No Tomatoes

A dull green top undermines Mina as we spool from Yutenji to Gakugei-daigaku, the stations that frame me in Tokyo. The latter is a curious spot: it is where we have been recently enjoying our whales with imported Yoshikai’s, and also an unexpected Canadian momento store, replete with fossils from Calgery, bears in red coats and waffles and stone rings. Such things are nations made of: it was great to see Mina in her territory at last –and the vivid turquoise top she had just bought. Suddenly her skin and colour and face is alive, the green thing safely shunted in her bag. She looks terrific.

We were in search of the English store Mina’s mother had mentioned that lurks one station farther. We should have just stopped in Canada and made do with Celine Dion records. I should know by now the feeble compass instilled in Japanese, and, after Yakitori Alley, Canadians too. A long, delightful walk took us past nimble streets and a regal lake, cars being washed, and most fortuitously, Ferraris being serviced. Some compensation then for there not being the slightest sausage-tinged whiff of an English store, no black troll of Bovril nor crackle of Walker’s and the only Union Jack belonged to an English language school. Mina, enterprisingly, enquired within. They had never heard of it, though I was pleasantly surprised to see Weekender lying on the table. I did not have time to reach the food section within, though Sean, unprompted, said the new restaurant reviewer is awful. Matches their conduct then: I did not even know I had been replaced.

Mina refused the gesture of McDonald’s, and we instead wandered until we saw frivolous Seventies furniture crowding stiff timber walls like children sitting cross-legged around a teacher. We therefore approached, and finding we were ten minutes away from the dinner menu being served settled inside. Many places like this exist, serving pasta, beer, and bought-in cake. I used to think it special, but the quality is often weak and sauces miss urgency. Not here: my sausage and gorgonzola cream sauce was really good, and I liked my sausages being torn and warted bangers rather than cleanly sliced franks, while the gorgonzola too was a welcome return to the palate. It was eyes wandering while waiting though that unveiled the biggest surprise: behind the counter sat shrouded detergent and fruity brews bought-in from Britain.

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