Keiko Tanabe

Tributes

• Remembering Kenji Sakurai · 3y ago

  Regular guest for thirty years

  Each visit he served me the first piece without a word and watched my face. If I smiled he nodded; if I hesitated he adjusted the next one. In thirty years I never once ordered. He said a good guest and a good chef are simply two people who listen. I miss being listened to.

• Remembering Tomiko Iwasaki · 5y ago

  Visitor from Tokyo who returned every summer

  I met her at Mikimoto Pearl Island in 2003 and came back every August after. She handed me my first awabi and said, 'Eat it slowly; it took fifty years to grow.' I have never rushed a meal since.