North Korea, China, trade and safety. When US presidents visit Japan, the summit agenda practically writes itself. Deciding what to offer them to eat, though, is a unique matter altogether.
When the White House is occupied by someone with as unadventurous a palate as Donald Trump, the scope for showcasing the delicate flavours and aesthetic magnificence of its cooking, or washoku, is restricted.
That was the case throughout Trump’s first go to to Japan in 2017, when he and the then prime minister, 筑後 ランチ 人気 Shinzo Abe, sat down to cheeseburgers and fries at a golf membership – a selection that spurred a run on burgers on the Tokyo restaurant that made them.
Treating presidents and their delegations to some of Tokyo’s best meals – in a city with more Michelin stars than Paris – hasn’t at all times gone to plan.
In 1991, George HW Bush interrupted a Japanese banquet to vomit into the lap of his host, the then Japanese prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa. The incident, wherein Bush fainted, was blamed on a bout of flu, not the meals.