Category Archives: restaurants

Eating Sacred Cows: The Windiad no. 3

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the lumberjack slam

The Cattle of Helios
My Odysseus references are all out of order. This one happened sometime during the middle of the voyage, but literary allusions are not bound by time. So there.

Odysseus’s fleet landed in Thrinacia, an island where a herd of beautiful cattle were raised. They were tended by Helios, the sun god. But he was busy doing sun god things so he put his daughters in charge. This bit of the story really should be called the Cattle of Phaethusa and Lampetia. They did all the hard work.

Though they were hungry, Odysseus warned his men not to eat the cattle because they were grown for the gods. But nothing can stand between a sailor and a juicy hamburger, so the men slaughtered a few cows and had themselves a feast.

In retrospect, the men should have portrayed themselves as freedom fighters, fighting for equal rights, opening up fair access to all resources, especially the choice magical beef. Instead, history knows them as a bunch of greedy, impatient louts.

The daughters told Helios, but since he was busy doing sun god things, he told Zeus, knowing that Zeus was a hothead. Sure enough, Zeus destroyed Odysseus’s last ship, and they all ended up adrift at sea on loose planks and masts.

The Sacred Cow Slam at Denny’s
On the drive up to Oregon today we stopped off at a Denny’s for dinner. T wanted to see what a real American Denny’s was like. The Denny’s in Japan has totally different food. For instance, one of my favorite dishes there is a sashimi rice bowl. At the Denny’s in Yreka (the last California town before entering Oregon), I ordered the Lumberjack Slam, and T ordered the All-American Slam. Mine came with grits (which is just fancy talk for polenta), bacon, sausages, pancakes with a pile of creamed butter on top, an extra thing of creamed butter on the side just in case I wanted to increase my chances of a heart attack, and some kind of bread.

You can have white, whole wheat, sourdough, rye, English muffin, or ciabatta with buttered garlic. With the butter shortage in Japan, I ordered the ciabatta, just to stock up, because that creamed butter on the side wasn’t really enough. Then of course, how would you like your eggs? I like mine as an omelette lightly fried in olive oil and garlic folded with whole basil leaf and avocado, but I settled for scrambled. So many choices.

Also: free refills of coffee. Miss that. It was pretty good too.

In the past, whenever I ate at a diner in a small town like Yreka, little white kids would stare at me, and mustachioed white men would eye me suspiciously from under their caps. I’m sure it was because I was so good-looking. But probably it was because they didn’t see too many people of color.

I also had waitresses talk loud and slow to me. Maybe they thought people of Asian descent were genetically predisposed to deafness. I’ll tell you one thing though. I was impressed at how well the waitresses could speak English.

This time around, at this Denny’s anyway, I didn’t feel like I attracted much attention. Maybe America has evolved. Or I theorize that maybe they think I’m a soldier. So they afford me a little more respect and less gawking. Ever since the Iraq War began, I get more people assuming that I’m a marine. It’s probably my excellent posture, and penchant for military colors. Or maybe I have a look on my face that says, “I’ve killed men, but I’d rather not talk about it. More butter, please.”

In the 1980’s, there were numerous instances of African-Americans and Asian-Americans being refused service, being given atrocious service, forced to pay in advance, or pay more than white customers at Denny’s. There were other uglier incidents of these customers being forcibly removed by security for demanding to be served.

In 1994, a large class-action lawsuit was successfully filed against Denny’s. After that, the company implemented sensitivity training for all its employees. And by 2001, Denny’s was deemed by Fortune Magazine as “the best company for minorities”. So maybe America did evolve a little more in the last decade. Now we all have equal access to more butter and increased risks for heart disease!

Eat Jerk! at Aala Wi

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enjoy jerk!

One of my favorite neighborhood restaurants is Aala Wi. They serve Jamaican jerk chicken and pork. It’s on a little Ebisu street with a lot of posh, stylish restaurants and bars. In contrast, Aala Wi is very down to earth, casual and relaxing. And most importantly, cheap. None of the dishes are over 1,000 yen.

