When a chef encounters a truly fine ingredient, there’s always a first question: How to apply heat? How to season? How to add a personal touch? But from the very beginning, we were asking a slightly different question. How do we deliver Kibimaru Pork’s natural goodness to the plate without diminishing it? Our starting point for cooking was not what to add, but what to protect.
■ A Question We’d Been Thinking About Since Day One
Even before opening SEE THE SEA on Senaga Island, we had already decided to feature Kibimaru Pork on our menu. But deciding “what dish to make with it” was far from simple.
The defining characteristic of this pork is its fat melting point of 30 degrees — a sensation of melting in your mouth. It’s rich in free amino acids, has high moisture retention, and its umami is sealed deep within. In other words, if you let that escape during cooking, there’s little point in using Kibimaru Pork at all.
Shabu-shabu would let the umami dissolve into the broth. High-heat grilling would drive moisture from the surface. No cooking method seemed to fully honor what this pork had to offer. We spent months thinking, testing, and thinking again.
■ The Answer Was Roast Pork
The answer was hiding in simplicity. Roast pork.
Slow sous-vide cooking at low temperature. The meat is sealed in a vacuum bag with nowhere for its goodness to escape, then gently heated over time. We chose this method more by instinct than by theory. We simply felt that this pork deserved time.
When you think about it, Fukumaru Farm spent over six years developing Kibimaru Pork. There was something that felt wrong about transforming all that work in an instant with high heat.
By cooking slowly at low temperature, the umami and moisture stay locked inside the meat. That sensation of flavor gently spreading when it reaches your mouth — that’s proof that what the ingredient originally held is being delivered intact. We believe the cooking method, too, is a form of respect for the ingredient. The same principle applies to our Pork Franks — “sealing in the umami” and “easy to enjoy” go hand in hand.
■ Beyond “Delicious” — What We Want to Deliver
The idea that “if it tastes good, that’s enough” is perfectly valid. Even without knowing the details, if a single bite makes you happy, that’s the essence of food.
But we want to reach one step further.
We want the roast pork you eat while gazing at the Senaga Island sea to become a lasting travel memory. We want you to wonder, “What was that?” — and when you search, to find this series. To read it and understand the reason behind that one bite. And every time you return to Okinawa, to want to taste it again.
A single dish can take you that far. That is our small yet enormous wish.
■ We’re Waiting for You on Senaga Island
SEE THE SEA is located at Umikaji Terrace on Senaga Island, just a 15-minute drive from Naha Airport.
On our terrace overlooking the Kerama Islands, we have Kibimaru Pork roast pork waiting for you. Whether you stop by at the start of your Okinawa trip or as a final destination before heading home. When you have a little time before your flight, or when the thought simply crosses your mind.
If this series has sparked your curiosity, please come and try a bite. Six hundred years of history, the number 30, the landscapes of Okinawa — we believe it’s all there in that single bite.
Before logic, your body knows. Feel it for yourself, with the sea breeze of Senaga Island.
— Also Read —
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