Bush to Feast on Japanese Beef at Tokyo Dinner
Oct 16, 10:06 am ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Hold the sushi.
President Bush is likely to feast on prime Japanese beef when he is in Tokyo on Friday for a brief visit.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi -- who munched hamburgers when he visited Bush's Texas ranch in May -- said the menu for dinner with his close ally would feature "wagyu," a high grade of Japanese beef, domestic media said on Thursday.
"I want to treat him to Japanese beef," Koizumi was quoted as saying by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper, which said Bush had requested meat for the meal.
The beef is likely to be grilled on a hot plate, a style of cooking known as "teppanyaki" that often features fancy flourishes of cooking utensils by the chef, the newspaper said.
Japan's best marbled Kobe or Matsuzaka beef, from pampered cows which are said to imbibe beer and receive massages to improve the meat, is fabulously expensive.
Beef has been a touchy subject between the two nations in the past, the source of occasional fierce trade rows centered on imports of U.S. meat.
In 1987, in the middle of one such spat, then agriculture minister Tsutomu Hata said Japanese intestines were different to those of foreigners and foreign beef was not suited to Japanese stomachs.
