The troubles began with Gordon Swink. You have to know Gordon—large and bulbous, floating around on a high whiny voice that was by far always the loudest in any room. But with a wit and intelligence, a crafty ingratiation that made people take heed, even leech off him. Gordon was a scrounger, obsessed with little knowledge—like where you went to get old shoes made into new, who still cured their own corned beef, how you could get contraband absinthe, who had rare performance recordings of Lead Belly. He hoarded things like this, and if he felt you were worthy, he'd feed you bits and pieces like you were a lap dog slightly out of favor: "No, no—don't go there! You want the real thing—go—" "That place is crap. Go—" "Guess who's selling a genuine 1924 Olivetti typewriter?" In New York knowledge like this is power, convertible power. And power, as everyone knows, is addictive. Because of Gordon, suddenly you were just a little bit more knowledgeable, a little bit more powerful, perceptively risen above all your friends and family who now looked at you for table scraps in that spiraling cycle of trickle-down economics. So people were scared to death of pissing off Gordon. They'd take all kinds of abuse, even force themselves to believe they liked it—it was part of knowing Gordon—not everyone knew Gordon—but you did—gotta experience the whole mise-en-scene and flash it around.
So when Gordon called up and said he was coming by in five minutes to take me to the best Japanese restaurant outside of Tokyo—I went.
I was surprised. It wasn't the usual kind of Gordon place—grungy and hole-in-the-wall, but all understated marble that shouted mega-money, slick and Manhattan, reeking tourist trade. The Times would be writing it up in no time. The thing is Gordon had never been to Tokyo (he hardly ever left New York, the center of his universe)—I doubted he even knew anyone Japanese.
"So isn't this place great?" he kept saying, having drunk two Asahis and three bottles of sake. "Isn't this the best Japanese food you've ever eaten?"
"It's pretty good," I said, "but it's not the best Japanese food I've eaten."
"What? Where have you eaten better?"
Oh, God, now I was in trouble. I'd promised not to tell. Been sworn to secrecy—you know, like Freemason kind of secrecy.
"Oh, some place," I said squirming. I didn't dare look him in the eye.
"You're holding out on me, Danny boy."
I hated it when he called me Danny boy. The Godfather of scrap thought threatening me sotto nasal voce.
Anyway, this was why I couldn't tell, why I didn't dare gloat. My roommate in college, Brian, was Japanese and we were still good enough friends to hang together whenever he wasn't busy logging time down on Wall Street. He'd introduced me to Japanese food. Every once in a while, if I was real lucky, he'd invite me over to his folks home out in Fort Lee for real home-cooked fare. Brian's mom was a fantastic cook. She made everything from scratch, even things like soba noodles. God, there's this cake she makes—a million golden layers—called a tree cake because each slice looks like the trunk of a delicate tree, the layers proclaiming the tree hundreds of years old—out of this world! Brian's dad was a real gourmet too—he'd never touch packaged dried noodles or processed bonito stock—poor Mrs. Tsuji was hardly ever out of the kitchen. Mr. Tsuji was that real nutty kind of perfectionist, the kind who'd even dare criticize the food of the gods if he felt it wasn't up to snuff. Even the best of foods got just a slight tilt of the head from Mr. Tsuji, a slight nod as if to say close, but no cigar.
Well, Mr. Tsuji owned a small, very successful import business and a tip I gave him saved him a couple of thousand dollars in taxes last year. He was incredibly grateful and he said to me, "Dan, I'd like to repay you somehow for what you did. What can I do? Please tell me."
"No—Mr. Tsuji—really—I was just glad my tip helped out."
"Now, Dan," he said, looking stern. "There must be something . . ."
Mrs. Tsuji smiled nervously. Brian stopped watching TV. I said the first thing that came to my head.
"Well, Mr. Tsuji, you're always saying I've never had really great Japanese food. I know we're not in Japan—but why don't you take me some place here that you think has the best Japanese food and we'll call it quits."
Mr. Tsuji looked grave and troubled.
"The best Japanese food?" he said. He was quiet, an inner debate raging through his soul. What in the world had I said? At last he nodded affirmative. "The best Japanese food then. I'll have to work on it—give me some time. By the way, do you have a tux?"
