MGO3, Day 18 & 19: Currying favor
Put hand close to face
Hamamatsu —> Shizuoka
There are five Indian curry restaurants within a ten minute walk of my hotel. Indian curry to differentiate from Japanese curry of which there are seemingly none, not even the ubiquitous CoCo ICHIBANYA.
The way I ended up picking Dan Indian Curry is this—I arrived on January 1 and not a lot was open, and I noticed a small gathering outside of Dan so I marked it down on my map. Why didn’t I go in then? Because sometimes you have to wait for the spirit to move you (I was feeling slightly sorry for myself which is the wrong energy to bring into any social space).
So I went in the second day and had really great curry and when I left I took a picture and everyone smiled like this :D.
I said I’ll come back tomorrow to try the other curries and then I didn’t. But when I walked by that day the chef (middle above) waved at me, and then a few seconds later the lady above right came whizzing by.
Hello! Where did you go today! And I said, I went to a record shop and I held up my bag that was actually full of garbage, the remains of a misguided Family Mart trip that culminated in my eating five mochi cheesecake puffs. She nodded like I wasn’t insane, and I said I will definitely come tomorrow like I maybe a little was.
Only this time I did go back and had the other curries which were also great. And as I got up to leave they held up two of the things I recommended from Family Mart. Like on Instagram, they said. Only they said it like :D. And now I looked like :D and I said, wow that’s very cool (or something like that) and then they handed me two—and I’m sure there’s an actual name for them but I’ll call them what my friend calls them—individually wrapped giant Cheetos.
Gifts! they said.
So now I have to go back to Hamamatsu.
Otherwise
I have been turned away from my third unagi (grilled eel) restaurant. Unagi is maybe my favorite Japanese food, so this is starting to hurt my feelings. I guess Top Rated also means Must Definitely Make A Reservation.
The other two times I just ate something else, but this time something gently snaps inside me and I look up more unagi restaurants and the only one that is open is not at all close so I put my head down and march my way there.
I have come to love the old man and woman who run this place the translated Google review says and I determine that I, too, will come to love them if for no other reason then they will serve me unagi mark my words.
I go in, I sit down, I order, and it’s all so tantalizingly close when the young lady taking my order asks me something in Japanese and I have no idea. She asks me to wait, chotto mate, and talks to the old woman I am prepared to love, and she comes over and speaks to me in more Japanese. And now it is my fault I’m not getting unagi, my dumb language-resistant brain once again messing everything up.
But then the old woman looks to the man sitting to my left, a man I noticed as not Japanese as soon as I entered, and he of course speaks fluently and works out they are asking me what seasoning I want with the yakitori I ordered. Which turns out to be a trick question because they recommend this one with salt, this one with the sweet sauce and anyway that’s how they serve it here so that’s what I’m getting.
I thank him and we start chatting, and I learn that Jay1 is from Canada, and Scottish, and also wearing yellow-framed Cubitts glasses like I am. That much I can tell just by looking at him. He’s a teacher here (“I was a teacher”) and from Vancouver Island (“My family lives on the island”) and now I’m wondering if I’ve both time-travelled and dimension hopped.
He moved here 40 years ago looking for adventure and it’s hard not to feel like Robert Frost standing in the woods. For reasons that feel relevant but I can’t remember I mention getting divorced twice. He orders a sake and I very slowly drink my tiny beer and I realize I’ve not had a conversation this long in about two weeks. I am word hungry. Jay tells me things I promise not to mention so all I’ll say is he’s lived A Life Of Non-Comformity which endears him to me immensely.
Furthermore
I fully intend to go back to the hotel and of course end up at a jazz bar, where it’s me, the two people who just played, and a sleeping man. Drunk, the bartender informs me. The sleeping man is very asleep.
I missed the show, but later learn the sleeping man had made it “difficult” for the performers to continue. No further clarification is offered. He had made it difficult so they stopped. I notice a poster for a show tomorrow, and ask the bartender/owner if it’s here.2 And of course it’s going to be him on piano, and the man who was just here (not drunk) on the saxophone, at a venue literally around the corner from where I’m staying.
I like trad jazz, the owner says, and mimes playing what I guess is hard bop on the piano. I ask if he likes Bill Evans and the owner makes a slight face. Ennnnhhhhh maybe not my thing. I ask if he likes Keith Jarrett and he holds his hands like he’s balancing a long cat between them. He is very talented, the owner offers. I know almost nothing about either of them except that they play piano, and my ruse has failed. Flailing I say, so like… Thelonious Monk…. And the owner nods and smiles. Phew. Maybe, he says, we will play a Monk tune tomorrow.
I give a thumbs up.
Not his real name.
The jazz bar is called Dot Cool. Once again, Japan is undefeated with business names.