What we want to do here is have people try new things.”

Carlo Lorenzana was measured when he spoke. He took brief pauses in conversation to ensure the words he used did justice to the picture in his mind. He wasn’t stern in his delivery, but the way he talked came with a cadence of sincerity. He meant what he said. And so it came as no surprise that there was to be nothing ordinary about the rest of my afternoon -- the comforts of the familiar delightfully nowhere to be found.

There I was, thinking I would be digging into another take on the growingly recognizable Japanese plethora of ramen, sushi, makis, and katsus. Afterall, I was sitting in the middle of a restaurant named Nikkei. No doubt another addition to Metro Manila’s reliable compulsion for the offerings of the Far East. But instead, I was taken on a journey in the opposite direction, to the extreme West of the world map. There, I would be acquainted with a history that would make sense of Carlo’s musings on ceviche, pisco, and lomo saltado.

Although a fairly new addition to Makati’s ever-changing landscape, Nikkei’s roots stem all the way back to the late 1800’s, when Peru opened its coastal towns to Japanese laborers who were in search of work. Located on the western edge of South America, the country was the first nation on the continent to open its arms to the Japanese, leading not only to a reliable source of quality personnel, but eventually, an exciting new injection to an already rich culture of food.

With the hundreds, and eventually thousands of Japanese immigrants making their way across the Pacific, it was inevitable that more than a few found a way to combine the extensive seafood knowledge from home, with the fresh and lively Peruvian flavors they found available. The result of those experiments, and the generations of refinement that followed, created a cuisine boldly unique, one that has been building up momentum around the world.