When I was growing up in Chicago's Chinatown, there were no good Chinese restaurants outside of our community. Vietnamese, Japanese and Thai was non-existent. The windy city was then known as a meat-and-potato town with Germanic roots for its culinary heritage. Although there was an occasional classic French, or a semblance of Italian, by and large it was a gastronomic desert. However, in the past 40 years, a social, cultural and ethnic earthquake has changed the face of dining in Chicago, as in the rest of metropolitan America. Curious about the impact of these changes on Asian cooking itself, I decided to investigate.

For a start, I was amazed at how many Japanese or Japanese-inspired restaurants there are. Even more startling was a fantastic meal I enjoyed at Charlie Trotter's. Of course, he is one of America's top chefs, and the best in Chicago, but this tasting menu (the only one available) was rather like a classic Japanese kaiseki meal, a traditional, multi-course dinner usually served in a ryokan, or country inn, in Japan. Here tiny tasting portions of cha soba were served with thin slices of sweet Asian pear, smoky grilled shiitake mushrooms were paired with a pungent Ponzu sauce and monkfish liver matched with yuzu granita was akin to a foie gras dish juxtaposed with a sharp tart flavour to cut the richness. The Easter egg radish with preserved carrots was like a dish from a Buddhist temple but tastier. The meal continued with textures and flavours dancing on my palate all evening.