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"When self-taught butcher Kentaro Nakahara became a chef more than 15 years ago, no one was using premium wagyu beef for yakiniku , the Japanese version of Korean barbecue that's closely associated with beer-soaked grill pubs and cheap cuts of meat. Today, he’s on a mission to elevate the genre to the level of fine dining. On any given day, you can find him at Tokyo’s Shibaura meat market investigating the provenance, age, and ancestry of the Tajima cows he buys whole; at night, he'll be behind the counter in his chef’s whites, hair tied up in a blue-and-white do-rag, gleaming knife in hand." - Melinda Joe