I almost changed my mind when I saw Cinderella’s plain, paint-chipped exterior. There was one door, cracked barely open, revealing a dim room. It creaked when I peeked inside. A blonde-haired and blue-eyed immigrant girl squinted at me from behind a counter. “Can…. I… help… you?” she asked in a thick accent.

I tiptoed inside. Another doorway led to a second room, barely visible behind heavy drapes. On long tables covered by white tablecloths, ornate glassware and vodka bottles formed miniature skylines.

The girl sighed. “You want piroshki?” she asked with arms folded. “We are not open today,” she added, nodding toward the dining room. From behind the drapes, sounds of shot glasses were punctuated by “na zdarovia!.”

I walked up to the glass counter and looked down at the day-old pastries. Greasy bread pockets sagged on mismatched white plates atop crumb-covered doilies. “What kind do you have?” I asked.

Cabbage, she spat. Okay, I conceded, and walked away, ate half of a very stale pirog and threw the rest away.

That was a decade ago, before I read Crime & Punishment, before I studied in Moscow, and before I learned the answer to the question: What is Russian food? Like everyone else in California, my best guess was a spectrum of bland potato and cabbage dishes, and bullish men trying to keep borscht out of bushy mustaches. Like everyone else in California who wasn’t Russian, I didn’t know what Russian food was, and thanks to a series of experiences eerily similar to my first visit to Cinderella, it didn’t seem possible to learn by dining out.

A couple months ago Mele and I ate at a Russian restaurant called Red Tavern in the Outer Richmond. Another young couple was dining at the table next to ours, wrinkling their brows at the menu. “Do you have pierogi?” the guy asked the waiter, unaware that the Polish word meant something else in Russian. The waiter apologized and answered, no, they did not carry pastries.

The same couple proceeded to ask: What is “Russian Root Beer”? Is it like American Root Beer?

“No,” the waiter responded curtly, and nobody knew where to take the conversation from there.

The server at Red Tavern didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that he never signed up to be a curator. Most of his customers were groups of Russian-Americans who knew what they wanted and weren’t in the mood to learn about their server’s culture. He was a waiter, not a tour guide, and he didn’t want to be, and it showed.

It’s a scenario where both sides lose. After a decent meal, that young couple walked out with probably no intention to try Russian food again any time soon. There’s not enough access at restaurants run by Russian immigrants for Russian immigrants, like Red Tavern on Clement, like Renaissance on Geary, and like Cinderella Bakery circa 2003.

Last month I bought some Easter bread at Cinderella Bakery. The lady behind the counter beamed with pride. “Have you had this before…?” she asked as she handed me the bread and stamped my frequent buyer’s card.

This was the new Cinderella Bakery and Café, remodeled in 2010, redesigned with a whole new look and approach. Big windows opened onto Balboa Blvd. Outdoor seating spilled onto the sidewalk. Mothers ate granola and bananas beside strollers in the shade, students hung out with notebooks open, sipping their Ritual Coffee, and passing joggers swung by for nuked pastries.

The new Cinderella doesn’t hide behind tinted windows like Renaissance and Red Tavern, or behind heavy drapes and moody scowls, tucked away from the public like the old Cinderella. Instead of coldly nodding when I responded, “Yes I have,” the lady behind the counter smiled and struck up a friendly conversation. Behind me in line, an older couple listened in rapt attention, never having heard of kulich – a sweet, frosted loaf eaten only around Easter. The couple then proceeded to try it for the first time.

I’m not suggesting that all of Russian cuisine is a must-try. I’m not apologizing for its overbearing carbo-content or its lack of nutrient rich veggies. Even in Moscow the food is hardly a goldmine of flavor. At least, it’s hardly ever worth the dishware it’s served on.

Most Russian restaurants are slave to the old-fashioned idea that dining calls for fineries, as if the act of eating a meal at a table required aristocratic airs. In America, tablecloths, ornate glassware and china can make people uncomfortable – or worse, expect the kind of food associated with nice things.

That’s the problem with Katia’s, another Russian restaurant down the block from Cinderella. Despite the fact that the chef’s American husband happily bridges the gap between Russian food and newcomers, and despite decent dinner fare, the place misses the mark. Like Renaissance and Red Tavern, the food just doesn’t make sense next to that price tag, dimly lit, served with course-specific silverware.

