alpha whiskey hotel

Standing shoehorn FAIL!

I’ll do the obvious joke here… “The first rule of Mahjong Fight Club is: Don’t talk about Mahjong Fight Club.”

In this special episode of PotD celebrating the fact that I finally got the Internet connection on my phone working again, I am sending this underwear ad appearing in Oedo Line stations around Tokyo.

[This entry was written for The Japan Blog Matsuri]

About a week ago, I was walking west along Senkawa-dori on my way home from the new branch of my gym that’d just opened by Nerima Station.  I came across an Italian restaurant that, having lived in the neighbourhood for 4 years, I had often passed, but never actually gone into.  Deciding to depart from my usual dining out schedule, I went in and gave it a go.

The restaurant was certainly good at what they cooked, which was Italian food (mathematically, it was actually the subset of “Italian food” consisting of the union of “pizza” and “spaghetti”), but I spent the meal reading my book and feeling like something was very wrong, without being able to put my finger on it exactly.

Standing at the cash register, waiting to pay my bill, my answer finally came to me in a flash:

It was the decor.

The place was done up like a stone-walled cafe somewhere in Rome, which certainly fit the style of the food appropriately.  The problem was that someone had obviously gone to the “stick random crap on your walls” school of restaurant design, and decorated the walls with items including the following:

• An advertisement for “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show starring Annie Oakley”
• The sign from a cobbler’s shop somewhere in London
• A wagon wheel and wood barrel as might have been found on a homestead on the prairie
• A 1970s-era Heineken advertisement

Once I noticed what the problem was, it was impossible to avoid being bothered by it.  Oh, I’ll probably go back — the food was decent — but it did get me to thinking about “foreign restaurants” in general, and whether they’re really “authentic”.  In this case, I’m not talking about food whose taste has been altered to suit the local palate.  That happens almost everywhere.  I still have to remind the Indian shop down the street that when I say spicy, “I don’t mean spicy for a Japanese person, I mean spicy for a westerner.”  And I’m sure that we’ve all had “Japanese food” back in our home countries that’s not much more than strips of beef drenched in sweet teriyaki sauce.

What I am talking about is “atmosphere”.  Trying to decompile the thought process of the person who decorated that restaurant, I figured out where he was coming from:  “I have a Western restaurant, and here is all this authentic Western stuff to put on the walls!  It matches!”  And from the point of view of a lot of his customers, he’s right.  Hell, it took me a while to notice, and I’m familiar with the cuisines, languages, and geography and timelines involved.

This made me wonder how many restaurants there are back in Toronto that are analogous.  I wonder if some of the Vietnamese restaurants that I enjoyed on Spadina had random Chinese and Japanese stuff on the walls.  Who knows whether that Ethiopian restaurant on Bloor is full of Congolese flags and Sudanese knick-knacks?

Anybody have any interesting similar experiences to share?

This movie poster features a guy catching a giant… fish. Yeah, that’s what it looks like, a fish.

This is either true bravery, true stupidity, or both. These two workers at the location of the famous Almond Cafe in Roppongi are standing 10 meters off the ground, adjusting the girders that are currently holding them.

It’s interesting to note that Barack Obama’s speeches have already been the subject of 2 Teach-Yourself-English books. They certainly did choose a good wordsmith to study…

Japan is, in most ways, just an average country, rather than the futuristic dystopia that people who have never lived here picture. That said, there are occasional flashes of the future, such as this order tablet often seen in bars and karaoke establishments. Just touch the icons on the screen for what you want, and within minutes the waitress will be at your table with your order.

This product, named “chocolate beer”, is not beer at all. It turns out to be chocolate-flavoured soda, quite disappointed given the name.

Ramen truck by Ikebukuro Station

I admit that I’ve always loved “ramen wagons”.  Like any other mobile food vending cart, it parks in areas of heavy foot traffic, and has stoves in there so that the owner can make up some fast food to serve his hungry customers.  Unlike most other mobile food carts, however, the food is not meant to be taken away, but eaten on the spot.  The walls of the wagon fold down to become the table that customers eat at. 

Some “ramen enthusiasts” (this is Japan — of course there are “enthusiasts” dedicated to ramen) will tell you that the only true ramen is that which comes from the back of a truck.  I won’t go that far, but I will say that I do really enjoy these trucks.  There’s something about sitting at the oasis in the middle of the heavy foot traffic in front of the station, warming yourself up with a nice bowl of pork ramen, and chatting away with the other customers, most of whom are..  well-lubricated.. after a night on the town.  For some reason, eating at one of these ramen trucks comes with the expectation of joining in whatever conversation is happening around the tables — each truck turns into a sort of “mini party”, so there is almost always some fascinating conversation to be had, such as the following that happened last Friday night:

Drunk Guy #1: So where are you from?

Drew: [usual smart-ass answer] Nerima.

Drunk Guy #1: No, before then.

Drew: [pointing to "Canada" hat] Canada.

Drunk Guy #1: And you’ve been living here for…

Drew:  The better part of 5 years now.

Drunk Guy #1: Oh, you must be on a tourist visa then.

Drew: No, I have a job, I work.

Drunk Guy #1: [to Drunk Guy #2] Hey, this guy here is from Canada and he has a job here!

Drunk Guy #2: [comes over] You’re from Canada?  That’s great!  I know a lot about Canada!  I have one thing to tell you, a catchphrase from your home country.  Are you ready?  [puts his hand on my shoulder, looks me in the eyes]  ”Yes we can!”