A Few Things Made Better Than So Many Things Made Badly

Osaka Station, Osaka.  November 3, 2011.  Almost 10 p.m.

We have just arrived from Kansai where we landed from Manila.  Just like last year's trip, Michiko and I didn't make any plans for this first night when we get to Osaka.  The next day we will be off to Tokyo for a 6-night stay before we go back to Osaka again for another 5 nights.

We always assign this arrival night as the adventure time.  As someone who is not really too adventurous with any sort of extreme sport or leisure, a night without hotel and itinerary is already my idea of a great adventure.

Upon exiting Osaka station, we just walked straight crossing whatever street that's ahead of us.  We are looking for a good dining place.  That's first.  Sleeping place is second.  But for now, filling up the tummy is top of mind.

On the first cross, we already passed a commercial building.  How do I know?  Because there's a Starbucks Coffeeshop in the corner.

Like most commercial buildings in Japan, there is always a restaurant floor in there somewhere.  Either on the top floor or in the basement.  With this one, it was in the basement.  So off we went down the escalator.  Everything's closed.  Lots of pictures and plastic food "sculptures" on the shop windows but everything is closed.  We went up again.

We continued our walk towards the inner part of the streets.  One key rule in looking for restaurants in Japan is to go for the side streets.  I don't know why but most of the restaurants, if they're not inside a building, are most probably behind the main streets.  They line up one after the other.  And mind you, they're quite aware of competition.  Every restaurant or izakaya does not sell the same kind of Japanese food when they're beside each other.  One place serves tempura or tonkatsu, next one all sushi, the next soba, after that is a grill place and then some ramen house, and then the next set of stalls will repeat the cycle of types of food being served.

We found the nearest side street and walked around.  It was a quiet night.  The street is almost empty.  This is unlike the Dotonbori district in the heart of Osaka where it is just bustling with people.  That was a lazy night by Osaka standards.  

We found this quaint little place towards the end of the street.  We didn't know anything about it except that we kinda liked the pictures outside and decided to give it a try.  The pictures showed a ramen, a bowl of rice with EEEGGG and a tray of Gyoza.

Inside, except for the man cook and a lady waitress (sort of), we were the only ones inside.  When we sat down, the waitress gave us a menu that looks exactly like the placard outside the resto except that it's smaller.  We asked for an English menu and she said there's none.  Not knowing what else is written in that one-page menu, we decided it would be easier to just order the pictures.  So we ordered all that was pictured in the menu: the ramen, the bowl of EEEGGG rice and the gyoza.  No Coke.  Just tea.  Off the waitress went and handed the order to the cook.  She then brought out a tray and a container and started making gyoza, fresh.  Woooot!  The lady waitress doubles as a gyoza maker too.

The ramen was good.  It had the basic boiled pork belly on it and the classic leeks.  But this one had a soft-boiled egg in it.  Shit!  Egg!  Perfect!

The bowl of egg rice was simple and heavenly.  The eggs were wet and mushy laid on top of fried rice.  The fried rice was mixed with shoyu, burnt spring onions and a bit of garlic.  Oishii!

Finally, the gyoza made by that lady waitress.  Hmmmm, it was just OK.  The meat filling was a mush although the casing had a nice texture.  But I've tasted better gyozas before.

As our food were served, two groups of black suited working Japanese men entered and took the two tables of this 4-table hole-in-the-wall.  We wanted to find out what they ordered so we waited a bit to see what they had.  They all ordered the same ramen we did.  That's it!  Ramen only.  Plus a glass of beer each.

This is what I love about Japan.  They have these small stalls that only serve one kind of food; the food that they're good at.  They don't venture for any other types of food just to give their customers choices.  They only serve what they know how to do best and that's it.  Nothing more.

