Japanese Food Fiasco

The following is a letter I sent home to my family while on a business trip to Japan.

Maybe I should have ramped up by eating a Japanese restaurants in the weeks before my departure. See, I just can't get into the food here. I'm pretty convinced it's a matter of biology and not taste. My body is actually telling me that I'm incompatible Japanese food. Yes, I am sincerely trying, but it's not working out as well as I'd hoped.

For lunch on Friday, Jason, Kojima-san, Kawazoe-san and I went to Coco's. That's right. Coco's. Same architecture, same green sign, same font for the lettering. They pronounce it "co-CO-su" but the sign reads "Coco's." Sadly for me, that sign is where the ties to home end. Even though the menu says "Coco's California Restaurant," the food is ALL Japanese. No club sandwiches, no hamburgers, no pie. Coco's without pie!! They had soup. Miso soup. Swell. So I did the only thing I could do in my position, I ordered deep fried pork.

I know what you're thinking. At least, I know what my dear mother and beloved bride must be thinking. "Surely, Stuart, in all of the Coco's menu, there must be SOMETHING more appealing and wholesome than deep fried pork." Surely there must, but you see, preceding the finalization of my menu choice was a protracted process whereby I would point to pictures in the menu and Kojima-san would tell me what it was. It went something like this:
"What is this?"
"Fish."
"How about this?"
"Fish."
"Is this chicken?"
"Fish."
"What is in--"
"Fish. How about shrimp, you eat shrimp?"
"No, but this looks good."
"Fish."
"This is fish too?"
"That is pork."

Pork! He said pork! I had to go with it. After all, he needed a chance to pick his meal too. So pork it was, a lot of pork. But I wanted to be a polite and respectful guest in Japan, so I ate it all. I even poured on the sauce Kawazoe-san suggested. It was pretty good at the time.

I've never eaten a pound of bread pudding, but the deep fried pork sat like a lump in my stomach much like I guess a pound of bread pudding would. Sheer conjecture on my part, though. When it came time to have dinner, Jason, the pork, and I were walking around a pedestrian-only shopping street. The three of us would stop at each eatery and look over the menu for something appealing. Jason, I think, could have happily found a dish at any of the restaurants. I found a few items that seemed workable, too. The pork was a lot more choosy. It wasn't about to share its space with just any meal.

Eventually, I was tired of the pork and it's onerous demands so we entered a noodle shop. At this shop, you can't talk to the guy behind the counter. I mean, you can talk to him, but he'll grunt and point to a machine behind you. We'll call it the "Waitress-o-Matic." The Waitress-o-Matic is a vending machine. As you drop coins into the slot, buttons begin to light up. If you put in 300 yen, buttons with pictures of menu items up to that price light up. I put in 500 yen and pushed number 20, a little udon and vegetable number that looked innocuous enough. The Waitress-o-Matic spit out a ticket which I handed to the grunter behind the counter. The grunter prepared my selection, placed on a tray and let out a grunt that I think meant "your udon bowl is ready, sir. Enjoy your meal." I said "arrygawtow gozymaws," and he delivered a final grunt which I took to mean "you're most welcome, sir, and if there's anything I can do to make your meal more enjoyable here at Noodle World, please don't hesitate to ask."

Well, old number 20 let me down. Fist of all, it had no cheese. I knew this going in, but a lack of cheese in any meal somehow violates my sense of propriety. But the real problem with the meal was me. I'm not used to the flavors in Japan and apparently the pork wasn't either. None of us got along. Worse, the unidentifiable vegetables and other fungi-like things atop the noodles were exotic to a fault. They looked like broccoli and green beans in the Waitress-o-Matic photo. In real life, they were freaks of nature, so repellant to the pork and I, we had to push them aside and concentrate on the noodles.

The noodles were delicious. They would have been better were they not tarred with the stigma of the repellant vegetables and broth, but I had to eat, so I decided to go after the noodles and ignore the broth and whatever that other stuff was. Instantly, my Ameri-centric mindset and life experience proved problematic.

I can't use chopsticks.

I'm not so pathetic that I didn't KNOW chopsticks are the primary utensil of Japan. I just didn't have time to think about it or practice. So now, there I was with a bowl of noodles in front of me and two wooden sticks in my right hand. I'm a messy eater when I use utensils that I've mastered (I can hear you asking me to name one utensil that I've mastered, but I won't dignify that with an answer). By the time I'd eaten all the noodles, my place at the counter looked like the scene of a food fight. Jason was sporting and tried to help me with my technique. Making an honest effort to incorporate his suggestions only embarrassed both of us, and he suggested I go back to my improvised approach.

I've never eaten two pounds of bread pudding, but the deep fried pork and the newly arrived noodles sat like a lump in my stomach much like I guess two pounds of bread pudding would. I began to wonder if there was a way to make the breakfast meal last all day.

