Dig in, Dice-K

Welcome to Boston, Matsuzaka-san.

As you take up residence in Red Sox Nation and get ready to begin flinging fireballs at Fenway Park, you might be thinking Beantown has squat to offer your Japanese heritage.

True, the Japanese community here is tiny, with just over 10,100 people statewide. But its members in Boston -- sister city of Japan's cultural hub, Kyoto -- enjoy a surprisingly strong network of bilingual enterprises, including grocers, restaurants, real-estate businesses, travel agencies, local magazines, even dentists.

And we're here to help you, Daisuke Matsuzaka, get acquainted.

Naturally, a key to fending off homesickness will be familiar food. (Research finds you favor fish, particularly Japanese eel, and veggie dishes.)

Good news: By our count, there are at least 45 Japanese restaurants in and very close to Boston, and that's a lot more than there used to be. "When I got here 25 years ago, I knew of just two Japanese restaurants where I could get sushi," says Nori Ikegami , a former sushi chef who now manages Kotobukiya market located in the Porter Exchange in Cambridge.

"Now I can get sushi in so many places," says Ikegami, who came to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music . "Korean and Chinese markets sell lots of Japanese things. Even at Stop & Shop, I can buy some sauces and noodles."

Many of the foods will be variations, rather than duplicates, of what's served in the pitching ace's homeland. The demand for truly authentic Japanese sushi bars, noodle houses, and shabu-shabu (hot pot) joints is far smaller than it is for other Asian restaurants. Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese, and Koreans are predominant in the state's nearly 300,000-strong Asian population. Also, of the Japanese living in Boston, most are international students or temporary workers, according to the Consulate-General of Japan in Boston. This further drives down the demand for a true taste of home.

"If you're only here for two years, you're really not looking for anything Japan, you're looking for everything Boston, or American," says Rico Mochizuki, director of programs at the Japan Society of Boston, a 1,000-plus-member nonprofit organization promoting cultural and economic exchanges between Japan and Boston.

In defense of Boston's presentation of Japanese cuisine, it must be said that this isn't the only city guilty of messing up a maki roll or two. The probability that restaurants in other cities around the globe commit the same crime is a big enough concern in Japan that the country's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced in November it will begin "certifying" Japanese restaurants outside the island nation.

"I heard there are a lot of Japanese restaurants that are totally not Japanese," says Mari Izumi, in charge of the food service industry for the ministry. Details on how the certification process will work and what it might mean for restaurants here haven't been announced. The program will begin sometime after April, according to the ministry.

What might inspectors think of the Hub's Japanese cuisine? So-so, judging from the take of transplanted locals in the know. "I think it's OK ," says Mari Yoshida, editor and manager of J magazine, a Japanese monthly aimed at Boston's urban sophisticates. "But it's not like in New York."

Score one for the Yankees.

The reason is at least twofold. First, some restaurants like to create mutation dishes, such as making sushi that crams together scallops with cheese and mayonnaise. Second, many restaurants thought of as Japanese are actually pan-Asian. Take Montien , for example, a Thai restaurant in the Theater District that offers a selection of sushi. Or Apollo in Chinatown, which divides its menu between Korean and Japanese foods. Wu Chon in Somerville and Yasu in Brookline do the same. Ma Soba on Beacon Hill and Jae's Cafe in Brookline and Boston offer a bit of everything: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai foods.

The reason food purists, including those in Japan's ministry of agriculture, turn up their noses at serving tempura and pad thai under the same roof is because the dishes are, well, different.

"Put it in a Western context," says Peter M. Grilli, president of the Japan Society of Boston. "If you went to a really fancy French restaurant in Boston and half the menu was spaghetti and pasta and lasagna, you'd think 'That's weird.'

"But you go into half the Japanese restaurants around town that are called Japanese and it's half-Korean, half-Chinese. It's like 'Asian.' It shouldn't all be lumped together. Each one is a perfectly wonderful cuisine in its own right."

What separates Japanese food from other Asian fare? "In one word: simplicity," says Takeshi Maki , a sushi chef at Shino Express on Newbury Street. Whether it's sushi, soba noodles, or shabu-shabu hot pots, Japanese dishes are often delicate, subtle in flavor, and sparing with ingredients. Overpoweringly spicy or strongly flavored dishes found in other Asian countries are uncommon.

In Japanese cuisine, it's all about the details, such as meticulous care in the preparation of rice.

"For Japanese people who are really discriminating about food, rice is very important," says Grilli, who grew up partly in Japan. Though most Americans fixate on fish slices, it's often rice, he says, that will make or break good sushi.

But the Japan Society's Mochizuki acknowledges that it's probably unrealistic to expect a true taste of Japan in Boston.

"When you are asking for something that is exactly that to someone here, I think it's not fair," she says.

It's also probably not economical, given the population.

"I think it would be very hard for restaurants to limit themselves" to only traditional Japanese food, says Cathy Su, a native of Taiwan whose family is opening two downtown sushi restaurants that will also offer other non-Japanese foods, Exotic Grille and Sushi , and Exotic Sushi and Oyster Bar.

"You can't just say I want to be authentic," says Su, "because authentic won't bring in the revenue."

So restaurants modify their menus for Western taste buds.

"We have to think about the non-Japanese people," says Maki of Shino Express. "If you want to be successful, you have to arrange for who your customers are."

With that goal in mind, he prepares sushi rice slightly sweeter than is traditional, and he may substitute some ingredients, such as portobello mushrooms for shiitake .

The result might satisfy a native of Southie, but not necessarily a native of Japan.

"If you can't find the right kind of taste in Boston, a lot of people that I know would simply cook it at home," says Mochizuki.

And home cooking is where Boston does have an edge, with its selection of Japanese foods at Asian grocers.

"I can get pretty much everything I want here," says Nori Ikegami, a former sushi chef and the manager of Kotobukiya, a Japanese grocery sometimes referred to as the "Japanese mall" at the Porter Exchange, in Porter Square.

Kotobukiya, along with Yoshinoya in Central Square and Cherry Market on Newbury Street, are three exclusively Japanese markets in Greater Boston. There's also Japonaise Bakery, which has a branch in Brookline and the Porter Exchange. There are also an increasing number of Chinese and Korean stores selling Japanese products, such as the Super 88 Market chain, Reliable Market in Somerville, Mirim Oriental Groceries in Allston, and Village Food Land in Brookline. Fresh fish, of course, is also plentiful in Boston.

If you shop around, many traditional, authentic Japanese treats can be found: mouth-puckering pickled plum s, raw fish slices for sashimi, fresh octopus, all types of dried seaweed , vegetables such as lotus root, natto (a type of gooey, fermented soybeans), high-end rice (which goes for about $20 for a 15-pound bag at Kotobukiya), and snacks and sweet treats such as anpan (a red bean-filled bread).

These stores even sell traditionally Western products that are imported from Japan, such as mayonnaise, white bread called shokupan, and pancake mix.

There are a few items that remain hard to obtain. Ikegami says he has trouble finding certain luxury meats and really good prepared soba, the favored noodle in Tokyo, home city of Matsuzaka.

Grilli agrees: "I haven't found any place in Boston where you can get soba as good as you can" in New York.

Somehow, with the $52 million Matsuzaka has scored from the Red Sox, it seems likely that arrangements will be made to ensure the Sox star gets what he wants, even in Boston.

Adam Smith, English-language editor for the Chinese-language Sampan newspaper, edits the go-newz.com ethnic newswire. He can be reached at ciweek@globe.com.