Cinderella’s meals aren’t necessarily better, but the casual setting is more appropriate. That makes all the difference. Served with your choice of potatoes or kasha, Cinderella’s ten or so meals include stuffed cabbage, chicken kiev, beef stroganoff and cornish hen tabaka. My favorite is the lamb shank, so soft that you can almost spread the meat on kasha, like butter.

There are people like my dad, who says it ain’t a Chicago hot dog without a Mary Ann poppy seed bun. There are people like my friend Natasha, who was born in Moscow and shakes her head at Cinderella – for not using black currants, for stuffing their piroshki with un-Russian things like gorgonzola and cheddar.

Then there are people like me, who don’t mind spending a couple bucks less to eat something that’s probably much fresher. Cinderella makes an effort to sell goods made in house, from its famous baked-in-house bread to shelves of marinated mushrooms and vegetables, eggplant caviar. and assorted vinegret salads. Take kvass, a carbonated beverage that Red Tavern had mislabeled “Russian Root Beer”. It can be purchased in a store like soda, imported from Russia, with a formula altered for export, often past fresh, but Cinderella’s kvass is something else. Made from scratch with rye bread, raisins, and spices, Cinderella’s half-percent alcoholic beverage is refreshing, like a sweetened, carbonated iced tea beer.

I like Cinderella’s kvass on the rare warm Richmond day. I like the piroshki with my coffee in the mornings. I like most everything at Cinderella, and yet I wouldn’t claim anything there truly stands out in a neighborhood full of food that stands out.

That is, except for the soup.

The same goes for Russian cuisine in general. In fact, if someone asked me now, “What is Russian food?” I would answer, “Delicious soup.” Over half of my meals in Moscow consisted of soup only, and yes, that did include borscht on occasion, but not always. People overestimate the importance of borscht in Russian food as much as they underestimate the importance of soup.

My favorite Russian chowder is kharcho, a liquid version of Cinderella’s lamb shank dinner and the Georgian version of chicken soup with rice. Cinderella’s spinach soup is no slouch either, complete with dollop of sour cream and soft-boiled egg, and the pelmeni – drowned in fatty chicken broth – rounds out a list of champions. Cindrella’s solyanka is especially tasty. Bold, spicy and stuffed with sausage, it’s the perfect foil for sliced black bread. In fact, the best lunchtime meal in the Inner Richmond just might be the sandwich and cup of solyanka for $7.99.

Don’t tell the purists that I’ve recommended a turkey and avocado sandwich at a Russian restaurant. Ignore the fact that Cinderella Bakery and Café is as much an American coffee shop as it is a Russian restaurant. Just be happy there’s a place out there where people can try Russian food for themselves, because they’re not discouraged from doing so.

Cinderella Bakery and Cafe
436 Balboa St
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 751-9690

I shouldn’t be, not considering the cost. Those between-inning lines are a bitch, standing in front of angry fans looking for beer number three, and behind slow dads buying meals for big families. The condiment dispensers never work properly, everyone forgets to grab napkins, and then of course there’s the geographical price hike, five bucks for a frank that probably isn’t worth one dollar outside the stadium.

But I am excited, for mustard-drowned Coliseum Dogs in Oakland, and even for Dodger Dogs, bleacher snacks more iconic than tasty, because hot dogs aren’t a year-round sport in California, because tradition can trump quality, and because ballparks fit the food like a glove.

Ballparks are home to local fast food, too, beyond hot dogs, dressed in team colors, displayed prominently on fences and scoreboards, and featured along corridors like exhibits in a museum. These halls of fame boast municipal pride, like Shake Shack in the outfield of Citi Field, fried raviolis in St. Louis, crab cakes at Camden Yards, Langer’s pastrami at Dodger Stadium and “Gilroy” garlic fries at San Francisco’s AT&T Park.

The idea of American fast food is championed at baseball games. Crackerjacks and cotton candy are a piece of the pastime, and so are ballpark franks, even if they’re crappy hot dogs in a state full of crappy hot dogs, at five bucks a pop and wrapped in tacky colored foil. It doesn’t matter; the circumstances can make even San Francisco’s gluten-free franks seem delicious.

