Kara-age USA
I was at Mitsukoshi’s main shop at Nihonbashi last night. In the basement food section in an area that always has various foods from all over Japan there was a shop selling what they billed as Oita Meibutsu kara-age (大分名物唐揚げ). It looked good, both the boneless and the bone in. I know that kara-age in Japan began at a shop in Usa, Oita, some time ago, and that the shop most famous for having the best kara-age, Taiko, which is located in the Usa, sometimes has a pop-up shop in Mitsukoshi like this one. I also know that sometimes rival shops from the nearby city of Nakatsu also sometimes are there. Both Usa and Nakatsu claim to have the best kara-age, although I prefer the original, from Usa. And not just because I am from the USA. Because I did not recognize the name of the shop, I asked the woman selling the kara-age if it was from Nakatsu; I would probably know if it was from Usa. She answered no, that it was from Beppu, a place more known for onsen than fried chicken. It seems like Beppu is trying to hop on the northern Oita kara-age bandwagon.
A couple of days later, while at a local poultry shop, I was leafing through a book of chicken recipes in search of inspiration for that night’s meal when I came across a recipe for Oita fūmi (Oita style or flavored) kara-age chicken. Apparently Oita’s fame for good kara-age chicken has spread outside of Oita and has become a real thing.
Oita, specifically the city of Usa, is where kara-age first appeared as a stand-alone dish. As I recall, sometime after WWII a Chinese restaurant chef decided to open his own shop selling pretty much only kara-age, probably for take-out only. Today there are close to 100 kara-age take-out shops around Usa. There are even guide books to the “Eighty-eight kara-age shops” of Usa, the number eight-eight being the same as the number of temples along the famous pilgrimage route of Shikoku, the idea that you should visit every shop and get your guide book stamped when you do. The books do include such information as what kind of oil is used to fry the chicken, what spices the chicken is marinated in and what go into the flour coating the meat is covered in before frying.
My wife and I first learned of all this one day while driving from Oita Airport to Usa City. We kept passing what looked to be houses along the road with signs saying “kara-age.” After four or five such places we decided to stop and check out what was going on. I parked the car in a small lot next to the house and we went in. As we entered, what looked like the husband was heading to his car with a large order of kara-age. We ordered a mix of pieces and the wife started cooking in big fryers. She mentioned the eighty-eight shops and said the best days for business were festival days when people placed large orders. The worst were when people placed a small order which made them fire up the cooking stove and burn a lot of gas heating the oil. While they were talking I picked up a copy of a kara-age guide book that was sitting on a table, then thumbed through it to get an idea of how serious a business this was. A few minutes later our order was finished and we headed on into Usa, eating a couple of very hot pieces on the drive.
The place we stopped had good kara-age. But the best in Usa my opinion and most locals is a place called Kara-age Taikō (唐揚げ大閤, http://www.karaage-taikou.com/). The shop consists of a small white building located on a small side street. There is an order window covered by an awning, and a kitchen inside. On hot days people park across the street, place their order, then return to sit and wait in their air-conditioned car for ten minutes or so, until their order is ready. I have seen real Usa Kara-age Taikō kara-age at Mitsukoshi a few times. The people selling the chicken are always amazed that me, a foreigner, is familiar with the shop in Usa.
The popularity of kara-age has spread to the neighboring city of Nakatsu, with an intense rivalry now between the two cities, each with its own variations. One time I even saw a TV program on NHK Kyushu featuring kara-age “war) between the Usa and Nakatsu, each city presenting its best versions of kara-age for the hosts to sample and local high school marching bands playing their respective city’s kara-age fight songs with each side’s mascot dancing alongside. Not the type of NHK programming one sees in the Tokyo region, but in northern Oita there isn’t much else going on.