“First time here?”
I slid into my assigned seat at the counter, tucked into the back of the restaurant facing the sashimi station. My neighbor two seats down – another solo diner – looked at me inquisitively, digging up a chopstick-ful of udon from a bamboo wicker plate.
“Yeah. First time.”
“I see you picked the short kaiseki menu – good choice. Good introduction to this place. Would’ve done it myself, but I come here too often. Got to stick to à la carte.”
My first time at Kyo Ya was during the summer of 2013, as I luxuriated in a New York life funded by the meagre pickings of a college summer internship. For three months, I lived in a tiny room of a fifth-floor walk-up in Alphabet City, inhaling the nauseous scent of garbage bags every time I cracked open the window. But hell, I was in New York. This was the promised land of every restless business and economics major. The Elysium of every kid in line at the Goldman Sachs information sessions. The Shangri-La waiting at the end of the interview circuit, when you finally update your LinkedIn profile to reflect your new untouchable status.
I spent that summer blowing through any semblance of an internship budget, itching for the good old days of duck confit, sweetbreads and amaro – my college diet while taking up side jobs in Chicago’s restaurant scene. With my love of food (and penchant for skipping morning lectures), I spent many a night chowing down on burgers topped with foie gras and knocking back chartreuse shots with some of my equally hedonistic friends. I figured a restaurant job would get me some friends and family discounts. Every restaurant group had to have some administrative role I could parlay onto my resume.
First came Girl and the Goat, one of the perennially buzzy restaurants in Chicago’s West Loop. The “Pig Face” is the restaurant’s calling card – tender pieces of pork resembling slices of porchetta are fired in a wood oven and topped off with caramelized maple syrup, crunchy potato sticks, and a sunny-side up egg. The result is a sticky, glorious mess of a dish, and one of the finest tributes to nose-to-tail cooking known to the millennials Instagramming their way through Chitown. What never makes it to social media, though, is the preparation. An entire pig’s face, tongue and snout is expertly butchered and rolled tightly into a cheesecloth, then thrown into a cauldron of pork stock that has been simmering away since the restaurant’s opening. “Pig Face” sounds innocently whimsical. A real pig’s face, when peeled off the skull with eyeballs gouged out, is a little less so - but oh so gelatinously, decadently delicious.
I stumbled wide-eyed through the restaurant world during the months I spent working at Girl and the Goat. Parked in Accounts Payable, I was tasked with cutting checks for our suppliers in the order they were due. I popped by the kitchen door every afternoon to fetch the invoices, some of them crumpled or smeared with unidentified brownish-green juice. Pay off all the wine and liquor first. Make sure we’re not double counting the carrot shipments. The spices lady is nice, she’d give us an extra week.
A few months later, I came across a LinkedIn posting advertising an internship opportunity with the Alinea restaurant group – mothership of Chicago’s fine dining scene – and promptly sent in my resume. They ended up picking someone else, but I got my call back at the end of summer when the internship program ended. I apparently made an impression when I ran into Grant Achatz at The Office – he was enjoying a nightcap at his own bar with his own friends, before I insisted on introducing myself completely drunk and star-struck. The ceaseless networker, I had enough motor command to write down my name and email address in case they “ever needed anyone, like ever.” I made it into the bar manager’s nightly shift report, so I guess it worked.
In the tradition of El Bulli or The Fat Duck, Alinea had become one of the most iconic “molecular gastronomy” destinations in the world. New menu announcements enjoyed a level of buzz and anticipation previously reserved only for album drops or sneaker releases. Chef Achatz himself walked in a cloud of gold dust after recently launching his autobiography and opening up Next – a “sister” restaurant to Alinea whose menu and interior décor changed completely from one season to another. Instead of reservations, Next used a ticketing system (the predecessors to today’s Tock) where diners ponied up a few hundred dollars per person when the tickets are purchased – often months in advance. This was the brainchild of Nick Kokonas, Chef’s business partner and an absolute genius in his own right. Once a philosophy major turned options trader, Nick was now a bona fide celebrity in the restaurant world. Every morning on my way in, I would walk past his spotless Maserati parked in front of the ramshackle warehouse serving as Alinea headquarters. In the online world, Nick is known for some aggressive trolling of OpenTable (a Tock competitor), and vicious takedowns of unreasonable Yelp reviews. I’m also pretty sure my college student self wanted to grow up to be just like this guy. Straight-shooting, ridiculously charismatic, and a Bourdain-esque, unadulterated running commentary on life via Twitter.
