Oishinbo / A la Carte / Tetsu Kariya / Akira Hanasaki

To celebrate its 100th anniversary, the Tozai newspaper has planned on publishing the ‘Ultimate Menu’ – describing a model meal of food and drink for the Japanese public. They have enlisted the help of Shirou Yamaoka, a journalist who has a culinary past of his own: his father Kaibara Yuuzan, the founder of the elite Gourmet Club, trained him to become a world class chef. However, bitter about the way their family was put on the sidelines for his father’s precise tastes, Shirou broke all of Kaibara’s expensive pottery and left the household. Now, Shirou and his partner Yuuko Kirita set forth to experience the tastes, smells and experiences of a variety of Japanese cuisine, including ramen, gyoza, sake, fish and beyond, in order to construct the perfect Ultimate Menu!