If I'd only known what I was asking. Mr. Tsuji's mania for precision wasn't just for food. You see, Mr. Tsuji was taking my words quite literally. I didn't say take me to the best Japanese restaurant. I said take me to a place with the best Japanese food. And Mr. Tsuji being Mr. Tsuji, and belonging to Gurume Kurabu, had to honor those very words.
The Gurume Kurabu (or the Gourmet Club) was a secretive brotherhood with one uncompromising mission: to create the most wondrous, esoteric Japanese food possible using your humble east of Eden foodstuff. There was only a handful of members, the basement of an office building, and No, the genius at the stove.
It took Mr. Tsuji six months to get me in. Members could occasionally invite guests, but they had to be heads of state or bank CEOs or something. And certainly Japanese. No pandering to foreign aesthetes. But then, I didn't really get in. I was seated in the reception area, behind a large screen so I couldn't see who was coming or going, my knees tight underneath a small table wedged into a corner. Mr. Tsuji was apologetic.
"The inner rooms are for members only," he explained. "But never mind. You came for the food. And you won't be disappointed."
From over the screen I could hear a rustle of people moving, chopsticks in the air, the sound of sake being poured, kimono-clad waitresses moving from table to table. There was no music, but if you listened close, you could hear a murmur—the sound of soft water gliding over pebbles, the distant call of birds?
"So, Mr. Tsuji," I whispered, "Gurume Kurabu—what's this all about?"
"Well, about ten years ago," he whispered back, "a few close friends and I were lamenting about the state of food today. It's become so commercial, so textbook. What happened to the surprise, the uniqueness? Today you have a handful of sauces—a handful of ingredients—everything tastes pretty much the same—all that soy sauce, all that sugar. Well, we got together and we started going out to restaurants—but what are restaurants but commercial enterprises, the source for all those textbooks? In desperation we started to cook ourselves, hunting out old family recipes, deciphering menus from ancient stories. But that got too burdensome, too stressful. Too much for the cook—we are all good cooks—but cooking for your demanding peers! What could we say to one another? It was never good enough. In despair we were about to disband—but then in walked No. Clear out of the blue, as if he'd fallen straight out of the sky, landing right before our feet. A divine gift from a sympathetic goddess, I say. And just as mysterious. We don't know anything about him and we don't dare ask. He says nothing, except what he says here, at the table."
There were twenty courses in all, a wondrous intermingling of complimentary flavors and textures, so sumptuous I nearly fell over from too much sensory delight. It was truly a night to remember, a night to relish in old age, wondering if it all hadn't been a dream.
So when Gordon put the screws on me, I was bursting to tell (I'd also been keeping up with Gordon's sake binging). In the end, of course I spilled. Gordon's eyes bugged straight out of his glasses.
"You've got to get me in there—"
"I can't."
"You've got to—"
He was on my case for weeks, calling me at three, four in the morning, at intervals of ten, twenty minutes. Sleep deprivation nearly drove me mad, but I couldn't betray Mr. Tsuji. Not that a sense of honor was something Gordon could appreciate. Something in his gut craved the submission of others; absolute refusal was intolerable to him. As a final assault he showed up at my door and put a figurative gun to my head. Gordon wrote for a lot of trendy magazines around town under
various pseudonyms. Coolly, he threatened to deluge New York with articles about Gurume Kurabu.
"But you don't know anything about the club, only what I told you," I protested.
"I know enough for a juicy, very enticing article. I know enough to get hundreds of guys on your trail. You'll never sleep again."
"Why are you being such a shit?"
"You have a week to get me in."
There was nothing else for me to do but tell Mr. Tsuji.
"What have you done?" he exploded. The bottle of cognac I'd brought along wasn't helping one bit.
"Couldn't you let him in just once?" I asked.
"First you—and now him! Impossible! I'll get kicked out! You have no idea what I had to do to get you in! The things I had to promise! My God, just asking will get me kicked out! Blacklisted! Shunned! I'll have to move! To Thailand!"
Mrs. Tsuji stopped knitting. Brian shook his head. I wasn't sure if the shaking was for me or for his dad.
So what could we do but tell Gordon he could come—lead him on an elaborate trail of deception? We found an appropriately seedy-looking building near the George Washington bridge, gave the inside a quick scrub. We blocked everything from view so that when you walked in, all you could see was an elegantly decorated reception area and the appearance of a hallway and door that seemed to lead to grander apartments. I blindfolded Gordon, trying to keep him from peeking on the drive over, but quite happy to let him get a sense of where we were going, the mystery of the set up. Gordon loved it, and my job was satisfying Gordon off my back.
