The Ramen King and I Read Free Page B

in front, making the restaurant difficult to locate. The only clue to its existence was a row of tall, green sake bottles in the front window. That, and a business card wedged into the doorframe that said HAMAKO in Japanese. Entering, I was greeted by a middle-aged Asian woman whose silver-streaked hair had been tied back in a complicated bun. I recognized her voice from the phone, and she seemed annoyed.
    “Can I help you?”
    I looked around. Just six tables and a sushi counter. No other customers.
    “May I sit at the counter?” I asked.
    “No,” the woman said. “You need a reservation to sit at the counter.”
     
     
    T he only other person in the sushi bar was the sushi chef. Standing silently at his station, he reminded me a lot of Shota’s master.
    Shota is the fifteen-year-old main character in a Japanese comic book series called Shota’s Sushi . In Book One, his father’s sushi bar comes under attack by an evil sushi chain. Shota learns how to make sushi to help out, but as a novice he can only do so much. A visiting sushi master recognizes Shota’s prodigious talent, however, and takes the boy on as an apprentice. Shota hones his skills, first as an entry-level helper in the master’s Tokyo sushi bar, and then as a contestant in the All-Tokyo Rookie Sushi Chef Competition. There are fourteen books in the original series, and eight more in a sequel series (in which Shota competes in the All-Japan Rookie Sushi Chef Competition). Shota’s dream is to become a full-fledged sushi chef so he can return home and save his father from the evil chain.
    I had been reading Shota’s Sushi in the months before my first visit to the sushi bar, so I guess that’s why I made the connection. Like Shota’s master, the sushi chef in front of me was stocky with short gray hair, and his wrist muscles bulged out, presumably from making so much sushi. He seemed upset about something, and I had the feeling that, like many of the sushi chefs in the comic book, he was often upset about something. A clean white apron hung from his waist and a blue bandanna circumscribed his head.
    Still pondering the catch-22 around the restaurant’s reservation policy, I was directed by the woman to a two-top.
    “Would you like a beer?” she asked. “We have Sapporo and Asahi.”
    I ordered a Sapporo. Then the chef screamed at me.
    “Mr. Customer! Which sushi bars have you been to in San Francisco?”
    I recognized “Mr. Customer” as a direct translation of okyakusan, the Japanese word for addressing patrons. But the way he asked the question made me feel as if I were on a first date and had just been asked to list my previous sexual partners.
    I decided to be up front with him.
    “I like Saji and Okina,” I said. “Every once in a while, for lunch, I go to Tenzan.”
    The chef shook his head disapprovingly.
    “I play golf with Shiba,” he said, referring to Tenzan’s head chef. “Next time you eat there, tell him that my sushi is better than his. Don’t worry, he knows it’s true.”
    Zen used to advise me on how to behave at traditional sushi bars. I should say more about Zen, but for now I’ll just say that Zen is his real name, short for Zentaro, and that he once told me that when ordering omakase —leaving the selection up to the chef—you should carry a picture of what he called “your five starving children.” Near the end of the meal, Zen instructed, you should reach for your wallet and let the picture drop out, causing the chef to take pity on you when he tabulates the bill. Zen also shared with me his foolproof method for starting a relationship with a traditional sushi chef. “Ask about the guy’s knife,” Zen had said. “Specifically, ask how many times a day he sharpens it.”
    I asked the chef standing behind the counter, “Is your knife from Japan?”
    The chef lifted his knife. The blade was facing in my direction, but he didn’t say anything. I was getting nowhere with him, so I switched to