After completing graduate school in the late 80s, I spent a year studying martial arts at Kyoto University in Japan. The school cafeteria served many things that one would never encounter in the states (natto spaghetti for example), but one thing they did serve that I couldn’t get enough of was seared ahi tuna, prepared fresh to order. It was usually served with white rice, a little shoyu, some radish sprouts, a few slivers of nori, and some toasted sesame seeds. One ample serving may have cost as much as 200 yen (~$2) but I think it was probably less. Seeing a recipe for seared ahi in the South Beach Diet Cookbook got me thinking again of this delicious fish, and I found some gorgeous steaks at Whole Foods. The South Beach recipe calls for the steaks to be seared with peppercorns. I was looking for a more Asian twist, so I made up my own marinade with tamari, sesame oil and ginger.

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