No Tomatoes

I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I have just batted my century in Shimbashi. To anyone dormant in Tokyo the name will instantly conjure images of salarymen, yakitori and scant girls, save for those entertaining more thoroughly later. It’s not a place I come to often, location being one thing, and despite my mounting workaholism, I strive to evade the Venn of salaryman, a term so common it has entered the Japanese vocabulary.

These were my thoughts, partly gathered by Mina as we channelled through the wiry lanes linking chicken to pork to BBQ to eel. Our first stop was an awning, a carrier-bag draping over thin frame to avert the deluge. I was still steeped in sweat however, owing to my sighting a black gut of cloud linger above the spires of Shinjuku as I left the office. Splats like roaches on a windscreen pressed shirt to skin as I fidgeted at the crossing, desperate for the green man, and I ran the rest to the station. By the time I met Mina some stops later, the worst had passed leaving nothing but fingers of water gripping each step as we ascended Shimbashi plaza. Take note of the stationary train wantonly parked as you’ll need it for directions later. Presently, however, you’ll recall I have a bag over my head.

Not really knowing the area, it was a masterstroke of luck: our first bar had just received sanma, a slender mackerel, nice and oily and now in season. A great way to start, but spotting a pause in the drops we paid, took our chances and ran across the park to lucky number two, which served horse, something I had not eaten for a while. I’d forgotten what a pleasure it is, like a damp ballerina flopped upon your tongue. Coming from the fridge, each stamp-sized piece was raw and cool and permeated with myriad micro-stalactites of fat reaching through the red. It seems a little ghoulish to whip up garlic and ginger to accompany in soy sauce, but it’s a wonderful combination. While there we also saw that the chap alongside appeared to be eating mini-Jersey’s with dwarfs: turned out to be chicken bum and garlic shoots. Needless to say that got tacked onto the bill too.

At this point, my centenary was in decent swing, and happy to be spending it with Mina. We chatted about home, and, er, the joys of strip clubs (discovered she’s game) and buoyantly lumbered through the remaining grid of lanterns and landlines. After ten minutes, however, we stammered confronted by a sheer white wall marking the going-ons of a construction site and the insensitive glare of Pronto’s careless serifs. An Advent calendar of doors, openings and archways swung from all sides, yet there was a quiet glow coming from our feet, a small lantern set at the bottom of steps and an innocuous curtain.

A chorus of hurrahs and welcomes resonate before I even mount the last step to see the tiny room of bar and tatami. Everyone is smiling, and as we take two of the five bar-chairs, the man next to us, whom we find is called Kaji, leans over and mentions ‘you have found a good place’. Everyone is happy, and conversation flicks like wildfire between the patrons, a laugh, a crack, a recommendation and a ‘where’re you from’. It’s the kind of place where each person lends to the atmosphere of the room rather than stiffly subscribe to the linen of commerce. It’s the kind of place we adore –and I could hardly believe my luck as they announced horse their speciality too, straight from Kumamoto for which it is renown (Bonus: if you Google Mount Aso, you’ll see where these steeds are reared). Despite my earlier mouthfuls we jumped at the chance: it has been over a year since I last nibbled nape, white lilos of fat the size of a trimmed ten-pound stamp. And served as a platter no less! And yet such was the atmosphere I almost don’t want to dwell on the food: I felt new again, like when I first arrived in Japan and everything was fresh and everyone welcoming. I generally hesitate to so fully embrace such fleeting moments of serendipity, but it was genuine at Yoshi Yoshi, so obvious that they enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed theirs. There was no insincere exchange of cards, merely one another sharing dishes and stories.

‘I have no money, but I’m on TV offering advice on money!’ confided one of finances wrinkled personalities to Mina, eliciting a wonderful scream as the sublime sake was reawakened. I tried to buy a bottle, but it cannot be bought, it was that rare. So we had to make the most of the opportunity to drink it all there. Yet I could not ignore the homemade plum-wine sleeping in a glass vat in front. Kaji, who had secured the wine, once more ordered a glass for us while the marbled eccentricities of his colleague stumbled from tatami to my shoulders, providing a box of éclairs. Bliss!

It seems trite to compare Yoshi Yoshi to Cheers, but such was the conviviality surging through each bite and laugh. As our names were flicked across the room when new people arrived, the neat black table on the tatami became a pivot as guests rotated to make room for more, changing places with those at the satin-smooth bar to converse, ridicule and delight. I want to keep typing and extend the memories, to not stop so that night can remain infinite and the smiles never diminishing. We could not have chosen a better place for the 100^th entry of No Tomatoes. I can’t wait to take Dad and Edward.

Directions: From Shimbashi Plaza go straight down the street between Pronto and Hirota, and you’ll come across triangle with Ajitoku on the first floor; turn left and you’ll see the sign for Yoshi Yoshi.