rival, Yu-Na Kim?
Kim is from Korea, but since 2007 has trained in Toronto with Brian Orser and has a huge local following.
A quick round of calls doesn't turn up much. At the Korean Consulate in Vancouver, consul Tong-Op Kim said after he heard about the Mao roll and dog, he started searching around for Yu-Na Kim equivalents. He even urged a few businesses to "think of some Yuna dishes. But so far, I haven't seen any."
Like Asada, Kim counts large corporate sponsors such as Nike and Hyundai Motor Co. among her backers.
Said Kim, the Korean consul: "We will just support Yu-Na Kim. We know that she and Mao Asada are rivals. They are very talented and we expect a good match."
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