February 28, 2007

• How to eat Kamameshi

  First of all, what is kamameshi?
  
  According to wikipedia, it is a traditional Japanese rice dish cooked in an iron pot with various kinds of meat, seafood, and vegetables. According to me, it was food, and I was hungry.
  
  I was wandering around in Ueno wondering what I wanted to eat, and I passed a place I’d seen before with pictures of food that looked good. The storefront was, shockingly, all windowed and fairly welcoming.
  You have to understand, Japanese restaurants can be pretty intimidating. Some of the best places are hidden behind windowless sliding doors down dark sidestreets, and to the untrained eye don’t even look like restaurants at all. You have no idea what the place looks like inside, or what kind of people are eating there. Worse still, at night these places tend to become smoky dens of raucous, drunken salarymen. The point is, you never know how welcoming a place like that is going to be. Both as a foreigner and also simply as someone who’s not a “regular”, I like to be a little careful.
  
  Then again, if you never take a chance you’ll just end up eating fast food all the time (some gaijin do).
  
  So, on a total whim I walked into this kamameshi place. I forced myself inside without thinking about it, pushing the button on the automatic door and only to suddenly find myself in a room with a bunch of old Japanese people, who were all staring at me like I was a fly in their miso soup. If there had been a record scratch and then total silence it would have been perfect. When a waitress didn’t immediately yell “irasshaimase” at me and seat me, I nearly turned right around and left. It’s actually happened to me once before where I walked into a small soba shop and was completely ignored for about 5 minutes. This may have been because the dude was busy, because he didn’t speak English and was afraid to talk to me, or because he didn’t like white people in his restaurant. I don’t know, but I ended up seating myself once a table opened up and I ordered some damn soba. And it was good.
  
  Anyway, after a minute a waitress came up to me with a frightened look on her face and I tried to calm her down by saying “table for one” in Japanese, rather than just holding up my index finger, which is what people usually do. Despite my previous entries, I really don’t think most Japanese “hate” foreigners. But most of them do tend to assume we can’t speak their language, and when approached they may panick as they try and recall their long-forgotten English vocabulary. Once you say anything in convincing enough nihongo, they usually become 100% friendlier instantly and treat you like a normal person (unless you’re in Kyoto. They suck.).
  
  Anyway, it didn’t quite work this time, as the hostess led me towards the back of the restaurant. Not to the tables by the window, and not to the tatami seating on the right. (A lot of more traditional restaurants have floor seating around short tables on woven mats.) There was plenty of space in that section, but another common belief about foreigners is that we are unable to sit on the floor. So, the lady sat me on a short counter on the other side of the restaurant. By myself. Facing the wall.
  
  I didn’t care so much about that, but I protested immediately when she tried to give me an English menu. I never use English menus. Half the time I won’t even touch them. “Japanese is fine.”, I told her. Upon hearing a full sentence come out of my mouth she finally believed I could speak Japanese, and I watched her face switch to “friendly mode”. “Ah! Sou desuka! Shitsurei itashimashita!” She switched the English menu for a Japanese one and went away bowing in apology.
  
  I ordered from the menu, and was served my own pot of tea, chopsticks, two pieces of pickled daikon, and a small bowl. While I waited for my food, I left my seat to use the bathroom. I had a feeling I knew what it would be like, but I was still disappointed to find that the toilets were Japanese style. Japanese style toilets are basically flushing holes in the ground, and I really hate them. So, when I managed to use this one without major incident, I felt great. I walked back to my chair feeling like a complete master of all things Japanese. I’d walked into a scary restaurant, ordered with a Japanese menu, and used a Japanese toilet. I was king of the world.
  
  My kamameshi came in the pot it was cooked in, with a flat red spoon sitting on the lid. I tend to use the utensils I’m handed, so I started eating with that.
  
  Kamameshi is pretty good. The rice is cooked with whatever topping you ordered (I had crab), and also some kind of sauce, so its very flavorful. I was having a little trouble eating the crab legs with the flat spoon, but I was getting the food in my mouth so I didn’t think twice about it.
  
  After a while the waitress came over to me and offered me a tiny spoon, like a kid’s spoon. I told her no thanks, and sat steaming for a few minutes. Why the hell did she feel the need to give me a kid’s spoon? Was I taking too long to eat? Did I look like I was having trouble? Are foreigners known for their inability to use flat spoons? I took the opportunity to look around the restaurant (having been facing the wall all that time) and see how other people were eating. As soon as I did I saw my mistake; they were using the flat spoon to serve themselves small portions of the kamameshi into the tiny bowl and then eating it with chopsticks.
  
  I was pretty damn embarrassed, especially since I was crashing down from my Japanese-toilet high. I was kind of surprised too- I usually don’t make stupid mistakes like that. I’ve been here for a while, and its getting to the point where most of the things I do or eat I’ve already done or eaten before. When I do find myself in a new situation, I’m usually with my coworkers who help me out, or I have the sense to look around and do what everyone else is doing.
  
  I sort of expected to get really depressed, like, “great, I’ve been here for two years and I still can’t eat my lunch the right way”. But my attitude ended up being more to the tune of “well, now I know”. Its kind of comforting in a way to think that even after being here a while there are still things to learn and still things to figure out.
  
  

  • 10:02 pm
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