At Alinea, invoices for white truffles replaced my familiar pig heads. Menu costing exercises now involved tracking the price of helium for our signature dessert course. A piece of sugar taffy is pumped full of gas until it becomes a paper-thin balloon floating on top of a piece of string; when brought to the table, the diner is instructed to suck out the air - preferably with a friend recording his high-pitched squeaky voice. Even behind the scenes during family meals – staff meals – every day was a culinary journey. Trays upon trays of succulent tacos, meatballs made from grandma’s handwritten recipes, fried rice with hydroponic microgreens left over from vendor samples. Everything was served buffet style. Instead of disposable plates and bowls, long sleeves of plastic tubs were stacked at the end of each chef station. “Delis”, we call them – those ubiquitous quart-sized deli containers found in every commercial kitchen. You can stack them, fill them with delicate portions of herbs for mise-en-place, or chuck them into an industrial dishwasher at the end of the day. Throw them into a microwave, and you don’t even have to worry about melting. They were our go-to for family meals. Hours before dinner service started and the well-heeled crowd descended upon West Loop, we would spill out of the service entrance and park ourselves on the cement sidewalk. Cooks would wander in and out of the conversations, delis and cigarettes in hand.
Hell yeah, I thought. This must be going towards to my street creds. Other than being fired a few months earlier from my campus tour guide position – I was drinking white wine out of a Nalgene bottle while walking backwards and waxing lyrical about college life – I was sorely lacking in the hip factor-department. Nerdy Asian student in glasses from one of the nation’s most rigorously academic colleges… I’ve made it far. I was hanging out with some of the coolest, most radically creative people in the country. Culinary trendsetters and tastemakers from one of the world’s most famous avant-garde restaurants. If only my foodie friends knew…
To be honest, though, I hate foodies. Yelp Elites. The population of misled youth that worship Noma and Alinea right next to rainbow grilled cheese. Don’t get me wrong – I have my fair share of food shots on social media, but the cultural context behind the food matters so much more. The story behind the dish. The blood, sweat, and delis full of tears behind the Michelin stars or Food & Wine covers. The tradition and art behind every thoughtful step of food preparation, service, and consumption – whether at a degustation menu in Paris or a family-run taco stand in Mexico City.
The more you travel, the more you realise the importance of food as a conduit of human kindness and goodwill. I don’t understand people who travel with non-religious and non-life threatening dietary requirements – you can live in your vegan, born-again yogi bubble all you like, but expect that bubble to be popped quickly and fiercely when you step into foreign territory. When you are a traveler, you are a guest in someone else’s home. When you find yourself at late-night barbeque in Seoul and your host pours you glass of soju, take it with both hands and down it. When tucking into a basket of injera bread with an Ethiopian family, don’t ask for utensils when you see everyone else digging in with their fingers. When your Jeep driver offers you a bottle of raw, straight-from-the-udder camel’s milk in the middle of a desert, drink the fucking thing. And when your host in Hong Kong proudly orders shark’s fin soup for the entire table (*alarm bells ringing*), give it a try and lay off the ethics monologue. Sustainable seafood and humane farming are issues that merit their own discussion, but one that would never be productively conducted over a welcome banquet that cost your host an entire week’s salary – over a dish that for hundreds of years, since the royal courts of the Ming dynasty, has symbolized the utmost generosity and hospitality. Cultural context is so incredibly important – food is not just sustenance, but often also folklore passed from generation to generation. Not every meal can be a feast, and there may be days or months where it’s a struggle to put anything on the dinner table. That only makes every humble bowl of congee or borscht pushed your way all that more precious – don’t pick out the pieces of century egg or complain that you don’t eat beets. If it’s not going to kill you, fucking eat it. Count down the days to your next cheeseburger, but eat the damn thing with a smile. Speaking as an immigrant kid who’s had to explain the pungent contents of her lunchbox every day at school – there really is no quicker way to gain a person’s trust than earnestly sharing a meal with them, with no reservations.
During my solo travels, I often turn up at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant by myself. I grab a seat at the bar and flip my phone to silent, scouting around the restaurant to see what the most popular dishes are. It’s easy to strike up a conversation with the bartender or other guests there – often solo themselves. For the next hour you spend in that seat, whatever happens at this little corner of the restaurant stays there.
2 a.m., tucking into oysters and champagne at the counter of Blue Ribbon Brasserie on Sullivan Street. I had just cabbed over from my midtown office, finally released from the bull pen of sleep-starved banking analysts. I never really did rooftop bars or the club promoters scene during my time in New York – I played beer pong for the first time two years out of university – but I was a total food nerd. It’s hard not to be when you were born into the food-centric world of Taiwan.
When you part the heavy draped curtains of Blue Ribbon at 2 a.m., you’re greeted by a small, raucous, dimly-lit dining room. On your left, oyster shuckers are busy at work behind the counter as regulars mill around with Fernet shots. The later you get here, the better the atmosphere. This is an industry place – the kitchen doesn’t close until 4 a.m., so chefs and bartenders from other restaurants congregate here after their own shifts. Stumble up to any open seat at the bar, and order the cult classic – bone marrow. Rich, buttery clots of marrow fall out onto the plate, mixing with the tangy braised oxtail marmalade nestled up to the chunky beef bones. Sprinkle on some coarse sea salt, and sop up the pools of sumptuous beef juice with grilled challah bread. Order a boulevardier to wash it all off. Reminisce over New York’s pre-avocado toast days with the smartly-dressed gentleman on your right – who turns out to be the Maitre D’ from Soho’s hottest speakeasy - and complain about the hipsters taking over Brooklyn or the gentrification of the Lower East Side. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive or colourful oral history of New York anywhere else.
