travel story: Tokyo Tomato

Published June 2019, Blank Spaces magazine

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I was twenty-five and stuck in the rut of a routine that was killing me. I hadn’t gone to Osaka to wear a tie, let alone teach English conversation classes in a dinky little Plexiglas booth all day. Nobody does. Being paid to chat to between one and three Japanese adults may sound great, but soon enough you’d met every one and exhausted all chatter-worthy material with Hiroki, the retired salaryman who came thrice a week and considered drinking and sleeping his only hobbies. Six months asking Hiroki if he’d done anything over the weekend later and the Golden Week vacation in May finally arrived. I lost the tie and hopped a bullet train to Tokyo. 

In the early 00s, Roppongi Hills was a brand new, ultra-fashionable district of the city. The avant-garde museum that I didn’t visit looked cool. I, however, had more pressing matters, namely to catch a glossy Hollywood flick on a big-ass curved screen at the just-opened Toho multiplex. I’d done the major tourist stuff. What I needed were touches of home, or at least the American franchise equivalent, and I’d already had my fill of 100yen McDonalds cheeseburgers. And then some. 

After purchasing my ticket for a George Clooney political thriller, I came upon the Tokyo Grand Hyatt (like a regular Hyatt, only a five-star hell of a lot more grand). As I stepped into that modern, minimalist lobby I was walking taller, prouder, imagining myself as someone. Not like being rich was a priority. I was an English teacher trying to be a writer. But one classy hotel and suddenly all I ever wanted was a little ritzyness in my life. To that point Japan had been all ramen noodles and supermarket sushi. No more. From now on I was your fancy-pants writer drinking highballs and banging out stories. Not just writing them, selling them; not just selling, but earning diamonds as big as from ’em. Oh yeah, a regular F. Scott Fitzgerald. I liked that. F. Scott. Just like that. I wasn’t all suited up but so what. I had my journal. A couple pens. They were in my knapsack and I was wearing hiking shoes, but not to worry; so long as I felt it. They’d see. They’d know. Just think it: F. Scott, F. Scott. 

The image of the scotch on the rocks at the classy hotel bar – it’s always been a favourite. The ice tinkling against the glass as I down my drink. The fantasy suitably rounded out when the lady smoking beside me asks me back to her room. The illusion shattering realities of budget and knapsack the only hindrances to the plot. Never mind. The idea was to get a free drink or two. I’d go in for the old ‘journalist doing a story’ bit. It wasn’t so far-fetched. I’d written. Even if very few had read me.           

I think the receptionist phoned up to the jazz bar because she didn’t quite catch my lack of credentials. I was welcome to go to the fourth floor and look around, but the bar wouldn’t open for another hour.                                             

The entrance was a dim, narrow passage. A black curtain not fully drawn revealed a sliver of bar ahead. Some plushy chair backs, the small not lit stage beyond, a drum kit on it. There was the distant sound of a vacuum come on, then suddenly off. The darkened, empty bar evoked Stanley Kubrick anxieties and I was about to call out–almost Shelly Duvall shrilly–for someone, when a slim Japanese man in a trim dark suit emerged spookily yet not threateningly out of nowhere; less The Shining, more Scooby Doo.

He didn’t miss the quality of my outfit, my hiking shoes. I was a journalist, I explained. This was somehow less impressive than I intended. I scrambled to produce some questions. 

All I learned was that the band went on at nine. I’d be returning to see them, I explained. He pursed his lips, nodded. Did they have discounts for journalists, special drink prices, maybe? They did not.  

Chutzpah, I’ve since discovered, isn’t a particularly Japanese quality. One reason perhaps why the unhappy man let me look around after I asked. Also, it wouldn’t cost him anything. I pulled notebook from knapsack, clicked on my 105-yen pen and wandered around the windowless room jotting notes, and doing it quick. My time was short, that was clear.                                                                   

Walking toward the bar reminded me of going up the aisle at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome – a not dissimilar awe-inspiring experience. Of course, instead of Jesus on cross you got single malt scotches lined in rows. There were also four giant champagne flute-shaped glass containers hanging above the bar, flames burning in each. I nearly missed the bartender quietly working away amongst the grandeur. He was happy to talk. The Mojito was their most popular drink, the 1947 Macallan the most expensive at $420 a glass.                                                                                                    

As I was leaving a burly Caucasian man entered wearing the kind of dirtied three-quarter length white coat that suggested he had either just come out of surgery or he worked in a kitchen. I approached because of his warm smile. Franz was the executive head chef in charge of all five of the hotel’s restaurants. He was, with the soft brown eyes and confident belly of a good father, glad to talk to me. But could I come back later?      He’d meet me at The Oak Door, the hotel’s steak restaurant, at 6:30.  

