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

The New York restaurant scene is full of concepts, plates and experiences that are mostly devoid of personality. Going on my fourth year in the city, I still have the gnawing feeling that New York restaurants are often more brand than food – a name to an investment that happens to take the form of an aged steak, an overcrowded noodle joint where the hidden menu item is cool-ass couches, or a Korean taco. And when a sit-down New York restaurant is more food than brand, I sometimes wonder why the food is so immaculate and divorced from its own context that the most inspiring expression one might draw from his empty plate is that money gets you nice things.

Every time I leave New York to visit a town or city that isn’t teeming with the next hot shit, this feeling subsides and amplifies in one sitting. In plenty of other places, it seems like the par for dining out in style is never as overpriced, onerous or obnoxious as it is in Manhattan. Maybe once you drain the saturation of restaurants fueled by hype, disposable income and population density, the filter for quality becomes more exacting. It’s more probable that I’m living inside my head as a cheap New Yorker, allowing the daunting volume of $30+ meals to transform too easily into a $30+ bias.

My recent dinner at Philadelphia’s Koo Zee Doo is a case in point. Vacations with Girlfriend are an opportunity to spend money on nice things, not least of all the type of food that New York dates are made of in theory but are never made of in reality. Philadelphia’s restaurant scene, not beholden to reservations and asterisked intermittently with the letters “BYOB,” is the perfect setting for this change of pace, offering its fairer share of market-priced seafood, intimate settings, and affordable ales and wine to accompany each meal.

Koo Zee Doo, a BYOB restaurant with a Portugese-influenced menu, resembles a trendy East Village joint without any of the accoutrement or clientele that make trendy East Village joints an overbearing place to focus on food. Upon entry we were seated immediately at the counter, peering directly into the open kitchen, where the restaurant’s two cooks prepare every single order. Their execution was flawless, the food was stunning, and the vibe was gratifying if not compelling: a competence-centric restaurant, professional in form and warm in tone. Koo Zee Doo, by the way, is a play on the word “cozido” – Portugese for “cooked.”

Koo Zee Doo’s menu advertises “family-style portions to be shared.” Quite far from false delivery, the Salada de Marisco ($18) easily serves two and is better than any seafood dish I’ve tasted in New York.

It’s listed as a “spicy seafood salad” with hearts of palm, orange, and watercress. That description doesn’t begin to do justice to the dish, which splashes a robust melange of shellfish and squid with citrus, tosses the seafood with tender hearts of palm, blood orange slices, and watercress, and dresses the mixture with a spicy kick to make sure every taste bud springs into bloom.

This the type of food that makes me doubt my curmudgeonly dismissal of “chef de cuisine”, served in the type of place that makes me rethink my dread of New York’s restaurants. It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to shake off the feeling once I’m back on the sidelines of the scene, but the memory of a wonderful meal will survive.

Koo Zee Doo
614 N. 2nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19123
215.923.8080

A while back, Layne Mosler of Taxi Gourmet approached J.O. and me with her newest project: a series of self-guided food tours, written by local experts and sold through a mobile app used to explore good food throughout the world.

I signed on because Layne’s approach to food is very much like my own: Go to a new place, find the special bites that you can only take in that place, and make good on life. I’m not linguistically skilled enough to hop into a cab in Argentina and ask where the best sausage sandwich is, but I’m happy to know someone out there is doing so on a regular basis.

Rama Food is free to download from the Apple App Store; however, each tour is sold for a price set by its author. An Android version is slated to follow.

The app’s goal is to immerse readers in the food and the culture of its subject, while showcasing some of the best dishes in town. I’ve contributed two tours as part of Rama Food’s initial release: a NYC BBQ tour and a double Chinatown tour. The former will point you to the city’s best smoked beef ribs, pork ribs, burnt ends, pulled pork and brisket – a difficult task, given how inconsistent barbecue menus can be around here. The latter will take you on a 6-stop tour of regional Chinese cuisine, with tips on how to make the trip from Manhattan to Queens quick and stress-free.

All things considered: If you’re a regular Chowhound or a seriously dedicated New York eater, you might find that my tours don’t add a ton to your own experience. However, if you’re a reader of this blog, a casual fan of good food, or a traveler wanting to make the most of your meals, then by all means check out Rama Food and purchase one of my tours. You should check out J.O.’s tour of Little India in Queens while you’re at it.