When I first entered I felt like I had stepped into a little hippie café from back home. There are hand-written menus, flyers of music events tacked on the walls, and a hipsterish crowd with dreadlocks and bohemian clothes. The servers and cooks have a friendly, tree-sitting vibe. I could imagine them having an Earth First! meeting after closing.

marley mural

Their specialty is the jerk chicken, which comes with a bit of cole slaw and some banana chips. It’s not as spicy as I would like but you can pile on the chili sauce and ketchup. For vegetarians, they serve a jerk tofu, which is very tasty and has more vegetables than the jerk meat dishes. Keeping with the Jamaican theme, they serve a lot of rum drinks, but I always opt for the mango shake. They also provide take-out.

In the background, there’s a constant stream of old school Jamaican music, reggae and dancehall, with a screen that flashes Caribbean music videos. During the week, it’s never crowded, except at lunch. And on the weekends, there’s a DJ who works the turntables.

This is a great place to connect with Jah, while planning your next subversive act.

For a map, click here.

Eating Tofu with Swedes

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g775401w.jpg

Last night we had dinner at a tofu restaurant with our friends Yukiko, Gustav, and his brother Magnus. Yukiko had been working in Cambodia for an NGO and in Jordan before that. We’re glad to have her back before she returns to saving the world in another country. Gustav is visiting from his native Sweden. Both Yukiko and Gustav were classmates of ours in England, so it was a reunion of sorts.

We saw Yukiko just a few weeks ago but we hadn’t seen Gustav since 2003. He was in town to see his old Zen master, who at 89 won’t be around much longer. Unlike most Swedes, Gustav and his brother are vegetarians and, even more unusually, they drink very little alcohol. So T had the foresight to reserve a table at Sora no Niwa, a restaurant that specializes in tofu cuisine.

Sora no Niwa
We tried several dishes. My favorite was the mochi-like roasted soy cakes, and a soy-sesame concoction that was pure yummy goodness. The most interesting was a soymilk dish that was simmered in a wooden box at our table for 25 minutes. It curdled into a warm silky smooth light tofu that was as satisfying as it was delicate.

Even for a health food aficionado like me, I’m amazed at the variety of delicious creations that can be made from soy. This kind of restaurant, which is somewhat common in Japan, would do spectacularly well back home on the West Coast. With so many vegetarians in California and Oregon, who crave something more than tofu dogs and garden burgers, tofu chefs would be in high demand. Of course, there were many dishes that incorporated meat and fish. So, if you are in fact vegetarian I recommend that you bring along someone who can read Japanese since the menu is entirely in Japanese.

The prices were quite reasonable. Even with two drinks each and enough courses to fill you up, it cost just over 3,000 yen per person. The décor of the restaurant is filled with light wood and white stones lending a tranquil atmosphere in an otherwise lively Friday night environment. Sora no Niwa is located just a few minutes away from Ebisu station from the East Exit. For a far more detailed review and specific directions, click here.

me and the swedes

Swedish Zen

It was great to see Gustav. We relived the gulag-like conditions of the weight room back at our university and empathized with each other over our stalled PhDs. Spending the evening with him rekindled the calm that I used to cultivate many years ago. And it seems to have spread to his little brother, who at 19, was mature beyond his years. Like Gustav, Magnus engaged in sincere conversation, asking thoughtful questions. And he has already adopted, in one day, the frequent bowing and thanking that is part of Japanese society.

Currently, Gustav works as a chaplain in a prison, while studying to become a Lutheran pastor. Next time I see him I’ll have to ask him how he reconciles his Buddhist training with his aspirations to become a Christian minister. Maybe I’ll give him the full Quilting Sword treatment.

Climbing Shinjuku Peaks

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bridge of windows

I like to look at the big picture. And that’s why I love a great view. When I’m hiking I find myself gravitating towards the highest point in the area, whether it’s a peak or a ridge. It’s the same in cities. I look at a tall imposing building and I want to see what the view is like from there.

So the other day I made an overdue trek to what was (until last year) the tallest building in Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, designed by Kenzo Tange. I’ll just call it the Tokyo Met. For years, since I first moved to Tokyo, the Tokyo Met was on my list of places to visit. It was the tallest building and it was free to get up there. Whenever I had some extra time in Shinjuku, where the building is located, I’d make a casual effort to try to find it. But I’d always run out of time or just got lost in the maze of streets that make up Tokyo. None of my Japanese friends were interested in taking me there.

