10.23.07

A $5 Culinary Trip Through Tokyo (Part 3 of 3)

Posted in Food and Drink, Japan, Travel Log (Asia) at 12:43 pm by Benjamin Ross

I just wanted to take a minute to apologize to all the people who follow this blog for the lack, or should I say extreme slowness, of content of late. Things have been a little hectic as I begin the next phase of my life, which will entail moving to Chicago to look for a full time job, and the blog has found itself a little further down on the priority latter. Nonetheless I hope to pick up the pace in the next few weeks. I still have a post or two about my recent (well, not so recent anymore) trip to Japan, and then it’s back to content centered primarily on China. Without further adiu, here’s the final segment of “A $5 Culinary Trip Through Tokyo” continued from part 2.

On my final day in Japan, I actually only had half a day, since my flight departed Narita Airport at 4 pm. The trip from my youth hostel to the airport required me to switch trains at Nippori (an outer district of Tokyo) on the way to Narita. One of the unfortunate limitations of my trip to Japan was that I only had enough time to explore Tokyo, and by Tokyo I mean central Tokyo. The difference between central city and Narita was apparent from the moment I stepped off the train. Unlike the high-tech underground malls of Shinjuku and Shibuya which seemingly go on forever, Nippori station reminded me of a Chicago L-train stop, with its exposed steel beams and cement floors.

The area around Nippori Station, where I spent my last few hours in Japan, lacks the hustle bustle of downtown districts like Shinjuku and Shibuya. But it makes up for them with its quiet streets and charm.

Upon walking down the stairs of the station on to the street, I was greeted by a streetscape which appeared modest and calming, compared to the bustling districts of Central Tokyo. As I meandered off the main street and through quite alleys, I came upon a residential area. The houses were cramped and close together, but the streetscape remained impeccably clean. It was calmer and more serene than anything I had previously seen in Tokyo (or all of China for that matter).

As I came to another main street, I saw the characters 中国饭店 which mean “Chinese restaurant” in both Chinese and Japanese, posted on a sign. Turning the corner, I came across two more restaurants with 中国饭店 placed in front, one of which was 兰州拉面 (Lanzhou pulled noodles) shop, like the ones spread all over China. Just past the noodle restaurant, I heard a familiar sound resonating from a voice down the street. “国际电话卡，国际电话卡” (guo2 ji4 dian4 hua4 ka3). An old Chinese woman was selling international phone cards, and using her bellowing voice as the primary marketing tactic. Apparently I had stumbled upon another one of Tokyo’s mini-Chinatowns.

The ever so ubiquitous Chinese Restaurant. You can’t go too many places in the world these days without finding one, and Tokyo is no exception.

Since it was to be my final meal in Japan, I opted out of eating at one of the many Chinese restaurants, and continued away from the station, in search of another local Japanese dive.

After walking a ring around the area surrounding Nippori Station, I settled on a small restaurant which from the outside resembled those in which I had eaten in downtown Tokyo. The inside of the restaurant consisted of two rows of booths with a kitchen behind them. Next to the kitchen was an open-air refrigerator which housed various a la carte items. Not knowing whether I was supposed to sit and order, or select directly from the a la carte items, I sat at one of the tables and waited for a cue from the waitress. Looking around the restaurant, I could feel an entirely different vibe than those of central Tokyo. There were no flamboyantly dressed teenagers, or businessmen in suits looking as if they hadn’t slept in weeks. Instead, the mood of the clientele was a calmness I had yet to experience in Tokyo. Middle aged men and women, casually dressed, sat in the booths, eating their noodles and sushi at a slow pace while they chatted the afternoon away. When my waitress came back, it also became apparent that foreigners were much less common in these parts of Tokyo. Handing me the menu, she gave me the “Oh no, this guy doesn’t speak my language!” look that I had yet to see in Japan.

Granted, the servers at other Tokyo restaurants I had patronized didn’t speak much English either, but they clearly had a great deal of experience in serving gringos, and knew exactly how to take an order using a combination of pictures and hand signals. I motioned over to the a la carte area, pointing to myself, and then pointing to the food in a lame attempt to communicate the sentence “Why don’t I just pick it out myself?” The waitress replied with a nervous gesture, which I interpreted as “No, I don’t think so.” After several more failed attempts at non-verbal communication, I decided on another method…that is to test how well Chinese characters work in ordering food in Japanese restaurants.