Once downloaded, each tour is fully functional without 3G or wifi access, which is great for those of you who hate waiting for things to load while you’re making your way to the next bite. So try this out, and let me know what you think! I’ll be making changes and additions as I get feedback from readers, so the more I hear from you, the better. This could be really cool, and I want to make the experience worthwhile.

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!

Not one to mince my own foreignness, I announced, “Hi! We just got in from New York-”

“Well, congratulations!” He quipped in response, taking the posture of a slightly sarcastic boulder.

I broached the topic of hunger. He offered some terse advice on crowds and noted that the International Flower show was underway at the Convention Center. With a little give and a little take, the voice of brotherly love tore a map from the stack, circled the 13th St. station, and sent us off to the green line train.

Tommy DiNic’s – Reading Terminal Market

Our destination was Reading Terminal Market, a Mid-Atlantic bazaar whose legacy predates the 14th Amendment. The Market is a contender to be the stomach of Philadelphia, if not the heart: a city block of commerce close to the gullet, pumping locals and visitors through aisle after aisle of stalls, display cases and makeshift lunch breaks. Neon signs act as halos for merchants of all things edible. A full complement of dining counters does triple duty: giving patrons a place to dine, anchoring the bustle of bodies to architecture, and quietly exercising the power of a tangible history.

It’s the kind of place that begs the word “essential.” The Market sat at the top of recommendation lists from nearly everyone I spoke to before traveling to Philly, with few qualifiers regarding the presence of tourists. It’s the kind of place where bonnet-bearing girls from Pennsylvania Dutch country sell three-dollars slices of pie, just steps away from an open-kitchen breakfast diner and just a few aisles over from a shoe-shine station, three sweets stalls, and an American Thai take-out.

It’s the kind of place that doesn’t have to cater. And at its center is Tommy DiNic’s, the sandwich stand with the longest line. DiNic’s is the rare piece of broken bread between town hero and cult hoagie: a tourist magnet that is worth its weight in jus no matter where one’s appetite was conceived. Like the man at the bus station, the staff at Dinic’s are able to identify visitors immediately and offer their service without ever giving the impression that out-of-town business is a priority.

“What are you having?” asked the waitress a few minutes after we’d taken a seat. I put in for a roast pork with broccoli rabe and roasted peppers.

“You’re sharing, right?” She shot back with certainty, knowing which customers are on lunch break and which are just here for a taste. I nodded, and she turned to the next task, not wondering if we’d like a bag of chips with that.

“What are you having?” she sounded to the mother and daughter next to us.

“Whichever one is best!” one of the exuberant first-timers exclaimed. The waitress offered a blank stare in return. Laughing nervously and turning her eyes back to the menu, the customer asked for a roast pork with broccoli rabe – to share.

Minutes later, we were all introduced to Philly’s essential roast pork sandwich. Carved from a whole roasted ham and rested in a potion of its own Italian-seasoned juices, each thin slice of pork inverts the all-encompassing experience of porchetta into a trim sandwich meat, juicy as a rare steak. There’s little mystery to the end product, and none is needed – as workman’s pride goes, this sets a standard.

John’s Roast Pork – Pennsport

DiNic’s, however, doesn’t need to hog the spotlight in a town stuffed to the edges with incredible sandwiches. Girlfriend and I hopped into a cab outside the Market and headed southeast. We hopped off near city limits to meet a littered train track, laid next to a shipping warehouse with at least several hundred windows and at most several employees. A big box strip mall sat next door. Across the street was another of Philly’s officially adorned temples of roast pork.

John’s Roast Pork has just as much spirit as Reading Terminal Market, but its charm is of a different kind. While DiNic’s routinely serves one perfect sandwich after another to a churning mob of visitors, John’s dishes out its own commotion from behind the counter. Diners shuffled in from the sandwich shop’s sprawling surroundings and quietly joined the line as cooks, trading barbs and working with force, unfurled several pounds of fresh sirloin onto a hot grill just feet away. A waitress eyed anyone who might be looking for a hoagie or a roast pork sandwich, verbally yanking newcomers out of line to fill their order at the register.