Happy ballpark fast food season, y’all!

Sometimes those dinners leave stellar impressions, but none escape some disappointment due to an unreasonable expectation that the cost would be proportionally reflected in the food. I’ve been equally as excited before and as satisfied after less sophisticated fare, like Chef Edwards’ piggy wiggly, taco truck mariscos, or – hell, in the right late night circumstances – even microwaved Michael Angelo eggplant parmesan. Those unfair comparisons nag at my brain as I walk out of fine dining establishments, adding “yeah, but” asterisks to epicurean experiences.

A rare exception is San Francisco’s House of Prime Rib, a meal so unrepeatable that I might consider it priceless. Even as half the patrons noisily celebrate birthdays on tables cramped too close together, and even if they’ve since stopped offering a complimentary second slice, I find myself believing it’s worth it. After half a dozen visits I still walk out the door already looking forward to next time, when I’d get to experience the best prime rib of my life. Again. Asterisk free.

House of Prime Rib
1906 Van Ness Ave
San Francisco, CA 94109

Moments later Japan returned to full speed.

Life slowed down again in Kochi. Josh got lost en route to everywhere, occasionally stopping at his nth favorite soft serve place for another impromptu dessert. Even the tourism took its time; we’d be the only ones there, pondering the spirits in front of a 3,000-year-old robot tree, or holding lanterns up to macabre paintings in the dark.

After Shikoku, Japan sped back up. No longer did we march to the sputter of Josh’s Daihatsu. Instead we kicked up dust with the rest of the tourists, racing up and down escalators, catching trains or bounding up and down temple stairs, chasing postcard culture.

Alas, in Japan, all postcards lead to Kyoto.

Kyoto is beautiful city – even its seedier districts glow with orange lanterns and old Meiji Era charm – but Kyoto is also tourism hotspot ichi-ban, with a way of life governed by whether or not the cherry blossoms are in bloom.

Our impression of the town was amplified by our newfound dependence. Without Josh holding our hands, the buck passed to a Lonely Planet guide to play sensei, and the thankless bible herded us through a gauntlet of high-traffic vistas.

…and destination dinners. Mele and I browsed expat blogs and braved random walk-ins, but we also deferred to the guide’s must-eats. Oft times we were thankful for its wisdom, as in the case of Nishiki Market in downtown Kyoto, and most of all when we stepped into Misoka-an Kawamichi-Ya.

Misoka-an is a local landmark, a 300-year-old soba restaurant in a converted merchant’s house. The hostess led us through a honeycomb of small rooms, each flanked by gardens and interconnected by outdoor stepping stones, to our table. Mele and I took off our shoes, tiptoed over shiny wood floors and shrugged at each other.

It was like a private tour of one of Kyoto’s temples. Why not? Misoka-an was old enough and, like any supercentenarian eating establishment, just as crucial a pillar of local culture.

An old man took our order. The process was eased by a menu with English translations and a self-awareness weathered by Kyoto’s large just-visiting population. Likewise, our hosts were not impressed by the discolor of our skin or fazed by our linguistic ignorance. We were just another pair of customers.

Yet, despite impersonal service, despite the German family we bumped into on our way out, and despite the meal’s presence in the canon of Kyoto tourism, Misoka-an remains unspoiled. Noodles handmade for over three centuries trump the old adage that places where tourists eat probably suck balls.

Those handmade buckwheat noodles shined brightest in the Nishin Soba. As a dish its simplicity was overwhelming: just broth, soba and a chunk of dried herring that had been marinated in soy sauce for so long that its flavor seemed to reflect all 300 years.

The meal wasn’t just delicious. Time slowed, tempered by an experience that rivaled the sight of Mt. Fuji, and I forgot about the masses of tourists outside. In my mind they were replaced by sakura trees making it rain colors in the dead of winter.

Tony Bourdain-esque hyperbole aside, our two weeks in Japan alternated between the norm – frantic, crowded exploration – and those brief moments of glorious perspective, when the clock stopped long enough for history to take front and center, and we remembered just how other-side-of-the-worldly our experience rated.

Standing inside the Daibutsuden qualified as one of those moments. The world’s largest bronze Buddha stared back at us inside the world’s largest wooden building, and our interaction remained unaffected by the fact that we shuffled feet in a crowd of the similarly curious.