In this small place, they only serve three things in there and those types of food are not even the most complicated to do.  With ramen, they just have a stock that's boiling the whole time.  A portioned noodles in plastic containers.  Pre-cooked super tender pork belly and freshly cut leeks.  For the egg dish, it was just the egg and the fried rice.  The gyoza was the most complicated there.  But the meat filling is already prepared earlier.  It's the wrapping it by hand that makes it a bit more complicated than the other two dishes they serve.

Those three dishes plus 4 tables and they have a restaurant already.

Akihabara station.  November 7, 2011.  10:20 p.m.

After a long day at Yodobashi building going from one floor to the next looking at all the electronic stuff in there, it was time to go back to our hotel in Ikebukuro.  Akihabara is around 14 stops to Ikeburo.  That's quite a trip.  So before going into the train, I made a quick nicotine break just outside the station.

Right beside where I was smoking, there was a small van parked on the corner with quite a line of people waiting.  Michiko and I were curious to see what it was so we took a closer look.

Inside the van was a guy making crepes.  The kind of crepes that's very Japanese.  The one with the fruits, a bit of chocolate and an ice cream on top of it.  The crepe is not even really a crepe.  It's more like a softer barquillos (this tubular sweet, flaky delight from my hometown).

Anyway, this guy was going at the crepe-making all by himself.  Lay down the crepe mixture on the round, flat pan to cook it.  Place the whipped cream from the piping bag, smother it with chocolate sauce, put a few banana slices, top it with a scoop of ice cream, wrap the crepe around the filling, cover it with a paper napkin and serve it.  One after the next they were being served the same way with the same precise movement of the crepe maker.  It helps a lot that he's playing loud music in his van.  He makes the crepes almost to the beat of the music playing.

We were thinking, this guy could have been here the whole day serving the same thing to a line of people, listening to music to keep him going.  And when he's done, he'll just hop into the front seat and drive away.

I've tried one of these crepes in Osaka last year.  It wasn't really my kind of thing.  I'd still go for Cafe Breton's basic sugar and butter crepe over this.  But the Japanese sure loves it.

This guy only makes crepes and yet he manages to make a living out of it.  And he has a line of people to prove it.  A van, some music and just loads of crepes all day long is enough.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Egg

There's no other like it.  


Anthony Bourdain would always ask chefs what their last supper would be. Let's just say I'm one of them and if Tony took the time to ask me the same question as well, my answer would be, somewhere in the clutter of must-eats-before-I-die, egg.  The egg!


Cook it mushy, scrambly wet, sunny side up, over easy, hard boiled, soft boiled.


I remember when I went to Amsterdam somewhere between 1994 and 1995 to subtitle a movie, I stayed in some hostel and their breakfast, as in most parts of Europe, consists mainly of just bread, cold cuts, cheese, orange juice and egg.  Hard boiled egg with a soft center.  I probably embarrassed myself because I'd always eat 3 or 4 of those soft centered shit each time I had breakfast.  And this was way before news of its cholesterol content ruined my little egg's rep.


And even when news came out of some health scientists findings that a chicken egg has so much cholesterol especially the yolk(why is it that all the best part of food is always the most unhealthy?), I can still eat 2 or 3 eggs a day and I wouldn't feel an ounce of guilt whatsoever.


On breakfast buffets, even if there are loads of other stuff I haven't yet tasted, I'd really fill up my plate with either an omelette or those runny scrambled eggs.  That's first things first.  For omelette, I love those mushroom and cheese combos.  The cheese that's either gruyere or emmental, nutty and slightly bitter.  I could just eat that for breakfast.  No meats, no fancy jams or healthy yoghurts.  Just plain eggs and bread.
And lots of butter, of course.  And with a dose of heavy caffeine to go with it.


I can't have just one egg.  I grew up with two eggs on my plate each time.  My family always have two eggs on their plates, too.  Sunny side up mostly.  


When my dad gets his eggs, he uses his spoon and fork to slice the egg to pieces using it like a knife constantly crisscrossing the spoon and fork until it's cut into little bits and the yolk and the whites are mixed evenly.  On a busy morning, the neighbors could hear this cacophony of percussive spoons and forks slicing the eggs on the plate with me and my siblings going at the cutting with intent to kill.  Actually, it was only when I moved to Manila that I've found out that such a routine of slicing the eggs without any care for the world is rude to other people.  But for me and my sibs, that's music to our ears.