Those who remained gazed across the counter, where John’s cooks were putting together one of the best cheese steaks in town. At the head of the grill line, a man with a complexion worth a carton of cigarettes negotiated steak orders with customers, one on one. Grilled onions? Can’t help you with that, but raw onions are ready now. Half with provolone, half without? That’ll work.

Pinned to the wall was a list of “Lent Specials,” needed to accommodate those willing to give up cheese steak and roast pork for the sake of penitence, yet totally unwilling to give up their spot in line for a surly rejoinder and a “fish cake” hoagie.

I never got to try the eponymous sandwich, but the cheese steak at John’s Roast Pork was unrepentant in its pleasures. The steak, chopped into fraying strands on the grill, crumbled at the edges and put up a brief but earned fight with each chew. Its flavor was beefy in a way that sandwich meat rarely is, the taste sharpened by salt and pepper. The seeded, toasted Italian roll holding everything together was hardy in a way DiNic’s was not.

The entire sitting was one heavy drop in my bucket list of American sandwiches. After waiting over half an hour for a cab service to find us a ride back, we hopped into a car that had just delivered some craving-possessed woman to the nearby IHOP. I guess I know how she felt, I confessed to our cabbie. After all, we’d stranded ourselves in pursuit of a sandwich because John’s Roast Pork is only open on weekdays.

“That’s a good spot,” he replied in approval.

Paesano’s – Italian Market

The next day we stepped into Paesano’s. As I turned to shut the front door behind me, I realized two things:

1. Philadelphia’s store fronts have something against automatically closing doors.

2. This is the first sandwich shop we’d visited that wasn’t prefaced by a declaration of birth.

The latter is no small detail. Muscled between Darigo’s Fish Market and Capuccio’s Meats in Philadelphia’s Italian Market neighborhood, Paesano’s offers the phrase “Philly Style” in place of its own age, which every business in Philadelphia that’s at least a generation old seems to bear with pride. In a city as storied as Philadelphia, age carries currency.

John’s Roast Pork was “Est. 1930.” DiNic’s has been in business “Since 1954.” Paesano’s, a relative newcomer touting chef credentials and “Italian inspiration,” makes up for lost time with a bundle of inexcusably good sandwiches.

Landing somewhere between gourmet up-sells and loving odes, the inspiration at Paesano’s is real. It’s also stuffed into a crusty, seeded Italian roll that crunches through the memory of any other sandwich bread before this encounter with Philly style. The fillings on offer, ranging from suckling pig to deep-fried meatloaf, were so tempting that we passed on the universally loved “Arista” in favor of the “Giardina” and “Bolognese.”

The Giardina, an eggplant sandwich that doesn’t draw its power from an overdone oil bath, is one of the best vegetarian sandwiches I’ve tasted. Thick slices of roasted eggplant are paired with thick slices of fresh mozzarella, then brushed with a basil pesto, topped with roasted sweet peppers, and garnished with fennel and caramelized onion before being sealed into Paesano’s wonderful bread. We found the bolognese (deep fried lasagna with smoked parmesan and a fried egg) too ham-fisted to be savored, but the Giardina left me with no regrets over roast pork.

Wawa

Lacking an “Est.” date but not at all lacking in establishment, one of several local branches of Wawa served me my last sandwich of the weekend.

I could make this into more than it actually is. It’s not hard to do when one comprehends the value of stepping into a convenience store that serves sandwiches like Subway’s without the gut-wrenching odor of Subway. I still hold on to a fond and distant memory of doing exactly this in Pennsylvania Dutch country, during a hot summer week with limited access to food and ten minutes to the nearest Wawa.

There and then, a lunch break with air conditioning, carbonated beverages and passable 10″ hoagies that I could order from a touch screen was a blessing. Here in Philly – after two days of some of the most well-crafted, historically weighted and humbly served sandwiches in the country – I couldn’t possibly dig up that same enthusiasm.

I suppose I was hoping for something that couldn’t be dropped off just as easily by a bus from New York.

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

“These food malls are like chucky cheeses for us.”
“You are right. I definitely peed in the ball pit at Savor Fusion.”
“Omg”

Who said what isn’t nearly as important as the analogy. I’ve been to the row of Chinese food stands on Maple and Main twice now, barely scratching the surface. Like the Golden Mall, the New World Mall, and every other Flushing food court I’ve encountered, it’s a setting ripe with possibilities, most of them distinguishable by aroma.