But outside the hustle and bustle of Japan returned in full force. Kyoto’s marching masses had followed us on a day trip to Nara, sucking the air out of Japan’s more memorable temples. Even the adorable Nara-koen Sika deer, like the local economy, had become accustomed to the generosities of out-of-towners.

After saluting Buddha we visited another Nara specialty – and another Lonely Planet recommendation, an easy stop for tourists between Nara-koen and the train station. Like the deer, Shizuka has kept its belly full because of people like us, tourists looking for something meaningfully local and ignoring the fact that locals would probably never bother.

In this case, the Nara artifact was one particular dish: kamameshi.

Japan’s answer to Chinese clay pot rice is an iron pot dish in which Nara boasts specialization. As with Misoka-an’s nishin soba, Shizuka’s kamameshi‘s intrinsic value is simplicity, and our meal felt down-to-earth despite its less-than-local patronage. Crisp-edged rice and in-season Hokkaido crab made up for any otherwise tepid flavor. (Why does everything good seem to come from Hokkaido? (Crab, dogs, ramen…)

We hopped back on a train, back to Kyoto, for more temples and more food at uncomfortable speeds. We dove back downstream with the rest of the tourists, embracing and rejecting our roles, practicing the pilgrimage diet. At times it was exhausting, but every once in awhile we’d look out over a forest of bamboo, or a bowl of udon, and time would pause just enough.

It was the last day of our two-week rail pass. Mele and I decided to spend it an hour south of Tokyo, across the river from where the F. Marinos play soccer, at a plain building with a line out front and a sign as forgettable as Yokohama itself – that is, except for what the sign said: Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum

The museum refers to itself as an amusement park. The distinction is accurate. Once inside, we walked into the year 1958, or a façade equivalent, not unlike a ride at Universal Studios. Retro billboards hang beneath a painted sky, over fake shoe shops and post offices, and between each false storefront is a real ramen joint, built into recreated Tokyo, anachronistically making very good business.

We fumbled our way from line to line, ordering half bowls of noodles. I sounded out what Japanese I could read and Mele tried to recognize the vocabulary through experience with sushi menus. Each of the nine shops represented a different style of noodles in a broth from a different region of Japan. Touring the museum emulated a trip across the country, eating ramen. Honestly, that’s not far from what we’d been doing up until then.

Kunimaru – Kochi City

We like ramen, enough that our first two meals in Japan were porky noodle soup. The second took place in Kochi City, at a sit-down joint called Kunimaru, ten minutes after Josh had picked us up at the station.

“Are you ordering for us?” I asked Josh, looking at the menu, its photos only confusing me more.
“Well, yeah,” our sensei responded.
“Thank God.”

We were still learning how restaurants worked in Japan, how the doors slid open like rice-paper walls, how all money was handled only at the cash register, and how service was overly polite, yet submissive – requiring you to call servers over for attention.

Kunimaru serves miso broth only. Like the museum, the menu is separated by region: a fatty and sweet broth referred to as Tokyo-style, a thick and spicy soup from Hokkaido, and a milder kind from central Honshu, lighter on fat, lighter on sweet, lighter on spicy, but somehow not lighter on flavor.

Jiyuken – Shikoku Foothills

It made sense that Kunimaru’s Hokkaido broth would be rich and spicy. Hokkaido is a cold place. That’s why I wasn’t surprised some of the spiciest ramen on Shikoku could be found at a higher elevation, where the temperature drops and appetites become more voracious.

Josh called it mountain ramen, as if hungry yetis would be hunched over steaming bowls full of rabbit and boar. In this sense, Jiyuken’s version is not so unusual – porky, salty and fatty – but it’s also spicy, perfect for quick stops on the side of a highway deep in the Shikoku foothills.

Jiyuken is a big restaurant, one giant open room with high ceilings, tucked into the side of snowy mountain and ignoring the usual economy of space practiced in the city. Josh recommended that I order the spiciest one (miso, of course), and after a day of hiking in the snow and musing on exiled emperors, it hit the spot – as ramen is wont to do, whether it’s in the center of town or on the top of a mountain.

