NEW YORK: A specialty shop featuring “dashi” traditional Japanese soup stock opened in New York Friday amid the growing popularity of Japanese cuisine around the world.

Dashi Okume makes and sells dashi packets using Japanese-made dry ingredients, such as dried natural seafood, blended to suit the preferences of customers, aiming to deliver the deep charm of the essential component of Japanese cooking. A dashi broth can be created by putting water and a dashi packet in a pot and simmering the pot for a few minutes.

The shop, believed to be the first of its kind in the United States, was opened by Okume Shoten, a long-established intermediate wholesaler of fisheries products operating at Tokyo’s Toyosu wholesale food market. The wholesaler has been in the business for over 150 years.

In the showcase of the New York shop are basic dashi ingredients such as dried bonito flakes and other fisheries products, kelps and mushrooms. Shop staff mix them with other ingredients based on the opinions of individual customers.

There are 30 ingredients, including vegetables, to choose from. Ingredients are grinded into dashi powders using a machine placed at the shop before being packed.

“A good point about our products is that they are made of addictive-free, Japanese-made ingredients,” said Fumitoshi Kano, the fifth-generation owner of Okume Shoten.

It was the first foray abroad for Okume Shoten. Although the wholesaler faced many difficulties in opening the New York shop amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, Kano said, “We’re committed to deliver the Japanese dashi culture.”

JIJI Press