Wow, I seem to have built up quite a backlog of posts to work through. We just got back from our trip to Kyoto and Osaka, and so many things have happened that I'm still kind of reeling. I'll just start with Wednesday night and then finish up the Tokyo days, entry by entry. I'm thinking of saving Kyoto and Osaka for last, in an appendix.
Anyway, Wednesday was spent at home taking 'er easy, doing laundry, watching strange television and shooting the shiznit. This was a good thing, because it would take all our energy and wits to survive our encounter with THE NINJA.
Telling us nothing beyond that they were taking us to a really cool restaurant, Hanako and the Hodemonster loaded us into a train and shuttled us off to the Akasaka district, which borders Roppongi and is one of the fancy parts of town. After a short walk from the station, we turned sideways and nearly collided with a door so nondescript it would have been basically hidden from view, had it not been for the strangely illuminated logo next to it.
Stepping inside, we found ourselves in a tiny darkened chamber with no obvious exits, with a tall gentleman standing behind a maitre d' podium. Hanako had a brief conversation with him in Japanese. He nodded courteously, wrote something down, waited a few seconds for dramatic effect, then yelped something really loud and clapped his hands together twice. A shutter opened in the wall next to him and a small dark figure shot out, zoomed up next to us and said: "Hello! I am Yukiko. I will be your ninja. This way, prease."
She clapped her hands once and said "Nin!" loud enough to make my glasses fall off. This caused another shutter to open up. Yukiko led us through the twisting maze of darkened stone passageways that lay behind, past booby traps and over drawbridges, and soon enough we were at our table.
Being in the place was like being in a cross between the movie Kill Bill and the game Thief.
(I can't find an English version of the menu online, so I will use a Babelfish translation for the food names in this entry.)
Every dish we were given was in some way unique, served with a twist or a trick. Take, for example, the
Crab and Grapefruit Horizontal Draw Sword Fog Hidden Technique:
One minute I'm sitting there innocently talking with Neil (a friend of the Hodemonster's who was with us at the restaurant), and the next thing I know there's a ninja inside the room right next to me totally flipping out and killing a grapefruit with a wakizashi. He turns the hilt towards me and tells me, in an urgent whisper, to pull it out; as I oblige, the grapefruit begins smoking from its wound. He opens it up and inside is what you see pictured above.
Next up was the
Turban Shell Bomb Burning Escargot. A platter of turban shells was placed in front of us, with some sort of oil-and-salt fuse. The ninja in question then flipped out all over it, causing it to explode. Neil, despite being unequivocally the most Cyberpunk individual out of all of us (he lives in Neo Tokyo, is a freelancing codebreaker and security specialist who takes on assignments for global megacorporations, often involving things like social engineering, and he plays EVE), was nevertheless caught slightly unawares when it went off:
After this came some utterly marvelous sushi,
followed by probably my personal favorite of the evening, the
Ahead Stomatitis Upper Hand Feather And Cashew Nuts Frying:
WARNING, said the ninja, DO NOT EAT THE RED PEPPERS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
"Okay," I said.
WE ARE SERIOUS, said the ninja. VERY, VERY SERIOUS.
"Okay," I said.
Ten minutes later, after I'd regained enough of my eyesight to clean up the cough-blood (and enjoyed a bit of delicious cashew nut chicken), we were given this:
A very mysterious box indeed. The Hodemonster pulled the string, and we were greeted with this:
The Lost Testicle of Tupac Shakur.
Just kidding. It was the
Egg Diagnosing of Secret Treasure Treasured Casket Fish Greens Jelly.
I have no idea how they did it. They somehow filled up an eggshell with a gelatinous glob of oddly spiced vegetable matter, which we were instructed to mix with the rice and other stuff on the plate next to it. The result was an incredibly strange flavor, like green onion-flavored jell-o with raspberry jam.
After this, a deceptively young ninja (who introduced himself as the grand ninja master) paid us a small visit and did some card tricks for us, including a horrifically scary one where he made an entire pack of cards turn into a solid translucent block of polished glass in my hand. It was bizarre.
Next up, another ninja arrived with an ingredient-filled tray. One of the ingredients was a large rock, which she of course totally flipped out on and threw into a pot. Thus was born, before our very eyes, the
Specialty Ignition Throwing A Stone Pot Leaf Hidden Technique Salad.
It was delicious, not at all unlike Tom Ka Kai soup. That is to say, Tom Ka Kai soup that has been cooked in front of you. With a scathing rock. By an awesome ninja.
After this, those of us who were still feeling peckish ordered a little more raw fish. The
Day Substituting Sashimi Aerial Floating Leaf Quantity (served on a pillar of ice) and the
Union Change Sushi of Salmon and White Body arrived presently.
They tasted as delicious as everything else in the place.
Next up were the desserts. We ordered the "Frog looking cheese cake" and the "Bonsai looking cake with three kinds of ice cream."
The Hodemonster got something called The Blackness, which was maple mousse and sweetened black soybeans in cheese sauce, sprinkled with rock salt.
We spent the next twenty minutes in complete silence, each of us savoring our respective slices of heaven as completely as possible. What a meal. What a god damn meal.
As we'd said goodbye at the door and were turning around to hail a taxi, one of the ninjas jumped out behind us with a blood-curdling kiai and unrolled a Ninja scroll containing a mystical and arcane message, which I will now relay to you, even though I will be facing sure death at the hands of the ninja cabal if I am ever found out. I leave you with this gift. Guard it well.
