Customer comments on this selection.
 Japanese Homestyle Cooking
I tried many of these recipes and found them interesting, challenging and ultimately delicious. My family liked them all!!
Perfect for me
This is the best layout with lots of color pictures to illustrate step by step the recipes. I have a handful of well rated Japanese cookbooks but this one has the best layout so it is my favorite and the one I want to recommend. It makes me WANT to get cooking.
This book's style is of the kind found in books that are sold in Asian bookstores.
As with all the Japanese cookbooks I own, the writers mention Chinese cooking to compare and declare that something is similar but uniquely Japanese. However, that is not true but the authors are not authorities on Chinese cooking and culture so they can't be expected to know everything or anything true about Chinese authenticity. I bear this in mind and forgive the errors because I buy the book out of interest in Japanese not Chinese cooking. This book contains much fewer references and assumptions to Chinese than the other cookbooks such as the false claim that the cheap bamboo steamer baskets are the archetypal Chinese steamer equipment and that the square steamers or metal steamers are not Chinese. One can say that this is more procedure and less editorializing than other cookbooks.
This book could be sold in a Chinese bookstore without being offensive and would delight the Chinese with its recipes. I recommend this book and wish the author had written more than two books.
 Lovely book.
Very nice - I love the illustrations and photos!
I find I needed to pair it with a dictionary for shopping, though.
 "Homestyle"
Don't buy this book if you expect to make anything that you would see on a standard Japanese table. I was given it after I expressed a desire to make some of the foods I'd learned to love living in Japan and was sorely disapointed. The pictures are lovely, however, and if you are just going for intresting dishes its not that bad. Its a lovely thing to page through to work up an appatite.
Very good, but too tool specific
What some people fail to realize, including apparently the author, is that you can substitute tools that you have for those required for preparation, even is that process is specialized like making square eggs. You only really need a small all-purpose knife, a serrated knife, a square baking tray (for the omelettes), a wok, two pots of different size for cooking soup and/or noodles, a pan, a cutting/rolling board, and a strainer. For steaming, simply put the foods into the strainer, and let the steam pass through.
Buying exotic tools doesn't work, as you can do the same with those you have once you know how to use them for this purpose, whereas odd tools you will only use once if you do not feel comfortable with them.
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