Or on the eleventh floor of a train station mall…

Ramen Alley – Kyoto JR Station

JR Railways might as well be a second governing body in Japan. The experimentation in privatization gone King Kong has graduated to building its own cities, a giant metropolis at each train stop. One such complex can be found in Kyoto, over a dozen floors of hotels, restaurants and shops. In The Cube, on the eleventh floor, after ten minutes of escalators, one can even find “Ramen Alley.”

The Alley is a narrow food court with five or six ramen spots with an automatic kiosk in front of each, like a 2012 version of the museum’s 1958. We chose the longest line, ordered via vending machine, handed our receipts to the hostess and watched as customer turnover reached light speed.

When relying on automated tellers and waitresses, customers rarely interact with the cooks themselves. I expected differently, but that wasn’t my biggest surprise regarding noodle soup in Japan. The Kyoto Station broth was dark, rich and amazing at first taste, but like all ramen on our trip, the soup was loaded with enough sodium to tear at the roofs of our mouths halfway through the meal.

Likewise, nobody is expected to finish their broth. Et tu, Tampopo?

A Hole-in-the-wall Noodle Stop – Shibuya, Tokyo

It wasn’t until a quick lunch in Shibuya that we had a ramen experience on par with Tampopo’s foodie vision of Japan.

Deep in West Tokyo, where people go to shop or work beneath sun-blocking buildings, thousands of quick-bite establishments await the weekday lunch rush. We found one such place beneath subway tracks, a long, narrow interior with one old man in the middle of an island kitchen, serving soup in every direction.

Each patron was lone and male and in a hurry, slurping without dialogue, as if in a ramen library. The only sounds were the soft clinks and clanks of the librarian ladling noodles, except for when the subway passed. Then the little place rattled, and everyone paused, just a tad, before continuing to eat – something that we found way more charming than we should have.

That the ramen itself was mediocre only seemed to add to its charm.

Fast-Food Ramen in a College Neighborhood – Jimbocho, Tokyo

We had ramen the night we first arrived in Japan, in the Jimbocho district of Tokyo. It was New Year’s Day. Everything had closed except for fast-food stops and a couple desperate restaurants, and we walked into one of the latter.

We approached the counter while chefs and patrons stared. The host shook his head and ushered us back to the doorway, and for a moment I wondered if we would be escorted out. Instead he led us to an automated kiosk at the entrance, an ATM machine with giant buttons replete with cartoon images of ginger and soft-boiled eggs.

“Ramen?” the man asked, using the only word all of us knew.

We took too long counting yen, but finally managed to order and handed our receipts to the host. Then we sat down and watched everyone else eat, taking mental notes. The women in their designer blouses wore napkins for bibs and the older men finished their meal with jaded ritual.

The noodles, firm and springy, arrived quickly. The soup was stuffed like a day-after stew. We balked at the surprisingly large portions of food and failed to finish our meals, but we enjoyed it, exhausted from the flight and the subway. Then we sat around, waiting for someone else to finish, trying to catch whether or not they would tip, not yet knowing that there was no tipping in Japan.

We learned soon enough. Two weeks later we’d be doing the same thing tenfold in an amusement park. We’d learned enough basic Japanese and gained enough acumen to survive the ramen museum’s hustle and bustle. We’d gone from completely uneducated on Japanese noodles to almost completely uneducated on Japanese noodles.

Unfortunately, the museum’s history of Chinese noodles in Japan was not translated for our benefit.
Fortunately, like great art, ramen is one museum exhibit that doesn’t need subtitles.

Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum
2-14-21 Shinyokohama
Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture 222-0033
Japan

We didn’t see any people as we passed. We hadn’t seen anyone since Okawa, a riverside village that Josh had called home for three years and that Wikipedia calls the the smallest town located on the four main islands of Japan. It was just the three of us in the Daihatsu, chugging up a snowy incline in the middle of nowhere.

“There was an exiled emperor who lived in this area,” Josh said, gesturing to the mountainous horizon where patches of fog and drifts of snow covered myriad shades of evergreen. The trivia fit the mood.

Later we stood outside the car, breathing warmth into our palms. Then, after hours without seeing another person, a stranger appeared out of the fog. He walked toward us, carrying rope in one hand and waving with the other, while two Hokkaido dogs skipped at his heels. We waved back and wondered: What the Hell was he doing out here, atop our empty mountain?