On Saturday, Jason and I met Kawazoe-san in Tokyo. Kawazoe-san is the consummate bachelor waking late in the morning and working deep into the night. We woke him around 11 and he met us at a subway station. Around 1 pm is was time for his breakfast. Being afraid to eat, I feigned indifference to food and let the others select a place to eat. Kawazoe-san chose a small restaurant with traditional low tables and pillows on the floor for seating. It was neat to experience this.

We ordered beer and discussed the menu. Even if I could have read it, I would have been afraid to order. The pork and the noodles were no longer lumps in my gut, but I didn't want another pound-of-bread-pudding experience. So I asked that they order plain rice for me. Just a bowl of plain white rice. They ordered other food for themselves, but it turns out, they didn't really think I would only eat rice and nothing else, so they ordered enough for me too.

Sitting there, eating my plain white rice for lunch, I couldn't help but wonder if I was turning into my sister Abbie. Abbie as a child, anyway. I never really thought about it before, but maybe the food available to her as a kid left her feeling like my Japanese meals were leaving me. Maybe she wanted to eat, but nothing seemed to work out except plain white rice. Abbie, I'm sorry if I ever gave you any grief about not eating as a kid. I don't think I did, but just in case.

My big breakfast and small rice bowl got me through a 14 hour Tokyo adventure. By the time we got back to Kawagoe, we had probably walked 10 miles and it was nearly eleven at night. Our only choice for dinner was AM/PM Mini Mart. You may be shuddering, but it turns out this AM/PM was not the filthy gas station market you might expect. It was clean, well stocked, and had many food options that looked pretty decent. I selected a ham and cheese sandwich, prefabricated Belgian fries, and a Kit Kat for dessert.

It was no bean burrito, but it was the best meal I'd had yet. Even if Japanese mayonnaise is a little, um, different, the sandwich was pretty good. The fries were awesome, and the Kit Kat even better. I had found my bread basket and AM/PM was its name. But how to describe that mayonnaise? It looks just like regular mayo and tastes so close, that you might miss the difference. In fact, while I know it's not the same (independently verified and all) I can't explain the difference. You'll have to come here if you want to taste it for yourself cause I'm not packing a jar in my suitcase.

Sunday was another massive breakfast as I loaded up in anticipation of no food for the rest of the day. I walked and walked and walked on Sunday and never saw anything appealing. I'm not at a stage where I can eat at MekuDonaldo. You won't get me to eat that crap, I'm an AM/PM man! By the time I was too hungry to continue, I decided to load up on snacks and water from the grocery.

Snacking got me through the evening and in a nod to those days of bachelorhood, I walked down to the Mallard for dinner in the form of a pint of Guinness. Except the Mallard was the Windsor bar in the hotel lobby. I went in and was seated by the bartender. Guinness was the only beer they have on tap. I ordered one and set down a 1,000 Yen bill. The bartender walked over the cash register then returned to me and said "excuse me sir, it is one thousand, one hundred, sixty." In my mind I kept my cool, but in reality I may have fallen out of another chair. He has already pulled it and I really wanted it, so I fished out another 160 yen. I was determined to slowly enjoy my $10.68 beer. I took solice in two facts: the glass was an imperial pint and tipping is considered an insult in Japan. I also toasted my friend Brian in India who paid over $20 for his last Guinness. We're going out for beer when we're both stateside.

Jason joined me in the bar but it was too smoky to hang out once I'd finished my beer. He wanted a salad for dinner and that sounded pretty good to me. You can probably guess who has the best salads in Kawagoe. So we walked over to AM/PM. I picked up a green salad with lots of corn and a small amount of someone's idea of cheese. Having learned caution, I took a whiff of the dressing before pouring it over the salad. It was the nast. I opted to eat my salad dry and it wasn't that bad. Better still, the AM/PM guy put a plastic fork in my bag. How on earth people learn the dexterity to eat corn with chopsticks is a mystery to me.

The fork and I are pals now. I haven't named him, but I think I should. How can you build a relationship when one of you doesn't have a name? For now, he's Forky, but I'll come up with something more appropriate later. Forky, I realized, is my ticket to eating more food. The Bento boxes are sure to come with chopsticks, hindering my ability to eat. But having washed Forky in my bathroom sink, and retained his little plastic wrapper, the Bento scenario won't slow me down. Most restaurants will present you with a warm, moist towel when you arrive. Perfect for giving old Forky a little wipe-down at the end of the meal. So we're inseparable from now on. I'm going to keep him in my shirt pocket so he can see where we're headed. I think we should do some things that he would enjoy too, but I don't know what forks like to do. Suggestions would be appreciated.