So, of course, can the wrong chef.
At Samurai, once Denver's premier Japanese restaurant, the kitchen had slipped so low on the local food chain that owner Yoshi Saito was having trouble finding any experienced chef, Japanese or not. He was just about to give up, when suddenly Isamu "Sam" Furuichi was free.
Like many of Denver's best-known Japanese chefs and restaurateurs, Sam had worked at Samurai long ago, before he'd gone on to open his own eatery, Matoi, in Lakewood. Look inside the kitchen of just about any successful Japanese joint in town--Japon, Sushi Den, Geisha--and you'll find someone who worked at Samurai at one point in his career. "I have had many people work for me in the past twenty years," says Saito, a Tokyo transplant who opened Samurai on Colorado Boulevard in 1978, then moved it to its current Arapahoe Road location six years later. "They get their experience here, and then they go on to become successful at their own restaurants."
Although Furuichi had been an experienced chef in his native country before moving to Denver a decade ago and taking that first job at Samurai, Matoi was hardly a financial success. The teeny spot survived for over three years, but it was a struggle every minute, according to Furuichi's wife, Billie Hopkins-Furuichi, who often speaks for Sam, since he knows little English.
"We finally closed Matoi in December of last year," says Billie, who worked at Sam's side through the entire ordeal and now teaches Spanish in the Wheat Ridge school district. "It was so hard and such a tough location. But we gave it our best shot, and I don't think anyone can say we didn't."
Sam certainly gave it his best cooking, whipping up country-style fare solo in a kitchen the size of most home bathrooms. Add his generous nature with customers and his wife's appealingly quirky manner to the fabulous food, and Matoi quickly became one of my favorite restaurants--and one I greatly missed when it shut down.
After closing Matoi, Sam Furuichi worked for a while as a traveling chef, doing elaborate catering and private Japanese dinners. But then one of his best friends, Miki Hashimoto, needed a new head chef at Japon, which he'd opened two years before on South Gaylord Street. "A lot of people advised both Isamu and Miki against working together because they were such good friends," Billie says. "It was really hard on both of them. Something tragic had happened to Japon's head chef, and so Miki needed someone very quick, and Sam wanted to be there for him."
The arrangement didn't work out, and Sam left Japon. Soon he was approached by the owners of the dying Fettoush on Market Street, who asked him to help start a sushi bar in the same space. It was called Nikko--during the brief time it was open this summer, that is. The combination of two Lebanese owners and one Japanese chef didn't work well, either. "The men who owned Nikko--they are the nicest people," Billie says. "Sam went in and helped them set up accounts with the Japanese distributors and helped select the dishes, set up the front of the restaurant, find a sushi chef. But the cultural gap, I think, was too much." Sam bowed out of the business just before Nikko abruptly closed its doors earlier this fall.
Which just happened to be around the same time that Yoshi Saito found himself at his wit's end at Samurai. "He was getting complaints from the customers that the food wasn't tasting Japanese anymore," says Billie. "Since Sam had had a good working relationship with Mr. Saito before, he called Sam and asked him to come back."
And with Sam back, Samurai was set for a comeback.
I'd eaten there two months ago, shortly before Sam's return. On that night, the beef teriyaki ($11.50) was so sweet, it tasted as though someone had dumped a cup of sugar into the sauce before it was sent out. The sukiyaki ($16.95) featured another awful sauce, one that tasted overwhelmingly of sake (and, no, I wasn't drinking any that night). The tonkatsu ($10.50), a breaded pork cutlet, was missing half of its breading, and the meat underneath hadn't been pounded nearly enough to keep it from being fatty and chewy. The tempura and udon combo ($10.50) was way overpriced for five pieces of greasy, batter-coated shrimp and vegetables accompanied by a bowl of noodle-choked broth so bland it was like water. The only dish that worked was the shabu-shabu ($16.95 per person), New York sirloin cooked at our table fondue-style in a clear broth--but then, we were doing the cooking.
Two weeks after that disastrous meal, I returned for a second round. From the first bite, it was clear that something had changed in the kitchen--but I had no idea that Sam Furuichi was back on the job.
On this night, our only complaint was that the place was so packed, the sushi bar fell behind. So we lingered over the miso soup ($1.50), a sturdy version with the right amount of miso paste and enough scallions to provide bite, and the yellowtail collar ($6.75). Although yellowtail is never as good as salmon collar, this piece benefited from an intense, sweet-and-salty teriyaki sauce that complemented the rich, oily flesh. We also devoured soft-shell crab ($8.95 for two), a tempura take that could have used a lighter touch with the batter but was delicious nonetheless.
By the time we'd finished these starters, the sushi had arrived, all well-carved fish set atop tidy bundles of sushi rice. The belly tuna ($4.95 for two pieces) and the Spanish mackerel ($4.30 for two) were highlights, flavorful and remarkably fresh. The tamago ($2.95 for two), or Japanese omelette, was a pleasant switch from the sickeningly sweet bundle it so often is, while the California roll ($3.95 for six pieces) stuck to the winning, straightforward combination of avocado and Krab with sharply pungent daikon sprouts and a perfect balance of filling and rice. No mayo.
This time the beef teriyaki featured a better cut of meat and a too-mild sauce--at least it wasn't too sweet--that needed some tweaking. The tempura-coated shrimp and vegetables that came with the udon showed more improvement: They were cooked through and much less greasy, and the broth tasted as though someone had put some effort into building it, adding the depth of mirin (a Japanese cooking sherry) and the faint saltiness of shoyu (soy sauce).
We tried more tempura in the form of tempura ice cream ($3.50), a doughy confection that grew on us, especially once the ice cream began to melt. The homemade green-tea ice cream ($3.50) was fine from the start, smooth and creamy. And the flan ($3.50) was a thick-set custard better than many I've had in the best French and Spanish restaurants.
Intrigued by my two markedly different meals, I dropped by Samurai again last week. This time the tonkatsu had been evenly breaded, and the coating lent some flavor to the otherwise lackluster pork inside (at least the meat had been properly pounded). The filling in both the shu-mai ($3.50), four steamed dumplings, and the gyoza ($3.95), six grilled dumplings, also cried out for more potent seasonings, but the little packages were tasty just the same. The rest of the meal, though, was close to perfect. The takosu ($4.50), an octopus salad, contained the ideal amount of toasted sesame seeds to give the dish a sophisticated quality that went well with the vinegar dressing. And the salmon saka mushi ($13.95) was a particularly impressive combination of big chunks of silky, soft salmon floating in a rice-wine-spiked broth that boasted a cloudy hint of bean curd and long tubes of green scallion ends.
Since this third time was such a charm, I called the Samurai to find out what had made the difference. It was then I learned that Sam, the kitchen magician, was back on the job. I should have known.
Sam will revamp the menu soon, Billie says, changing most of the recipes back to his versions. (He should start with the tempura; I still remember the stuff I ate at Matoi, which was virtually grease-free and bursting with flavor.) Then he plans to share his extensive training with the rest of the kitchen staff, teaching them traditional Japanese cooking techniques.
"There's a bit of a ways to go, I think," Billie says. "But Sam always works hard at whatever he does."
That's how you stay on top of the food chain.
Samurai, 9625 East Arapahoe Road, Englewood, 303-799-9991. Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-10:30 p.m. Friday; 5-10:30 p.m. Saturday; 5-9:30 p.m. Sunday.