Saturday, September 24, 2005
Reinventing Ginza
By Jenara Regis Newman
From the Old Banilad Road, Ginza, the Japanese restaurant, looks the same, somehow imperial. It is by its door that one starts to notice what is new, a different landscaping with a Japanese garden. Inside, the wide doors open to a rectangular rock garden, Zen-like in feel for its utter simplicity, just sand and rock.
The interiors have been refurnished with new lamps and at the back of the rock garden, a “boat table.” There are also partitions at both ends, for diners who prefer tepanyaki cooked in front of them. This way, Johann Young says, the odors will not seep through to the main dining area.
Johann, son of Ginza owners, John and Elena Young, is a Sacred Heart School graduate who went abroad for college, first in Switzerland for a culinary arts diploma from the Ecole Les Roches, then to England for his BS Hotel and Restaurant management at the Schiller International University which gave him an opportunity to study six months at the school’s Florida campus, then in the United States, at the Culinary Institute of America both in New York (for two advanced courses in Italian cuisine), and in Napa Valley for French Bistro and regional Italian cuisine. He has not studied Japanese cuisine, per se, but he grew up with his parents having Ginza first in Mango ave and then now, in its present location and so, Japanese cuisine is something he is very familiar with. He also gets ideas from a former Swiss classmate who is now working in a Japanese restaurant.
Johann’s tagline for today’s Ginza is “reinventing Japanese food.” And in the process, reinventing Ginza to make the ambiance more modern, and budget-friendly, through the pricey house specialties for those who want to splurge.
Surprisingly, Johann says that Ginza is a favorite of kids who love the garden, eating at the boat table, the fried rice, tempura, pork/beef/chicken tepanyaki, chicken wings and fried ice cream. Adults, he adds, love the fish heads “and everything else.”
He has added new dishes to the Ginza menu like white snapper in yozu sauce, tone sashimi, seared tuna salad, pork curry don, beef curry don and seafood curry don. He looks forward to putting up a kiddie menu next month, plus Bento box offerings of full portions of several items in the Ginza menu which will be good for dinner dates, for business meals and for people who want to linger over their meal with long conversations.
The reinvented Ginza, Johann says, is a collaborative effort of his parents, interior designer Maya Franco and himself. It’s well worth a visit for a whiff of modern Japan and a taste of traditional Japanese cuisine catering to a modern clientele.
(September 24, 2005 issue)
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