A Japanese Stable

After a meaningless eikaiwa training in Fukuoka my colleagues and I heard that ramen was a speciality in the small but proper metropolis, so we decided to visit one with the highest marks according to an online food guide. In the foyer under the spell of a twinkling golden bell we were welcomed to enter the wooden interior with traditional Chinese prints of kanji characters over a solid red backdrops. The host counted the number of guests, shepherded inside the restaurant, and sat us at the counter. All of us were too green in Fukuoka to vote on the restaurant so we went with the flow of the program. Immediately we saw this was a place for grazing, and nothing else. 
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This restaurant was unlike other restaurants in that there were no round family tables for patrons to converse. There were only long counters against the wall with shields on both sides like a horse stable. One side of the restaurant sat eight persons. My colleagues and I separated to eat in our own booths. I guessed we had to time our eating durations so that we could return to the office together. 

Trapped in my stable I listened to the lively din of the kitchen - pig fat cooking in the frying pan, bowls and utensils slammed on the aluminum counter tops, and coordinated instructions between the head and sous chefs. In front of me was a hollow faux wall that suddenly opened where a chef in a pristine white uniform took my order. I chose whatever was recognizable on the menu, and I asked for the oil, noodles and the pork to be cooked regularly. I didn’t want him to know that I was completely a foreigner to the country. I had already lived three years in Okinawa. My colleagues seemed engulfed in their experience as well as they were hunched over the counter either negotiating their dishes with the chef or playing on the mobile devices. My server gestured the universal okay sign and slammed the wooden board shut and promised to return in ten minutes. 

The dimly lit ramen restaurant was silent. After precisely ten minutes the faux wall opened where a giant red bowl appeared past the threshold steaming into the atmosphere. There was no one to present it to me, and after some time I just brought it to my side of the counter. Someone must have been watching, for the door closed immediately after, as if they were espionage. The narrow space forced me to focus on the ramen dish. The ingredients weren’t a haphazard display under a sea of oil but a neatly arranged buddhist garden. Three leaves of seaweed fan out on the edge of the bowl with three sticks of bamboo shoots on an island of noodles dressed in a rain of diced green onions, fried garlic and three disks of hewn pork. Next to the noodles were undercooked boiled eggs sliced open down the centre. The melted interior of the yolk glistened under the lamp. 

I spent the next minutes lost in the ingredients slurping the bale of noodles at a time. I rolled the pork into the seaweed, ate the egg separately, and savoured the soft crunch of the root vegetable. If the broth wasn’t so rich I would’ve savoured the soup dish down to the last millilitre. 

“Are you finished?” Angela called from over her shoulder. 

“We’re finished,” Roger spoke for the rest of us.

In our individual booths we paid our bills. Journeying back to the office we came to the consensus that lunch was delicious, and remained silent after our verdict until our flights back to our prefectures. Perhaps all food need this kind of attention as if we were spectators in a museum. 

The experience reminded me that one time I had bought onigiri from the convenient store on our way to work on foot. My coworker Kenji turned about face like a soldier and prompted me to sit at a nearby squatting location to enjoy my meal - which included a bus stop bench, a waist-high wall or tables at a restaurant. I thought we were in a hurry, I said. In Japan, he said to me, it’s rude to eat while doing anything else. 

John Tang - 4 September 2022