Later that day: The Guesteraunt

The Guestaurant run by a Postmodern culinarian and his wife.   

 

I am writing this piece in support of the visions my good friend  has for his restaurant.  I would really like to call it “Just an ordinary day, with an extraordinary meal, at an extraordinary place run by an extraordinary couple.”    

 

Recently, my life seems to be looking up, and all manner of happy coincidences seem to be coming my way.  Or perhaps, in my own quiet way, I am finding them.  Here’s a question for you guys out there.  Do you have a friend whose name means friend?  Because I do.  And I feel lucky because I know　he  is a true friend.  He shares my visions and I share his even though we don’t know each other particularly well.  He’s also a very good cook

              So who is this friend?  Let’s start by saying “Well, he’s not Spanish.  He’s Maori.”  Here’s something else you don’t know about my friend- this is a secret the whole city of Nagoya needs to know- he’s a world famous chef whose speciality is Post Modern Cuisine, AND A LOGICIAN.  Isn’t that cool?  I could do with some of that!  This guy is doing a PhD in Logic at my university in Australia as a part time thing, just something to do.  Is he really that famous?  Well, I don’t know.  He’s not exactly Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsey, but he’s been featured on TV in New Zealand.  How many of you can say that?  Well, I know it’s just New Zealand, but have you ever been on TV cooking anywhere?  Probably not, well he has.  And here’s a big puzzler for all the foodies out there- how do you make hot ice cream?  Ice cream that melts when it’s cold, and stays solid when its hot?  He won’t tell me the secret, but I’ve tried it and it’s good.  But he has been teaching me how not to burn the toast.  Just watch it carefully is his best advice, and when you think you can smell smoke, be well aware the toast is probably burnt.  I told you he was good at logic.  So what kind of a chef is he?  He’s kind of a postmodern culinarian would you believe.  His main influence on his cooking style is postmodernism and the unique food he makes shows that.  There can’t be many restaurants like that.

              My friend could make quite a lot of money doing this thing if he wanted to, and I think he probably does already.  Enough to live on comfortably, anyway.  But he is not about money.  I mean, he needs it like we all do but he doesn’t live for it.  What he seems to value is community, charity and friendship.  That’s why last Saturday, he decided to do something a little different.  He decided to organize what he calls a “Guestaurant.”  The concept of a  guestaurant was quite simple.  Basically, my friend gathered together a small but previously specified number of people, in that case six, and asked us to be nice to each other.  Isn’t that something?  What a concept- getting 3 pairs of people together who had no previous acquaintance with each other, push the tables together and expect them to get along over a seven course meal.  And we did.  We got along famously.  He also did this as a favor for me.  Ordinarily the same meal would have cost about $100, but he did it because he wanted to give me the chance to talk about my charity.  Thanks, mate.  I’m sorry, I didn’t talk more about it.  Just felt like one of our guests was really enjoying your food.  I chose to stay a little silent.  But I really appreciated that.

              The guests that night were: my wife, Satoko and myself; C, a New Zealand lady and K, her old English student now living in New Zealand, and D, a young Japanese guy who sells used cars to Africa, and his wife, M.  Oh, and let’s not forget the young Japanese couple’s beautiful little baby girl.  I won’t tell you about the food, but we ate some amazing stuff.  Everyone in the world deserves to try my friends’ tia masu at least once in their life.  I want to tell you just some fun stuff we found out about each other.  When my wife and I arrived, D and his family were already seated.  He had this really cool All Blacks shirt on with the kanji for both those words, as well as the official All Blacks logo.  The first thing I found out about him was that he didn’t make his own shirt.  See, I am interested in getting some Tshirts made by local designers to support a particular charity, so I asked him, “Wow, cool shirt, man. Who made it?”  “Adidas,” he said and showed me the logo.  After the last two guests arrived we all heard a little bit about this young guy’s work in Africa.  We talked about some of the scams that come out of Nigeria, and how that was probably due to mostly political problems, even colonialism, and not the people themselves. 

              Oh, by the way, later on D got me back for the comment about the Tshirt.  I was wearing a brand new red, blue and white polo shirt, faded blue work pants, a cardigan, my black glasses and sporting my medium length, thin black hair (I can’t choose that one, really).  D says, to everyone ‘s amusement, “Where’s Wally?”  I was onto him , so I retorted, “I don’t know.  Where’s his beanie?” because it was the one thing I lacked.  He also loves sport, and we might meet up at Fukiage where he goes to the gym.  He might even try out for the Nagoya Redbacks!  So that’s one thing I did for those guys lately.

              C and K were pretty nice people too.  They really were.  C reminded me a lot of an old friend of an ex-share mate and coworker of mine AND her mother, if that’s possible.  She was funny, smart, and very much from the Southern Hemisphere.  She likes fishing, sport, beer and politics.  Just like Bob Hawke, I guess.  We talked about the Apartheid boycott, the mass media, and all manner of stuff.  I even got to bang on a bit about the state of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland and my vision of nurturing cross cultural charities.  The Japanese couple even let her hold their baby, for ages.  I thought she wasn’t going to give the baby back. 

              K was good enough to bring, all the way from New Zealand, one of the local drops of wine.  So we shared that as well as the restaurant’s own fine vintage.  She also showed us heaps of photos on her Iphone of where they made the Lord of the Rings in New Zealand.  It was like the Shire without the Hobbits. 

              My wife also had an excellent time talking to these great people, although she’s a bit more shy than I am. She was embarrassed though when I stood up to have a cigarette.  I walked outside and put my fancy, new green overcoat on, but couldn’t find my smokes.  So I came back inside, dug through my pants’ pockets, and my overcoat’s pockets, one more time, and started looking under the table.

              “Look, they’re in your pocket,” C said, rather crossly, I thought.

              “No they’re not.  I just checked.”

              “Look, I can see them.”  And she stood up.   “Do I need to help you?”

              “Where are they?  They’re not there”. 

              “They, are, in, your, CARDIGAN?!?”

              “Oh right” and I finally got to have my smoke.

              At the end of the day, we all left knowing and understanding each other a bit better, liking each other a lot, I think, and with some small promises for further contact.

              And in all of that time my friend’s lovely wife attended to us like we were royalty itself.  I love that place and I love those people.  So let’s support Nagoya’s only postmodern culinarian.  Well, I don’t know that, but I do know he’s a pretty good one.  So if anyone asked me what I would say about that place , I would say the following:   

“My friend is an amazing cook with an amazing vision.  To use his unique skills as a culinarian in the service of something greater than food, in the service of friendship and, well, just basic human warmth.  This is the kind of man he is, this is the stuff he’s trying, he doesn’t know how to make it all work together perfectly, but he’s trying.  He is a good man with a lot of vision.  And his loving, supportive and caring wife is with him every step of the way.  You guys should get to know them.  I think they’re great.  Let’s help them make their dreams come true.  There you go… to the restaurant.  Hopefully, you’ve already booked a place because that restaurant deserves to be full, but only as full as they want to make it.”