China Airlines has partnered with famed restaurant TOUTOUAN to launch new Japanese cuisine for Premium Business/Business Class on all Japanese routes.

Brand new Japanese tableware will also complement the ‘natural style’ cuisine of the acclaimed Tokyo restaurant. Each Japanese banquet dish promises to delight the senses and add another wonderful impression to the journey.

TOUTOUAN, a premium banquet restaurant passed down through three generations of the same family, hails from Tokyo and is part of the Kurochaya Restaurant Group, which was founded more than fifty years ago. Passengers flying Premium Business and Business Class on China Airlines’ flagship Japan routes, including Taipei (Taoyuan) to Tokyo (Narita), Osaka Fukuoka and Nagoya, Taipei (Songshan) to Tokyo (Haneda), as well as Kaohsiung to Tokyo (Narita) and Osaka, will be able to enjoy Japanese in-flight cuisine created by Araki Hironaka, the Japanese head chef of the original TOUTOUAN in Tokyo, and Wei-Ting Chen, the head chef of TOUTOUAN in Taipei, its only overseas restaurant.

The first offering will be the “Imperial Cuisine of Early Spring” with Teriyaki Wagyu Beef as the main dish. Premium Japanese Wagyu Beef is served with wasabi and teriyaki sauce alongside Hokkaido Yumepirika rice famed for its fragrance and sweet taste. The menu will change to reflect main dishes made with seasonal ingredients.

“Imperial Cuisine of Early Spring” is based on local Taiwanese ingredients from the entrée to the dessert. Painstaking attention has been paid to every little detail. The entrée incorporates the “eight inch” element from kaiseki cuisine and requires a chef with adept knife skills as every piece must be cut into inch-long, bite-sized portions. The main ingredients are locally sourced enoki mushroom, amaranth, and smoked aigamo duck.  The simmered dish consists of carrots, chestnut pumpkin, shiitake mushroom, and winter bamboo shoots, while the fried dish consists of fried karage burdock and the pickles include persimmon and cucumber. The dessert consists of taro, ginger lily, red guava, brown sugar, and purple sweet potato. All the ingredients are grown in Taiwan.

The menu also features Magatama Tofu and Brown Sugar Steamed Bun, signature dishes from the original TOUTOUAN restaurant in Tokyo. Magatama Tofu is made from cashews, arrowroot, milk and fresh cream, and served in konbu and bonito jelly with wasabi. The Brown Sugar Steamed Bun has an outer skin infused with the fragrance of brown sugar and a creamy filling of Taiwanese purple sweet potato.

China Airlines is also partnering with JIA to introduce all-new co-branded Japanese tableware to complement the exquisite cuisine. JIA has won many international design awards and is the supplier of choice to many Michelin-starred restaurants and 5-star hotels around the world. Its designs have also won recognition from the likes of the Victoria & Albert Museum in the U.K. and Wallpaper magazine, a bible for designers. The design inspiration for this latest collaboration came from the traditional lacquerware and gold lacquer crafts of Japan.

The elegant Japanese tableware from China Airlines takes travellers on a guided tour through the four seasons of Japan. The containers themselves are made from internationally certified recycled materials that reduce carbon emissions during production by at least 70%.

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