Wander through the twisted cobblestone paths of Bastille, Paris, and turn into Passage St-Sébastien. It’s easy to spot Au Passage – a flood of bright light in the dark nondescript alley. Locals spill out onto the sidewalk, cloaked in a haze of cigarette smoke and je ne sais quoi only Parisians can pull off so well. The restaurant website says it closes at 10.30pm, but’s it’s really open as long as any clients are still hanging around – a meal only dragged out longer by frequent cigarette breaks and liberal pours of wine. The dishes come in small plates, and change from day to day. Sometimes there are goose-neck barnacles, other days lamb’s brain. I settled for some mullet carpaccio and marinated chanterelles, and split a bottle of Mâconnais with my neighbour. He had immigrated from Tunisia in his early teens, and spent the next two hours regaling me with stories from his childhood in the immigrant communities of the Parisian suburbs.
In New York’s East Village, there is no kitchen churning out purer, more delicate or precise flavours than the little basement hideaway of Kyo Ya. This is my favourite Japanese restaurant in Manhattan - which says something in a city overflowing with Japanese establishments. I had been to Kyo Ya several times since my first visit in 2013, but always sitting in the dining room up front and ordering à la carte. I only made my way back to the kaiseki counter a few weeks ago during a weekend trip to New York. It was the instincts of a homing pigeon – I had just dumped a failed Tinder date for the night, and didn’t want to go back to the hotel and order room service. Where should I go to kick back in a corner seat, and drown myself in sake and uni?
Nothing much had changed in this corner of the restaurant. The same furniture, the same counter, and the same stoic, white-haired chef standing guard behind it. This man was Chef Sono Chikara, a Hokkaido native at the helm of one of the most remarkable Japanese restaurants in the city. Kyo Ya is a Michelin-starred operation that’s been around for more than a decade, but never had its own website or presence on any restaurant reservation systems. On any given night there is a steady stream of regulars – boisterous, but never overly busy. The dining room is decorated in minimalist Japanese style, and servers float around carrying delicate ceramic plates of oysters and fatty tuna flown straight in from Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market that morning.
A server scooted up behind my chair, reaching around to pour a glass of sake. I watched the clear alcohol overflow and splash into the black lacquer box underneath – the masu, a container traditionally used to catch the extra sake a host pour out as a symbol of wealth and generosity. The tiny dishes came out one by one – monkfish liver, baby horse mackerel, black truffle and sesame tofu. Cucamelons that look like itsy bitsy watermelons but taste like cucumber. Skin-on sashimi, at first glance disturbingly similar to sliced goldfish, paired with freshly-grated wasabi root. Then a clear broth to cleanse the palate, with a single piece of poached tomato, melon, and a scattering of jun-sai. A curious little water vegetable sourced from Japan, jun-sai has – what I imagine to be – the slimy and crunchy texture of snot.
Six courses in, my server lingered for a while after running through the course description: sushi rice topped with salmon roe, uni, picked ginger, and ama-ebi. “Have you… been here before for kaiseki? You look familiar.”
Chef Sono looked up expectantly from the ruby pink piece of salmon he was slicing. “Yes, weren’t you sitting right there?”
A wave of warm and fuzzy feelings took over as I excitedly slammed my sake cup down. That’s some pretty fucking impressive memory, especially considering that there’s no shortage of Asian food-obsessed girls making the pilgrimage to this sanctuary of Japanese cuisine. I had no contact with Chef in the last five years, and as far as I remember I hadn’t drunkenly embarrassed myself the first time here. Five years ago, I was still a college student who still had trouble finding my bearings in Manhattan. I sat at the same counter seat, badgering Chef Sono for a list of Japanese restaurants in New York to go to. He had scribbled down his own favourites on the back of my check – Tell them I sent you there! He is a good friend – and I had spent the next few years slowly making my way down the list.
“You were asking me what these were,” Chef continued, holding a palmful of cucamelons. “You know I am very shy, I never talk with guests. But you were so interested in what I was cutting up back here.”
Of course.
I’m the one who keeps pestering people at restaurants until they start talking and keep me company. Sometimes it doesn’t work, and I shut up slowly and blame the verbosity on whatever alcohol I’m drinking at the time. Sometimes, though, you end up with the most authentic, no-holds-barred conversations about food culture, immigration, and one person’s extraordinary journey building up a little Japanese universe in America. (Or vicious debates on the best instant noodles – Indomie for me, and for the hostess who chimed in to cast her vote, any cup noodles as long as you add fresh cut-up tomatoes.) Profound or silly conversations, memorable five years on.
“Are you allowed to start drinking now, Chef?” The last of the diners were preparing to leave and the kitchen staff had started to wipe down their stations. This is the magic hour. The chairs are stacked, the register is shut down, and the front door sign is flipped from Open to Closed.
Midnight at Kyo Ya. Two Orion beers coming up.