“Guess which one’s the mother,” he said, gesturing at his dogs with a glowing grin, and Josh translated. We guessed wrong, and the dogs smiled at us with panting tongues and rolled in the snow.

Josh pointed up an icy road and asked where it led. The stranger took one look at the Daihatsu and its 12-inch wheels, then replied, “Don’t go that way.”

He asked about us, where we were from, and what we were doing there. Josh answered on our behalf, while Mele and I stood and smiled, until the stranger said – in English, with effort – “Do you know Fuji?”

We teetered back onto our heels. Then we all laughed.

A few hours earlier we had lunch in the town of Motoyama, about halfway between Kochi City and Okawa. After an hour of winding one-lane roads, through pastures of grazing red beef cattle, the Daihatsu came across the four-thousand person town sitting on a river bend. More specifically, we’d arrived at Fuji’s little piece of the Shikoku mountains.

The weather couldn’t decide between snow or drizzle, so it took turns. Fuji led Mele and me to his gallery, a storage bunker on the riverbank decorated with spray paint. Two dogs bounded at our ankles. One had a mo-hawk shaved into his fur. The other had the same style, inverted.

Fuji pointed to one of the dogs as it leaped past us. “I named him Minke, because,” he said, in passable English, and winked, as if to say: Get it? Get it? We didn’t.

This was the man whose local celebrity was heralded even at the tops of mountains, Fujishima Koichi – a local artist who doubled as a restauranteur, musician, documentarian and jokester (though in our experience, the jokester eclipsed the others).

I asked Fuji why his gallery was called Mojoyama Mississippi. Fuji responded, “Mojo, I like. I wanted ‘Mojo Motoyama Mississippi,’ but my ex-girlfriend, she said it was too long, so,” and he shrugged apologetically.

Inside the bunker, walls and tables were covered in art, finished and unfinished, his own and the work of friends. In the main room hung a series of his portraits: photographs of bums in London, of potheads in Amsterdam, and of blues musicians in Chicago, Tennessee and of course Mississippi.

In one corner a pack of painted couches faced a homemade stage, flooded with red and blue lights. Every month or so young folk might come by and watch Fuji wail a little blues on his guitar. In fact, Fuji has road tripped through America’s South on more than one occasion, using his talents with a guitar as currency to hang out on porches in boondocks from Mississippi to Memphis, proof that even though Fuji is from a little town in the mountains of Shikoku, he’s got soul.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Like when he giggles and snorts, points to the stage and tells Mele, “You’re an actress. Go! Act!” Then laughs at himself and chases a dog.

It’s the vehemence in which Fuji expresses himself that makes him so unique. In the drab town of Motoyama, where the majority are over sixty-five years old, it’s delightful overkill. Fuji broadcasts his passions on his sleeve, on his rented storage bunker, and all over the brightly colored Missy Sippy Café.

“Why is it called that?” I asked Fuji as we crossed the street toward the restaurant. He responded, “My ex-girlfriend, she didn’t like ‘Mississippi,’ so I said, how about Missy… Sippy?” And he left that as answer, shrugging apologetically.

Stepping into the café is like stepping into someone’s home, except in this house, the walls and shelves reflect the inside of Fuji’s head. Album covers from Mississippi John Hurt to Memphis Slim emulate wallpaper while blues memorabilia and artifacts from Fuji’s travels decorate the rest of the interior.

We sat at what felt like someone’s dining room table, listening to blues on vinyl. In one corner fire crackled in a wood-burning stove, around which Minke and his friend slept in piles. Other rooms had couches and futons for friends to sleep off the alcohol or to stay overnight, in case the snow kept falling and the roads to Kochi City closed. At Fuji’s, Japanese etiquette meets Southern hospitality.

While there are hints of the Southern in Missy Sippy Cafe’s food, mostly its Fuji’s eccentricity that shines on the menu. Devised from construction paper and scissors, the list is small but interesting, with a multicultural spread of samosas and spring rolls and something called “Brown Nose Hamburg.”

Mele and I ordered a Japanese-style curry and “Chicken George’s Plate,” stove-top dishes that have been described to me as Japanese comfort food, but seem more like diner fare with a couple extra spices from the pantry. Those added flavors are enough to set Missy Sippy Cafe’s food apart from the regular carousel of Japanese cuisine, another reason why the Kochi expat community tends to gravitate toward Motoyama around mealtime.