The Japanese language itself is has little, if any, relation to Chinese, however the writing system borrows many of its ideograms from Chinese writing. The Chinese characters used in Mainland China today are the simplified set, which are modified from the traditional set used pre-1956 and still in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and most overseas Chinese communities. Japanese Kanji characters, as they are called, were taken from the traditional set of Chinese characters, but many still bare close resemblance to the simplified ones they were replaced by. Their meanings remain the same as the Chinese characters they were borrowed from, but the pronunciation is different. This is why many Japanese signs (like the one for Chinese restaurant) can be written the same in Chinese as they are in Japanese.

I wrote down the character 粉, which means “rice noodles” into my notebook and showed it to the waitress. With a look of amusement, the she took my pen and scribbled a sentence of Japanese into my notebook. As I mentioned before, many of the Japanese characters are borrowed from Chinese. However, a great deal of Japanese is also written using the Hiragana and Katakana writing systems, which bear no resemblance to Chinese whatsoever. Most of what the waitress had written had been either Hiragana and Katakana as it was completely incomprehensible to me.

“Kanji” I told the waitress, hoping that a) my pronunciation was accurate enough she would understand what I was saying and b) that the sentence “I only read kanji” could be extrapolated from my one-word statement.

“Oh, oh, kanji,” she replied, indicating she at least understood what word I was saying.

She yelled a few words to the cook in back, who then held up some rice noodles, as if to confirm that that was what I wanted to order. I nodded my head, and everybody smiled. We had made it this far. The waitress then asked me several more questions, and after 30 seconds of gestures, I finally realized she was asking “What do you want with your rice noodles?” Giving my trusty, old Chinese characters another chance to save the day, I wrote the character 肉 (meat, or pork) in my notebook. Another shot of excitement came to my servers face. We were making headway.

My final meal in Japan consisted of rice noodles, fried dumplings, and kimchi. The first person to identify the white and pink stuff in my noodles wins a prize.

After putting the order in for my pork rice noodles, the waitress lead me over to the a la carte area, where I selected some fried dumplings and Korean kimchi. The waitress promptly whisked away my dumplings, and heated them up in a nearby microwave, not exactly my idea of gourmet, but at least I was being served. When the rice noodles arrived, the pork had been crumbled into little, stringy bites, and sprinkled on top of my noodles along with fresh scallions and a slice of an unidentified piece white matter with a pink coating (see picture). If anybody knows what this is, please let us know.

The noodles were impeccable, having a texture with just the right degree of chewiness, and served in a bland soup with just enough flavor to compliment the noodles and pork bits. Even the white and pink nugget of unidentifiable food matter hit the spot. Teamed with the spicy kimchi and the surprisingly zesty microwave fried dumplings, my final meal in Tokyo left me as culinarily satisfied as I had been throughout the entire trip.

Price: 1020 yen (aprox $9) Final Verdict: 9

Conclusions:

To obtain a deep level of intelligent insight about the cuisine and food culture of a particular country usually takes staying there for at least a few months, and dining in both different regions, and with different social classes of the populace. Before I make any far-fetched conclusions about Japanese food, I need to reaffirm that I was only in Japan for 3 days. And during those 3 days, I did not leave Tokyo proper, nor did I eat in any restaurants which cost more than $10 a meal. Additionally, I ate all of my meals in restaurants, and did not have the chance to try any home cooked food. Disclaimer out of the way, here are my final conclusions about Japanese food.

1) Like the country itself, Japanese food is highly efficient. The food I consumed was all small, portable, and required very little cooking time.

2) Generally speaking the food was highly nutritious, especially for restaurant food. Most of what I consumed consisted of rice, fish and seafood, and vegetables, either served raw (the healthiest way to eat food) or cooked without much oil.

3) Tokyoers like to be dispensed their food at bars, and by bar I mean the place you go to drink, I mean a physical bar inside a restaurant.

4) The Japanese food served outside of Japan is much less modified than Chinese food served outside of China.

5) Thanks to the plastic food models in windows, and the small morsels of restaurant English from Tokyo waiters and waitresses, you can eat in downtown Tokyo quite easily without knowing any Japanese. Outside of the downtown (and presumably in smaller cities) it is a little bit more taxing, but certainly can be done. If you can read and write Chinese characters, they may come in handy a bit too, but if you really want to be sure what you’re ordering, you’d be best to bring a phrase book.

6) After 3 days in Tokyo, I have nothing but good things to say about the food of Japan…well, maybe except for that hoagie sandwich overflowing with mayonnaise I had at 7-11. The food is tasty, healthy, and surprisingly affordable…even if you are only spending $5 a meal.

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