Japan's menu scandal leaves bad aftertaste

• Some restaurants admit mislabeling menu items
• Prized Shiba prawns from Tokyo Bay were just shrimp from India
• Some companies have received the ultimate penalty in Japan%3A public shaming

TOKYO — This is a city where people spend hours in line for the trendiest bowl of ramen, drop $100 on a gift box of fruit or entertain clients several nights a week at chic restaurants.

So the news that prestigious restaurants have been swapping cheap substitutes for pricey menu items has created a major scandal that threatens to taint Japan's coveted worldwide reputation for exquisite cuisine.

"This is a foodie nation," says Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian Studies at Temple University's campus in Tokyo.

"People are proud of all the Michelin stars, and they generally eat very well, so the scandal has provoked outrage," he says. "People believe that this is simply a scam to improve the bottom line by selling cheap food as expensive cuisine."

Some of Japan's top hotels and high-end department stores in Tokyo, Sapporo and elsewhere admitted to a shocking transgression of ethics. The bait-and-switch was accidental, malefactors say, but at some spots it's alleged to have gone on for years.

People who ordered prized Shiba prawns, a rare and expensive delicacy from Tokyo Bay, were sometimes served bulk shrimp caught off India.

Wagyu beef refers to a special breed of cattle in Japan that is sometimes massaged by hand and fed beer to give its meat a highly marbled look and fattier content.

Some who ordered it got Australian beef. Organic vegetables from small Japanese specialty farms were actually shipped in from China.

The scandal has riled Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency, which says it will prosecute any business that intentionally misled diners. The agency said it will head off damage to Japan's reputation by proposing tougher penalties for food labeling violations, perhaps even jail time.

Some have received the ultimate penalty in Japan: public shaming.

The president of one of Japan's Hankyu Hanshin Hotels, a leading luxury hotel chain, resigned this month amid public disgust over the misrepresentation of the origin of its menu items. The Hotel Okura, where President Obama stayed during his state visit in 2009, has admitted serving lower-quality ingredients than those listed on some of its menus.

Also involved are major department stores that operate vast basement-level depachikas that offer all manner of high-end takeout cuisine and exquisitely wrapped gift food items. Some of Japan's most venerable and trusted purveyors have been caught.

The Takashimaya chain, founded in 1829, acknowledged last week that it mislabeled 62 different items in its stores, restaurants and delis nationwide. These include meat artificially injected with beef fat so it could be sold as "pure natural Wagyu filet."

Daimaru Matsuzakaya, another top department store chain, admitted that it sold osechi — boxed sets of New Year's holiday food — that contained ordinary black tiger shrimp rather than the more prized Kuruma variety as labeled. These boxed sets can sell for several hundred dollars each.

In nearly every case, violators said they had not intended to deceive customers but instead blamed "insufficient staff training," "lack of awareness" or "misunderstandings" for the false labels.

"We still believe that we did not disguise our menus, but customers have every right to think otherwise," said Hiroshi Desaki, president of the Hankyu Hanshin group, which operates the five-star Ritz-Carlton Osaka and other high-end hotels.

Several companies have offered refunds to those who can prove they bought mislabeled items. Hanshin paid out about $200,000 in claims within the first two weeks of the offer. Japanese news media estimate the total payout could reach into the millions of dollars.

One result of the scandal is that lovers of the finest menu items are finding out what it really costs to have them.

Wholesale prices of ise-ebi — spiny lobsters that are a key osechi ingredient — have nearly doubled in the past month as retailers chase the limited number produced domestically as opposed to using cheaper imports.

"This is a major hit to the Japan brand, which was already tarnished by the Fukushima (nuclear power) debacle," Kingston says. "Given how meticulous and dedicated almost all chefs are in Japan, it is a shame that the sleazy ways of a few are casting a cloud over the best eating on the planet."