Fuji joined us for tea and cookies after the meal, teasing Josh and giggling to himself. We sat back, digesting, and I thought about where we were, in the middle of the Shikoku mountains at a blues-themed café, with snow falling outside. Even if I’d come across Missy Sippy in West Oakland I would have balked. I had to wonder, what the hell was this place doing here, in the Tosa countryside?

This wasn’t just a piece of dixieland in Japan. This was one man’s miniature kingdom, a vibrant landmark in its own right, Shikoku’s very own Mt. Fuji. The Tosa mountains’ exiled emperor was Fujishima Koichi, unapologetically keeping his own traditions alive.

Missy Sippy Cafe
1102-1 Motoyama
Nagaoka, Kochi Prefecture 781-2615
Japan

Mele and I followed Josh across the street, looking both ways, in the wrong order. I knew – as I’ve known since a young age, and as I’d witnessed often since landing in Tokyo the day before – that in Japan, cars drive on the left side of the road. I considered that fact explicitly as I approached the Daihatsu, and yet, moments after I had walked up to the car door, Josh laughed and said, “That’s the driver’s side.”

A cabbie drove us downtown that evening in a Toyota Comfort. The first stop on our Kochi tour was Hirome Ichiba, a launch pad for nocturnal debauchery and a good place to kick back and shake off new-country nerves. The food court waits for hungry shoppers at the end of the Ohashi-dori arcade, a snaking, pedestrian tunnel that cuts across downtown Kochi. The rest of the city’s nightlife huddles on nearby side streets and alleys, destinations that range from dance clubs and karaoke to traditional izakaya, from hostess and snack bars to dives with Western-themed names like “Jack Bauer” or “Honky Tonk.”

“Foreigners aren’t allowed at Jack Bauer,” Josh said, as if he wasn’t aware that was funny.

Hirome – a food court with low ceilings and labyrinthine passageways – is best described as a college dining commons with alcohol. Josh, Mele and I sat shoulder-to-shoulder with chain-smoking and chain-snacking locals trying their best to earn their prefecture’s reputation as the most alcoholic in Japan. Above the open seating hung enough secondhand cigarette smoke to support a laser light show, and to each side food counters sold a wide range of late night munchies, from ramen and karaage to Indian curry, Chinese stir-fry and, yes, even tacos.

We caught up and talked J-land while drinking liter glasses of Kirin, bottles of Heartland and a green tea flavored plum wine that Josh insisted tasted like a Jolly Rancher. Then, with a sweeping arm and a prideful smile, he gestured to our surroundings and explained, “It’s not uncommon to see people puking in the corners here.”

This was modern Kochi, a city infamous for its teenage pregnancy rates and staggering per-capita pachinko numbers, but otherwise not unlike the rest of Japan, with a convenience mart on each corner, a Uniqlo in each neighborhood, and enough socks-and-leggings stores to keep warm female legs across the world.

This was also Josh’s newest home, and for most of the week he drove us around on the left side of the road, reiterating memorable tidbits of tourist guides he’d translated and waxing bombastically on Japan over the Daihatsu’s rattling dashboard. The five-cent tour, which costs a lot more after converting to yen these days, included museums, temples, recycle shops, and plenty of delicious eats.

Shikoku is home to foodstuffs like buntan (pomelo), yuzu, sweet potato fries, bread in the shape of a hat, and sea bream. Perhaps the most famous food on this list is katsuo (bonito), which is found across the island in many forms.

Katsuo tataki is bonito seared over open flame and served with rock salt, lemon, soy sauce, garlic, wasabi and ginger. It was the first local dish Josh introduced that evening at Hirome. It was also our first taste of the Tosa region, quickly washed away by Kirin lager, bacon-wrapped onigiri and Marlboro Ice Blasts. Like much of our experience in Kochi City, old Japan makes way for the new.

Our second taste of katsuo tataki made a bigger impression. Though on an island, Kochi City is seemingly landlocked, with mountains in every direction, a valley not unlike the suburban sprawls north of Los Angeles. Josh’s little Daihatsu took a tunnel south, finding the Shikoku coast less than twenty minutes away and bringing us to the next stop on the Kochi tour: Tosa Tataki Dojo, a little restaurant where the customers make katsuo tataki themselves.

