Try sake with your oysters

Sake With Your Burger? Japan Is Looking West to Save a Tradition - NYTimes.com:

Kensuke Shichida, the head of a centuries-old sake brewery in southern Japan, had spent a dizzying week in London restaurants tasting a variety of exotic and confounding dishes: pub food, gourmet burgers, French food, Angus beef, ceviche.
The experience left him slightly bewildered and slightly ill, he said, suffering from a food hangover.
But Mr. Shichida, 43, is on a mission, he said, to bring his family-brewed sake to European restaurants and pair it with Western cuisine, which means charting new territory. It is an exercise of necessity. Japan is proud of its sake heritage, but sales have been falling for decades, and Mr. Shichida and a number of other brewers are trying to help reverse its decline before it is too late. ...
"Fresh oysters, for example, usually go well with Champagne or Chablis, which have a crisp acidity. But Mr. Shichida, who runs the 140-year-old Tenzan brewery, says sake works better. The drink is mellower and less acidic, and its cleansing properties help remove the oysters’ briny taste, he said. And sake’s umami — a savory sensation considered to be the “fifth taste” — helps improve their fleshiness."

'via Blog this'