For the last 140 years or so, Japan has had eating establishments known as yoshoku-ya. These specialize in foods from outside the country’s cuisine that have been adapted for Japanese tastes, such as curry (India via England) or hamburgers (Germany by way of America). The results are often enthralling, and the canon constitutes a perfect example of the salutary nature of fusion cuisines, which have often developed as a result of international trade, or from more negative causes like war and colonialism. Though these dishes have dotted New York Japanese restaurants for decades, only recently have restaurants opened with menus more thoroughly dedicated to yoshoku — sometimes offering several dishes artistically on a single tray. Aoi Kitchen is the latest example. The largest features set meals that each focus on one yoshoku dish. The one I ordered blew me away: omurice. While this is no ordinary fried rice, the omelet is also unusual. It plays with the nature and meaning of eggs. A hemispheric heap of fried rice goes on the plate, then an omelet cooked into a dome is placed so that it seamlessly covers and conceals the rice. The exceedingly yellow omelet forms a damp tarp, so that the partly cooked egg glistens in every depression and crevice of the dome.

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