"This is it?" Gordon asked, delighted by the peeling door, the heavy aluminum over the windows.
"Shh!" I commanded, knocking gravely on the door. A woman's voice spoke in Japanese out of a muffled intercom.
"We're Mr. Tsuji's guest," I said. The door slowly opened and the woman Mr. Tsuji had hired for the evening let us into the curtained foyer.
"Yes, we're expecting you," she said, shuffling in her kimono. She guided us past the curtains and into the reception room where a small linen-clothed table waited for us.
"This is it?" Gordon asked, this time disappointed.
"Well, you see, you're not allowed into the member's room. This is as close as we could get you."
"Did you get into the member's room?"
"No."
He seemed satisfied and sat down. He was in too good a mood anyway. "So—where's the food?"
Now this was the difficulty—the food. It had to be good, but not too good or Gordon would be forever hassling me—even worse he'd insist on bringing one round of friends after another. But it couldn't be bad because then Gordon would know something was up. So the solution was Mr. Tsuji would do the cooking—twenty courses of what he could do best, good enough, but not quite good enough to meet Gordon's now inflated expectations. Mr. Tsuji was not a bad cook.
Gordon finished course after course, his smugness ballooning past his stomach.
"Yeah—" he said as we drove back home, not even bothering with a blindfold— "it was good—but the best Japanese food I've ever had? Nah."
God, it was really hard to keep my mouth shut, knowing Gordon was going to lord it over me for months. I'd never be able to go to another Japanese restaurant with Gordon Swink, never think out loud one independent thought. But at least I'd saved Mr. Tsuji from a fate incomprehensible—he wouldn't have to move to Thailand.
Or so I thought. Mr. Tsuji was near hysterical. Gordon had found his evening so amusing, he'd written it up in one of his weekly columns. "Maybe we New Yorkers just know better because the food wasn't good enough, and certainly not worth dusting off my tux for," he'd written. Gordon had put in all the wrong details but the sum of the article led to one thing—everyone in the club knew he was writing about Gurume Kurabu and No was incensed. How dare Mr. Tsuji pass off his lousy food for his? The deception was intolerable, the defamation a call for war. There was only one thing left to do:
"What?" Gordon said, amazed at my confession, his back straight against his chair. His surprise almost blew off his round little glasses.
"But look—No personally insists you come to Gurume Kurabu—taste the real thing."
"Let's go! Let's go!
More humble pie. I had to wait, stomach growing, outside in the reception area while Gordon got the star treatment inside. Twenty courses—I could only imagine, my mouth watering, my stomach in pain. Gordon came out like he'd had sex with Marilyn Monroe.
Six months later a new Japanese restaurant opened up in Manhattan. Reservations had to be made a year in advance—that's when they stopped booking, to the day. I never saw Mr. Tsuji again and Gordon was too busy for the likes of me.
Months later I got the details from Brian.
According to him, Gordon had been so enamored by No, he'd convinced him to open up a restaurant. "You'll be a millionaire by the end of the year," he'd promised. "All New York will be licking your feet. Cookbooks, David Letterman—the whole works!" Gurume Kurabu was defenseless.
"Wow. No wonder your dad will never forgive me. No more Gurume Kurabu."
"That's still around," Brian told me, slurping his udon out of the bowl.
"What? They found a new chef?"
"No."
"Then—"
"It's unbelievable. It's all a ritual now. Once a month they get dressed up in their tuxes. Dad does all the serving, course after course. Only there's nothing on the plates. Nada. Dad's on his way to having a nervous breakdown."
"Wow."
I couldn't think of anything worse than that.
I miss going to Fort Lee, but occasionally Mrs. Tsuji sneaks me a little slice of that tree cake via Brian. What I wouldn't give for a bite of her kuri gohan with those lovely chestnuts! I really have to learn to keep my mouth shut. Heard from Gordon the other day. Left a real nasty piece on my machine: "The best Japanese food you've ever eaten? Haaaaaaaaaaaa!" What a shit.
###
You can connect with J.A. Pak online:
Twitter
Facebook
J.A. Pak