The court’s names – “Maple Snacks”, “Savor Fusion” or “Savoy Fusion” depending on which set of window print catches your eye first – hint at a disheveled clamor of cuisines but belie something of a handpicked showcase of regional cooking. The menus tilt on a snacking tip. The court’s manager and his wife can be found strolling from stall to stall during the weekday lunch hour, leading the cooks in a warm welcome to anyone looking to nosh.

I was first drawn to Savor Fusion when Joey D. announced the return of a wonderful dan dan mian at Chengdu Snack, the court’s Sichuan star. As my group set to noshing, my appetite quickly fixated on the back corner of the court, where a stall translating its name to the phrase “Steam Dumplings” continues the proud Chinese tradition of describing holy foods in the most perfunctory terms available to the English language.

From what I know of Mandarin, these translations don’t land far off the mark in terms of spirit. Chinese dumplings, the festive food made available to pretty much anyone at any time with a passing fancy for hunger, are a bite-sized celebration of what makes every day special. When they’re done well, words are an afterthought, and life is good.

The boiled dumplings at Steam Dumplings, then, come a shock to anyone used to ordering a batch of shuiijao or guotie as an appetizer or side dish to the main attraction. In this court, the plates of dumplings boiled to order at Steam Dumplings are worth the trip to Flushing entirely on their own. Each dumpling takes the form of a small, ridged dome, more rounded than the typical Chinatown potsticker. The dumpling skins, formed from leavened wheat dough, are thick but not dense, with a sturdy, accomplished chew. The wider shapes and substantial skin are no accident; they’re needed to hold in the small rush of juices packed into every bite by way of unmitigated genius.

The fillings available each have a distinct personality. The local Chowhound favorite, “three treasures,” is a melange of pork, shrimp and leek, listed in English as “three mixed meat.” I’m partial to the pork-and-cabbage dumplings, complicated by a bit of ginger and more flavorful and juicy than any pork and cabbage dumpling I’ve nibbled on elsewhere. At Steam Dumplings, small variations carry big payoffs; pork-and-celery dumplings retain the vibrant notes of fresh celery, while our one dalliance with “Chinese vegetable” turned up a fearless pinch of dill. Vegetable dumplings, available as an off-menu order, pay full respect with a payload of egg, freshly chopped vegetables and herbs.

In short: Everything is highly recommended. Unless you happen to be vegan, in which case the ball pit is over there.

Steam Dumplings will pan-fry any order by request. It’s a worthy option, especially when it comes to the stall’s lamb dumplings, which find enrichment in crunchy bottoms when fried. The flavor of the lamb filling is sweet and uncompromising. The marriage of juices, golden-browned edges, and steamed bodies is intoxicating enough to inspire this lurid sentence, yet short-lived enough to justify this lurid sentence. At 33.33 cents a piece, they’re mandatory.

It’s unclear to me whether the cooks at Steam Dumplings hail from Hebei or Hubei. My conversation with the proprietors of Savor Fusion suggests the former, a region sandwiched between Shaanxi and Shandong in the Northern reaches of China, where the local dumpling is probably less an exoticized delicacy and more a general expression of competence.

Ultimately, the dumplings that draw my appetite from Brooklyn to Queens can be summarized in perfunctory English as “a common food” – not just in Hebei, but throughout Northern China. While the description might not capture the giddy thrill of my amusement park dining, it’s a perfect fit for how Steam Dumplings holds court: one stall in a gauntlet of Chinese cooks, each branding its own everyday specials on a mislabeled street corner in downtown Flushing.

Savor Fusion Food Court
42-01 Main St.
Queens, NY
718.886.6966

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.

The bakers’ “crusty bread” ($4.95) – a heavy loaf with a deeply toasted, beautifully cracked crown and taught, rustic belly – is my new high water mark for the daily slice. Referred to by Russians as “serii” (grey), this type of dark bread is a meeting point between German and Russian traditions. The body of the bread is satisfyingly dense. Its flavor is low on rye, slightly sour, slightly salty and subtly aromatic – as if fresh black tea had been baked into the dough. Taken with high-fat, sweet cream butter and a cup of tea, it’s sustenance of a kind sorely lacking on American breakfast tables.

Brighton Bazaar
1007 Brighton Beach Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11235
718.769.1700