A small, old man took our order at the cutting board. He proceeded to trim three chunks of raw bonito into manageable blocks and handed them to us, speared and ready. He added straw to the fire with expertise and ennui, and he gestured that we submerge our sashimi-on-a-stick into the flames. We could think of no reason not to, so we submitted ourselves to the mercy of the man with the big knife.

When he said turn it, we turned it. When he waved us away we raised our spears in victory, until the old man took them from us to slice and plate our culinary masterpieces. We were nothing but the poles that held the spit, but we did a damn good job. We didn’t fall down once.

The katsuo tataki at Hirome, like sushi with rougher edges and a tad extra salt and citrus, was a suitable snack for an evening of beer and dialogue. But our ocean-side lunch was better for its freshness, both from the sea and off the flames. A crisp, smoky flavor kissed each bite, and the smell of burning straw filled the room like incense, setting the mood for a good meal and allowing us a moment to experience old Japan without the new.

Old Japan was often the topic of discussion in the car. Longer drives came with history lessons, as I read aloud the Wikipedia pages of famous samurai born in the region, or games of Pilgrim Punch, a clone of Punch Buggy triggered when pilgrims are spotted walking alongside the road in traditional garb.

On our second day in town Josh took us to Kochi Castle, a museum at the center of the valley with its original architecture intact, an ageless eye in a hurricane of Pachinko and Yoshinoya. Standing at the top of the castle tower, looking over the mountainous Tosa domain, I could see past the malls and fast food chains. It was easy to imagine Japan without cars, without bacon-wrapped onigiri and without bars named after Fox television shows.

I could even imagine a feudal lord in his castle, taking a bite of katsuo tataki, gesturing proudly and decreeing, “It’s not uncommon to see people puking in the corners here.”

Brockton Villa is not an exception. This cliffside cafe is everything La Jolla stands for, with old white people eating noveau-Californian cuisine and looking out onto the cove. Nothing about the restaurant bucks this fact, but sometimes there’s a food item on a menu that crosses the lines of class warfare. That fact is obvious every time I walk into a hole-in-the-wall taqueria to find white businessmen in nice suits, glossy magazines in hand (and an article written by Jonathan Gold within). It’s also true in the case of Brockton Villa, where students brave the bourgeois for a taste of French Toast in the morning. It’s a worthwhile trip across the picket line; the custard within crust is more dessert than breakfast, more decadent than decent, and more creamy than any La Jolla sunset.

Brockton Villa
1235 Coast Blvd
La Jolla, CA 92037

I overreact. The reality is that I don’t live close enough to the Mission district to consistently try enough local Mexican food. After so many misses I keep going back to one of the few hits, the Tacos San Buena truck at 16th and Folsom. Tacos San Buena is a fleet of trucks that fan out across the less peopled sectors of the Mission district and beyond, in places where bars are legally mandated to close by 10pm and liquor stores stop bothering to refrigerate.

San Buena trucks serve tacos in the Southern California style. They are simple Tijuana street tacos with stewed meats and paired sauces. The truth is, no, Tacos San Beuna trucks wouldn’t be destination drives in LA or SD, but in the Mission, sometimes it’s the closest I can get to the kind of Mexican food that I fell in love with once upon a time. Viva the little things!

Tacos San Buena
Shotwell and 16th St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

Yak is the enlightened meat. It’s lean like buffalo but juicy like beef. It’s raised at high elevation in the Himalayas and in Colorado, this mystical creature that exists, in my experience, in exotic children’s books and adventure tales, up among the clouds, both divine and a bit awkward – like a god in a Miyazaki film, or the transferred spirit in a Murakami novel. It’s healthy, it’s tasty, and it’s definitely different.

The unexpected thing about Tara’s Yak Chili is an emphasis on the chili. The meat is tough, like jerky, but the texture is almost necessary – because it’s spicy. It’s really, really spicy, and the ensuing endorphins do nothing to subtract from the lightheaded, wondrous feeling of a yak-eating ritual that cannot feel anything but holy.

Tara’s Himalayan Cuisine
10855 Venice Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034