No Tomatoes

It was merely yesterday that I was musing how few nice places I had written about recently, that being dumped from Weekender had left me meandering in empty streets of fast-food wrappers and rice-bowls and leaving me to pick over the remains of lunch instead. Had I realised that Satomi was booking last night’s restaurant, I wouldn’t have bothered with my feeble account of F1 -and would have probably eaten more for lunch.

Satomi, as you may recall, relies more on Google than taste, though it must be said Nico seldom gives her time to satisfy both. With scant hours to go on a Friday afternoon, he decided a table for seven is what’s in order. Naturally, in any other city you would be left with, well, leftovers: a chubby chef in a greasy shirt running an out-of town diner; fine for the hangover breakfast, but hardly the venue for supper, nor those employed by Louis Vuitton, for such was the case with Charlene, a friend of Nico’s who had studied with him.

When an invitation to a post-dinner party requests ‘wear white’, one can probably assume who won’t be attending by identifying those in black. Such was Satomi as she made a stand against socialising each night as she accompanied Nico in hosting his friend. I think, however, she was also dressing for our restaurant, which had the unique, um, selling-point of being ‘like a cave!’. Mina had briefly mentioned this as one of the options for Nico’s birthday last weekend, and why she suggested potluck at her’s instead. And so she remained last night, leaving me to quickly stifle my ridiculing as I realised this was actually normal and reasonable for Satomi, though I did warn that it would make excellent fodder for my blog.

A cave, one would expect, is usually underground; imagine my surprise and poorly hidden sneer as she revealed it was located on a fourth floor. But then I’ve been in Tokyo too long to think it would be genuine. As the elevator opened (my god it smelled awful, like a fishmonger’s washing pile), it wasn’t quite the end of the world: there were one or two gold trinkets and the ‘caves’ were instead knobbled head-high partitions that robbed the room of space, but at least ensured privacy. No plastics bats, though I wouldn’t put it beyond the menu to serve them.

Yet for three brief moments as those trinkets fluttered above my expectations, I thought it could be okay, just standard Jap isekaya fare. But when the tray of popcorn arrived with small, shrivelled beans, I almost pitied Satomi, yet couldn’t help but smile as, once Nico had gulped sorely, he declared it delicious and kissed her temple. I wasn’t going to disagree, and hoped that the fish-egg spaghetti I almost gagged on wouldn’t be noticed in its new position: as far away as possible. Frankly, it was terrible. You may notice that many restaurants have those plastic models of the menu: this tasted like that, reheated. It’s a cheap analogy, but it really had that chemical taste, as though those tiny orange ova had spent the past three months in plastic containers at the back of the fridge.

There wasn’t anything I enjoyed; even the salad was screwed by using cabbage leaves in place of lettuce, as dry as an old man’s dead skin with luminous mayo. I didn’t touch the octopus rings, ran a mile from the onion salad –literally, onion shredded, piled, and caked with flakes of urine-smelling prawns –and recoiled to my corner when the beef-avocado gratin arrived. Honestly, how can you put nuggets of avocado, scrapes of old boots and carrots into a ramekin, cover with cheese, and bake. You must be mad: it is as though three dishes were on the go, the cook, either confused or a drunk, putting the wrong ingredients in each dish. It was vile; it was vomit –something confirmed when I observed the impressively-sprayed bathroom. Normally something like that would put me off and make me wretch myself, but having been conditioned by the food going in, someone else’s coming out didn’t seem quite so bad. I just can’t believe Satomi ordered it twice.