The movie itself was a bore. What’s more, you hit a point in life when you realize you aren’t George Clooney; you’re no movie star. After that it’s harder for movies to work their magic. How often can films’ fairy dust still swirl once we’ve returned to the harsh light of the real adult world? Once you’re old enough to know cool is but a synonym for good-looking and uncaring. 

The upside is you stop pretending. You stop smoking.                        

That said, hope springs eternal, even for unqualified teachers, especially when they have where to be and it be one of the swankiest steak joints in town. The fairy dust, in other words, would still a-swirl. 

The restaurant was low-lit and high-ceilinged. Across from the entrance an open kitchen where an international staff grilled obscenely priced cuts of cow. Two hostesses, like Catch Me If You Can flight attendants of a different era, beautiful, unwaveringly polite, led me to the bar after I stated my business.                                                     

 I hid my knapsack at the foot of my stool. It didn’t matter. The bartender summarily ignored me after I’d said I was “OK for now” (the rich get richer and the rest of us perpetually in a state of “OK for now”).                                                       

Franz appeared decked out in his tall, white chef’s hat to match the coat. He wasn’t unfriendly but didn’t sit. That worried me. It worried me worse when he enquired about my credentials. Had I even contacted the hotel’s PR people? He couldn’t say much, he explained, unless I went through the proper channels. I understood. I was a fraud. He was a busy man. ‘If you could kindly escort yourself out,’ was next.                     

It was a long walk back to the subway and I had two more connections before returning to my cruddy budget hotel. Except Franz wasn’t kicking me out nor even chilling to my inexperience. Instead he asked what I was drinking. 

Mojito was my first thought. Then scotch, scotch, scotch like a ticker tape across my brain. But Franz was such a nice guy; I felt a louse trying to weasel my way into fancy drinks that cost upwards of $15.                                                           

“A beer?” I said.                                                          I 

I wasn’t a total conman. I really was passionate about great food and lush hotels. The writer’s dream was real too, and maybe he saw that in me, maybe he was genuinely trying to help a kid begin to chart his course. I asked how he got his start, scribbling like mad to keep up. There was no order to my questions, nor did they add up to anything, but Franz didn’t seem to mind. He got talking about the quality of ingredients in Japan, the best he’d worked with. The fish, of course, but also the meat, the tomatoes. He saw the disbelief on my face. The supermarket tomatoes in Osaka were disturbingly perfect-looking and totally flavourless.                                                          

Had I ever had a tomato from Kumamoto? Franz turned for a waiter. One surfaced out of nowhere as they are trained to in five-star establishments. Soon a tomato, halved, was on a plate in front of me, shaved daikon radish piled unobtrusively to the side. The salt, of the pebble variety, was served in a silver dish. Beside my glass of Kirin lager, a plate with a slice of sourdough bread, a dish with a few pats of butter.                      

The tomato was a deep, profound red. I sprinkled some salt and knife and forked a bite, careful to then select a phrase to accurately express to the Tokyo Grand Hyatt’s Head Chef the effect this had on me.                                                               

"Oh my God, Franz.” It seemed important to add his name.                                    

He wasn’t fazed but was sorry, he had to go, other restaurants to oversee. He said to contact PR next time so I could have free reign of the hotel. I said I would and thanked him with the most pumping handshake I could muster.                                        

I stayed a good half hour longer, nursing my food and drink in what is supposedly the best steakhouse in Tokyo. I wouldn’t know, not on a conversation teacher’s salary. It didn’t matter. Because for that moment, with tomato, beer and a slice of sourdough, I was all the glitter and glamour you could wish for. This was my 1947 glass of Macallan. This was my escape, my recharge, what I needed to continue.                                            

I feel compelled to tell you I returned to the jazz bar later that night. I had to pay for my drink.