Finally I strategized, found out which of the gazillion exits I had to leave from Shinjuku Station and then charted out a route. It couldn’t be that hard to find the tallest building in the area and it really wasn’t. It’s pretty much a straight shot out of the station.

Pho Break

pho art

Of course, it’s the journey that’s interesting, not so much the end destination. And on the way I stopped off for lunch at a chic little eatery with Southeast Asian cuisine. Sorry forgot the name. It had the obligatory GQ head waiter with the tarento smile, and that all important drink bar. The neighborhood is all business. Black suits and company name tags hung from everyone’s neck. But in the restaurant I only saw young women, perhaps job-hunting, reading little anonymous books. In short, I was completely out of place. But the food was good and reasonable.

The Ripe Peach Building

glass pod

This area is the heart of the skyscraper district, and there were many interesting buildings around. One building stood out. It was still under construction but it looked like a terrible copy of the London Egg, with criss-crossing bands of gauze. But then I read the building description and found that it’s a future fashion and art design school. So the gauze made sense. I also liked the way the building is split open in the middle like a ripe peach.

The Peak

tree of knowledge

The Tokyo Met is a pair of towers that form a semi-circle around an expansive plaza lined with sculptures. I really liked the one that I call the Tree of Knowledge. And I liked the big open space of the plaza itself. It’s a shame though because there is no life there. No natural pedestrian traffic to really make it the kind of public gathering place where protests and celebrations and people watching can happen. There was nobody there except for one quasi-homeless person napping under one of the sculptures and some stray people hurriedly walking across the emptiness.

As I mentioned, getting to the observation deck of the building is free. It took about a minute on the elevator. You can go up the north or the south tower. I went up both, and the south tower is definitely the more interesting of the two. Because there were so many tall buildings nearby there wasn’t the feeling of being truly airborne like from Roppongi Hills. But you also don’t have to pay 1,000 yen either. The south tower had a very reasonable restaurant/café, and the north tower had a pretentious-looking restaurant/bar, but it too was reasonably priced.

On the day I was there the view was hazy, but I could still see faint outlines of distant mountains. Overall, I recommend going there because the whole complex and the interiors are designed in the art deco style, which I love. The art deco-ness is tempered with clean lines to make it more contemporary. It’s a beautiful building. Around the building, the area is lacking in vitality and general interest outside of architecture. So if you’re not a building or view fetishist like me, you’re better off in livelier neighborhoods.

view from the top

Baqet

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the baker

Fresh baked bread right out of the oven. You can have as much as you like. All 21 varieties. Baqet is a restaurant in the Meguro Station building. Lunch is about 700 to 1200 yen, and if you pay a little more it includes all-you-can-eat-bread from the bread bar, and all-you-can-drink beverages at the drink bar.

The main dishes, which change daily, are Italian fare, mostly drizzled in olive oil, whatever dish you choose. But it’s perfect for sopping up with steaming buns right out of the oven.

the bread bar

Once a batch of bread is baked, the baker comes out, rings a bell, announces which bread is available, and a small herd of people jump up from their tables and load up on the tiny plates that are provided. On a lazy Sunday, I nibbled on 13 rolls. They are truly tasty. My favorites are the buttery croissants, the green tea mugwort rolls, and the milk pastries. The drink bar is also quite good. I single-handedly emptied their weekly grape juice supply.

It’s not a place to relax with a book unless you go after the lunch rush, after 2pm perhaps. There’s usually a long line of people around noon. But I’ve seen clueless people plunk down with a newspaper and hold up a table while sipping on coffee. It’s just a mixed bag in general. There was a hyper little kid that coughed on the bread, an elderly couple who kept creepily staring at me, and one incredibly lazy young woman who kept calling the baker to come to her table to deliver the bread.

In short, T and I rolled our eyes and giggled a lot. I closed my eyes and breathed in the delicious bread and imagined myself in a Fellini bakery.