Sometimes, one would think that they have tasted every way there is to cook an egg.  But there is one way to cook an egg in Thailand that got me looking for it when I got back to Manila.  They cook the scrambled egg on high heat and come up with a sort of dried out, overcooked plain omelette and then they serve it with their classic Thai condiment of lime, nam pla and chopped chilis.  Shit, it was so good!  I was eating the egg with rice with no other dishes with it.  Just egg and rice with that sauce.  Fuck!  Of course, I tried it at home and I didn't get it.  Sorry me!  Now, I just daydream once in awhile about  it, doing a bit of Lee Strasberg Method sense memory thingy just to scramble through my memory bank and get back the exact taste of that heavenly egg dish!  And memories can fade...sob, sob, sob.


But, like all success stories, when you're down and crawling on the pavement trying to get back the glory days of that one Thai egg dish you tasted, here comes along another egg dish that erases all desperate wanting you have for that spicy Bangkok egg.  This time, it's a Chinese concoction!


In front of Rockwell, in a small street in a plush Makati village, there is a house that serves home-cooked Chinese dishes.  I know what you guys are thinking, it's not that over-rated Som's, sorry.  Hell, I don't even know the name of this restaurant/carinderia.  Anyway, they serve this scrambled egg dish with spring onions.  That's it!  Eggs...and spring onions!  Puta!  The best!  Of course, maybe there's a dash of glutamate umami thing there somewhere but who cares!  I like vetsin!  It tastes so good!  Again, have it with just rice!  Piping hot rice!


Now, for the sophisticated in the palate who wants their egg dish a bit expensive, there is this beautiful, comforting egg dish at Lusso in Greenbelt 5.  It's the egg en cocotte.  Simply, a baked egg with a soft center with some surprise at the bottom when you dig your spoon deep into the baking dish.  I only tried the one with foie gras and I keep coming back to have it each time.     


I have a secret to tell you that I would not dare say if I wasn't proven right.  I love my eggs served as the main ingredient.  An egg dish with just butter and toast.  But the secret cooking for my perfect egg is really a sunny side up with the whites burned on the edges but the yolk is still wet and medium rare.  


All these years, I thought that I am enjoying my sunny side up eggs but cooking it wrong and I don't dare tell anyone about it..  I thought that if the chefs of the world that I respect and worship eat breakfast at my table and I cook the same egg, they'd sneer at my preparation and tell me that for someone who claims to adore eggs, I don't really know how to cook one.  


But no, I was wrong...er, right.  Until recently, browsing through the upcoming books at Amazon, I chanced upon the latest cookbook from the best chef of the world, Ferran Adria.  Flipping through the 3-page preview of his latest book, The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria, I saw his sunny side up recipe for the glorious egg.  And, he too, just like me, prepares his egg with the overcooked crispy edges and the soft yolk center.  God damn!  That's Ferran, man!  And we cook our eggs the same way!  No, shit!


I love eggs!  I love everything about it.  Seeing it makes my day bright and sunny, pardon the pun.  Fluffy whites with that ultra-dainty yellow center looking right back at you almost like greeting you a good morning.  Too bad that it has suffered the wrath of those stupid food scientists over the years and I sure hope that my beloved egg recovers from it.  


Oh, egg!  I know that the white hates to be separated from its yolk.  Each time an omelette is made using only the whites of the egg, somewhere there in the dark recesses of the kitchen in some dunk bin there is a yolk weeping at being left out and unwanted.  Don't worry, my darling.  So long as you're in my household, in the egg tray of my cold ref, whether you're organic or not, you will always have a place in my dining table.  You are family.  And even as I grow old, alone, diabetic or arthritic and all, I will be with you 'til the day I die.  You will be at my last supper, remember?