鯛 (Tai); Red Snapper

In any cuisine there are certain dishes or ingredients that automatically elicit respect. If what's in front of you has anything to do with foie gras, foam, Belgium, molds, whole animals, or a named blue cheese, even the non-foodie is going to view the dish on a different level than football-night buffalo wings. What's interesting is when you start crossing oceans and cultures and are proudly presented with food that might provoke emotions ranging from disbelief to horror in your own culture.

Japan is big on fish. You heard it here first. Fish get a respect that transcends their actual role as a foodstuff in a way that chicken and pork will never have, no matter how big of a role they play in the modern Japanese diet. In addition, the more a fish looks like it just leapt out of the ocean and onto your plate the better. A sanitized, cooked fillet is the lowest rung on the fish latter, 活け造り (ikezukuri, a fish filleted alive and presented still gasping), the highest. Fish guts, testes, eggs, and heads are all eaten with gusto. The guest of honor is traditionally presented with the head of the fish being served.

Tai (red snapper) in particular has been a celebration meal staple for a long time. The god of luck/happiness Ebisu (dude on the Ebisu beer cans) is pictured holding a tai. It is a pearly pink color, and red also being a symbol of good luck, it is often the main course at weddings, birthdays, etc. One popular dish that my restaurant just did a run of is 鯛飯 (tai meshi, red snapper rice) in which the rice is cooked in fish stock rather than water and served with the tai on top. The less deconstructed the tai the more high-class the dish; so a really expensive place might serve a whole, non-filleted tai. Other methods (listed in progressively less awe-inspiring order) are splitting the tai in half, using just a fillet, or mixing shredded meat into the rice.

I believe the average American would be pretty horrified at opening the lid to find an open-mouthed fish staring up at them (by the way, the eyes turn white and pop out of the sockets when heated, and if you're not careful, disconnect from the head and roll into the rice; very uncool presentation). The dish itself is nice, but to the disinterested palate a bit underwhelming considering the hype surrounding it. Tai is a good fish. So are a lot of other cheaper and easier-to-cook fish. But this works both ways; a former Japanese teacher confided in me that when she went to America and saw a whole Thanksgiving turkey squatting on the holiday table, she felt physically ill. There's a whole lot of culture and expectation dictating how we feel about a meal. Food isn't just about taste.

Doing it Yourself

In America, every restaurant I worked at had professional cleaners doing their laundry. I'm not talking about issued T-shirts or hats that you might be expected to wash yourself, but the napkins, towels, aprons etc were as a matter of course picked up, washed with industrial bleach, and returned to the restaurant super-starched.

Maybe it's because the restaurants in Japan tend to be so much smaller- instead of the average restaurant seating 200 people, it might seat 20-50, 100 if it's really a good-sized chain. This is naturally much more noticeable in Tokyo. In any case, most restaurants do laundry themselves, usually aided by an ancient-of-days rickety washing machine usually located outside, and the wet things line-dried since owning a dryer in Japan is an almost unheard-of luxury. The restaurant I'm in now professionally launders the 白衣 (hakui, chef's whites), but we have to wash and dry the towels ourselves. I'm sure that would be violating all sorts of health codes back the States but it's actually nice to be able to control how many dry towels you have on hand. All the other restaurants I used to work at were nazis about the distribution of towels. On the other hand, during Japan's rainy season, there's no such thing as dry anything.

The washing machine's water is shut off with a little standardized key that you can get at a 100-yen shop. We also leave the washing detergent beside the machine, just off the street. I wonder if the bums have figured this out yet.

Squidward's Revenge

I don't know why me and squid just can't seem to come to terms. This is what I found in the last squid I cleaned, and as I pulled it out of the dead bundle of rubber and ink and slime you can bet I got the willies. The complete scrub-your-hand-on-your-hip, little-shudders-running-down-your-spine, hairs-standing-on-end heebie-jeebies experience. I am proud of the fact that I didn't audibly yelp when I discovered that face-huggers infect more than just humans. After I regained control of myself I set it on top of a fridge to show the other cooks later and forgot about it; it dried out for a few days and I found it again. I stuck it in my bag to take home and show my SO and it stunk my bag up terribly and attracted my cats and I had to throw it away before anyone but Fugu Senpai saw it. This blurry photo is the only evidence remaining to prove that the alien invasion is once again underway.