It's Rhaaaw!!! (A Continuation Of The Japan Experience)

What's in a sushi? What's in eating raw food? Is it about texture? taste? the fear factor?

I remember the first time I tried raw fish. Sashimi. Tuna.  Zambales. 1992.

It was the wedding of my cousin's cousin from the father side. I was then living in the house of my father's sister in Marikina, my aunt. They invited me to come with them to Zambales.

Being Ilonggo, it was my first time to attend a traditional Tagalog wedding so I went. It's not as if I had a choice. If I didn't go, I would have been left all alone in Marikina and I dreaded the idea of being alone for a night.

I don't really know how we ended up in Zambales. I have no such memory. The only recollection I have of that day was the nighttime. We were in an open field near the house of the bride and there was a small hut in the middle. Incandescent, warm lights scatter on different areas. Just a few to light the pathways and the structures around the place. Everything else was in pitch black. Music was playing and the bride and groom were dancing in the middle of the hut and the older relatives would pin some cash on their clothes as they move in circles as everyone crowd around them.

I was having beer while watching the dance all by myself. I didn't know anyone there except the cousins I went with. But, of course, as soon as my cousins got there, they all went with their other cousins whom I didn't know at all.  So, practically, I was all alone having my beer, feigning enjoyment.

Believe it or not but I used to be a shy, insecure kid unlike my older brother Kenneth who can go to our family reunion and get to know everyone from the distant Uncles and Aunties to the new born grandson. Being a country boy, I'm not one to approach someone I just met and start talking about anything.

That's why I marvel at my kids now how comfortable they are in gatherings. You bring them to a gathering, leave them around children their age and suddenly they can play and have fun without any awkward moment whatsoever.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying the "kipkip" dance of the bride and groom except me. I emptied my beer in no time. Thinking that it was my chance to actually do something, I left to go to the house to get a bottle of beer.

On the way to the house, trying to kill as much time, my cousin of the same age, Obet, called me to join them. I decided to join them knowing fully that anywhere in that place would have resulted in that same lonely, out of place feeling.

As I slowly approached them, in the warm chiaroscuro light hitting them, they all looked like a bunch of bloodthirsty aswangs.  Lit only by the spill of light from the pathways, they were drinking in a circle with their other cousins and I can hear a rhythmic sound of chopping. From behind the circle I can see a suggestion of a knife being raised chopping something on the table in front of them. As I got closer, I saw a tuna fish around 4-feet long with it's head chopped off. There was a pool of blood on the table and the guy chopping was already filleting the loin of the fish. Small slices of raw tuna meat were placed on a plate and everyone was picking a slice and dipping it on a soy sauce bowl. Looking at the faces of everyone laughing and grabbing the slices and shoving it in their mouths with just this warm spill of faint light on their faces really made them look like ravenous cannibals. It was my first time to see raw fish being eaten. And I was grossed out.

The first time I felt the slithering texture of tuna sashimi sliding in my mouth, I thought I was going to throw up. I don't really mind fencing my tongue against a woman's tongue but even if the tuna is similar in texture, the thought of a raw piece of meat for the first time in your mouth with blood and all, is not my idea of good food. Sashimi is really an acquired taste.

Shibuya, Tokyo.  

Fast forward to 2011.  Japan. I promised myself that this time around, I will have a sushi odyssey.

The first thing you see coming out of Ikebukuro station.

A street in Ikebukuro

 We arrived in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, where our hotel was, on November 4 around 3pm. After checking in and dropping our bags off, we went around the area to see what's there.

The lousy kaiten sushi bar.

 For dinner, we passed by a kaiten sushi bar, one of those regular sushi places where the customer can pick and choose their sushi on a conveyor belt. I was so excited to try my sushi experience first thing as soon as I hit Tokyo. I know that kaiten sushis are the fast food version of good sushi.  But this is Japan! Certainly, sushi everywhere should be good. I was mistaken. Not every Japanese food in Japan is good. Not all the adobo in Manila is good. This one failed big time. The sushi was fishy. Too many fancy combinations.

The picture says it all.

Left-overs

I should have seen it coming. It was Bourdain who warned me about never trusting a restaurant that complicates a simple dish. Smoked salmon with mayo and leek sushi. Rubbery octopus meat with teriyaki sauce. It was bad. Lesson was: be patient, don't rush. For every pain, for every wrong choice, it just makes you a bit more careful the next time. That kaiten sushi experience, according to Miyagi-san, was a necessary mistake. "One needs to fall down on their knees in order to see the world from another perspective." 

Harajuku street on a weekend.

The next sushi experience was a bit thought out. Although still an accident, since the restaurant we went to was not sought out, I was more careful before entering the doors. This one now is in Omotesando Hills, the pricey mall strip in Harajuku.

A sushi bar in a high-end district, check! The sign says, "Since 1924.", check! A restaurant lasting for almost 90 years must be doing good food to last this long.

The sushi man.

We actually didn't decide to enter the place immediately. There was something that made me think twice about getting in. I was looking at the people sitting inside and I noticed that most of the customers were Caucasian foreigners. I always go with the foodie tip to go to restaurants where a lot of locals frequent and not on places that could be tourist traps. But what made me decide to go for it were the sushi makers on the bar. Every time I see old Japanese cooks and sushi makers in a restaurant, it always makes me feel that I'll be in good hands. There is that zen-wisdom, Yoda-esque feel to having an old guy take care of your food.

I am no sushi connoisseur but it was in this Omotesando sushi place that I realized that the Ikebukuro kaiten sushi bar sucked.

The handsome salmon and scallop with the toro tuna at the end.

That sushi stop was supposed to be dessert. We just finished eating a late lunch in a Japanese pasta place and was looking for coffee and dessert. It was a good thing we stumbled upon this place. For such a sleek looking restaurant, I was surprised that it was family-owned. And family-owned restaurants in Asia usually turn out to be really good eating places. Better than those high-end, factory-type, corporation-owned eateries.

The waiter was a revelation. He was a Japanese guy who was not wearing a waiter's uniform. He was vocal about the best choices for sushi volunteering the fish that he wants us to try. And since his choices weren't the pricey ones, we figured that this guy must be genuinely giving us some really good suggestions. As it turns out, he was the son of the sushi masters that own the place.  The yellow fin tuna with fresh yuzu sushi he recommended was memorable.

TO BE CONTINUED...