July 19, 2014 |
In 1994 I visited the fish market at Tokyo. I saw vast halls selling fish, shark-sized tuna and a labyrinth of dark alleys and wooden stalls with knives, shellfish, colossal crabs, pickles, udon, rice – each stall had its speciality. I found a cafe and ate with the workers; there was no menu and I had no Japanese – I pointed at what the guy next to me had: rice, fish, soup and green tea served against the old Formica and mirrors steamed from cooking. It was a very exotic experience.
I visited again last December. There seemed more places to eat; sushi bars with English menus. At several stalls the old men spoke English. “Please sir. Try. The best tamago [omelette]. The very best.” Twenty years ago nobody was that accommodating. Also, this visit I also saw a coach party of Chinese schoolgirls.
Places change. They become touristic. But as a tourist I have a hunger for what I would call “authentic culture”. Even though I know that you cannot see “authentic” culture because you are always part of the view – that is what we forget – just by being there you make the scene less authentic. But I still have the desire. Easy for a single male. In New York I travelled aimlessly; I discovered the empty white spaces of Jones Beach. Nobody was here; blocks of silent condos, carless roads and unpeopled sand. My current partner has taken holidays by herself. Turin was lonely, she said. Eating three courses alone. Taking the “chocolate tour”. Wandering backstreets by herself she felt vulnerable.
There are Japanese blogs that tell women, especially if they are looking for a husband, they should not eat much. Men do not like to see women eat. The extent to which Japanese culture is patriarchal is not known outside Japan. When a Tokyo MP says he will not support nursery provision because women should stay at home, the story does not make world news. The country has a modern image. But Japanese culture is male-dominated. And Japanese women are diligent food bloggers – world leaders in the field.
Food blogging is probably a feminist gesture. Last year in Rome I went to a restaurant recommended by a Japanese food blog. The young woman at the next table was Japanese, alone and meticulously photographing her food, which was something challenging with knuckles of meat in thick sauce. Like all men who stare at all women, I watched her. I admired her spirit of enquiry. One table up was a priest (drinking Coke from a can and eating pizza).
Eating is adventure. Restaurants and local etiquette are the unknown. Certain restaurants in cities are the last non-touristic experiences. This Christmas I had a holiday in Tokyo. I went to a museum. I saw the exterior of the Imperial Palace in the rain. I visited a shrine. But I felt the life of the city when I sat down to eat.
There is a small tempura restaurant in Ginza (Tokyo). The restaurant, Ginza Tekuni, has three floors. Upstairs has set menus and set prices. In the basement there is a comfortable bar; the chef is on the other side. The decor is hard to read: a subtle homage to Eames, dated friezes. There is a feeling of hushed comfort. So you sit downstairs. A lady in kimono brings green tea. The chef offers the menu. Order one piece at a time. Maybe scallop. Asparagus. Sweet potato. Different mushrooms. All perfect.
The kimono lady brings rice and miso soup with clams to enhance the stock.
The silence never shifts. Who comes to such a place? One or two old ladies who have been coming since 1964. Two city boys in dark blue suits. There’s nobody else at lunch. It is like a room in a private club. The food is beautiful. You feel lighter for eating it (which is rare with tempura, they have to be masters to achieve such an effect). The silence is ghostly. The chef is relaxed; he is working with hot oil but you would think he was folding paper.
There are no prices on the menu. When you order one piece at a time it is called okonomi. I am a guest so I have no idea how much lunch costs. I would guess £70. But it could have been more. Or less. But you cannot eat here if you are going to have that anxiety. There are set meals available – you can ask for kiku, which will cost £20 – but there is a grace to going okonomi, a trust that must be restful once you surrender to it.
I went to another restaurant without prices. It is called Narukiyo, named after its chef. Again there is a bar, and the kitchen is behind the bar. They also have a seated area with menu (and prices), but the bar is more interesting. The kitchen looks like a makeshift army kitchen: rough metal, hanging knives and burning charcoal.
You don’t order food. But as Narukiyo cooks whatever he is cooking; he will give you portions, sometimes small, sometimes large. You drink (Shochu, beer, tea). This can go on for hours. And you get to watch him, so you see how traditional and modern Japanese food is made.
The food is exciting here. It is expansive. Some unknown shellfish. Then a salad of baby tomatoes with raw sea bream and sea bass – very high-quality sashimi. A beautiful bouri daikon (traditional fish soup), steamed asparagus with koji miso –then more sashimi, served on ice, fish so rare that even Japanese customers were looking them up on Google as Narukiyo dived into a chest freezer and hauled never-before-seen (or eaten) creatures from the depths. At the end you get a small bowl of steaming, comforting udon (with tempura) – hot carbs to wrap everything up.
I don’t know how much it cost (again, I was a fortunate guest). Maybe £60-70 a head. Narukiyo used to do something in film and the atmosphere of the place is a bit cool; they play funky rock and Afro (I think that’s what it was), people dress down – you can wear jeans and boots – it reminds me of a late-night bar in Berlin, but with quality Japanese food.
The longer you stay the more Narukiyo will get used to you. He will see what you eat and try things out on you. The key is to look relaxed, learn how to say “delicious” in Japanese (the word is oishi) and surrender to the experience.
Now you can spend a lot of money on sushi in Tokyo. It is not like London sushi. The nigiri is not refrigerator cold. There is human warmth to the rice. And because Tokyo is by the sea, the fish is super-super-fresh. And at somewhere really good you could spend £20 on a small piece of chutoro – particularly tender tuna. But I know a place a train ride from the centre where first-rate (and non-farmed) chutoro is £3.
Kurihama is a distant watery suburb of Tokyo. It is a damp green place with a 1970s shopping centre and rough-looking covered market. It is not touristic. But it has one sushi bar, Hisago, which is locally famous and everything a neighbourhood sushi bar ought to be. The decor is blond wood and stools, a counter, the fish under glass. The staff are serious but kind. And the sushi is great. The soup subtle. And everything super-fresh and super-cheap. So you can eat and eat. And eat. You can try everything and it’s all cheaper than the worst fridge-cold London sushi. They also have unknown “local” fish, which are sublime.
I would go at lunchtime when it’s quiet and it would be impossible to say if you were having sushi in 2014 or 1974; or at least it seemed that way to me on a rainy December in Kurihama, in a place so peaceful and at ease with itself.
Tokyo must have hundreds of thousands of restaurants. And I am certain that others, many others, must be graceful spaces run by people who are totally committed to every aspect of their work. And I think people write food blogs because they want to bring recognition to these places, these treasures. The food bloggers are like Victorian explorers searching for lost cities but wandering Rome for knuckles of meat in perfumed sauces, hunting for the perfect neighbourhood sushi bar, far from the commercial centre. And in 2014, against a foreground of so many who are famous for giving so little, I find myself turning to this quieter murmur that gestures towards a perfect background with the taste that is always present in the truly perfect, of the freedom from all stress and the finite.
By Tony Marcus
