Standing Bars and Gyoza.
Crossing Borders: Part 5.
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Tokyo, Japan.
July 23rd, 2012.
Flying. My taste buds were positively flying. Every bliss button in my food brain was being mashed, repeatedly. These gyoza…incredible. And this plum wine, wait, no, it’s not wine, it’s a liqueur called…UMESHU? Which is ume, ah, plums,JapaneseApricots SteepedinSugar... And I think our second bottle was even better than the firs-
Wait.
…
Second bottle?
I looked around, trying vainly to come to my senses. Through the dreamy haze, an all-night gyoza shop somewhere deep in the misty, Blade Runner-like canyons of Tokyo’s Shibuya District came into focus. The soft glow of twinkling LEDs illuminated the table enough that I could make out more than a few empty bottles. Stacks of plates that once had held dumplings. Crumpled place settings, upended glasses. Carnage. It looked like a horde of locusts had blown through the place.
Then, suddenly, a falling feeling that had nothing to do with the booze. A looming realization, an elevator stomach drop of OH SHIT-ness.
Oh no.
Like a weak tree in a strong wind, I leaned, eventually, in the direction of my friend.
“Brian?” I whispered.
No answer.
“Brian!” I hissed.
Brian, my new pal and tonight’s interpreter, blinked slowly through his own plum fog, then looked down and slowly wiped some sauce off of his shirt.
“Mmmwhat? What?”
I beckoned for him to lean in closer, my eyes flitting around like I was sharing state secrets.
“I’m broke.”
He blinked, not comprehending. “Yeah?”
I tried again. “Brian. How the f*ck are we going to pay for this?”
Six weeks in Japan materialized in a single phone call.
One afternoon in late May of 2012 I was walking through Shubert Alley, a concrete-lined wind tunnel in Manhattan’s Broadway District bordered by the Shubert and Booth Theatres to the west and the Viacom building to the east, when my phone rang. It was David S, a director and friend that I had worked with several times in the past. He got right to the point.
“Wanna go to Japan?”
Um.
“Is this a trick question?”
Laughter. “No. Not in the least.”
David had staged the US national tour of the recent Broadway revival of West Side Story, a gorgeous version that had been playing the States for nearly two years. A US national tour… in Japan? I was about to learn that many ‘first class’ national tours, in order to keep their best talent happy and signed through the end of their deals, will put a tasty destination at the end of the tour as a contractual carrot. For West Side, it was playing three weeks in Tokyo and two in Osaka.
“Our Glad Hand, Stephen - his mother is very ill, and he doesn’t want to leave the country… just in case. If you want the job, it’s yours.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Glad Hand is a ‘princess track’ - meaning it is one of the easiest principal roles in all of American Musical Theatre. One great funny scene in the dance at the gym, a few offstage “Maria!”s as her unseen Papá during the balcony scene, and a bow. Cake.
“So you’d be stepping in for him,” David said. “How’s that sound?”
“When do you need me?” I said.
“Basically, now.”
I turned around and started walking home to get out my suitcase.
I flew to Durham, NC to rehearse with the company for a few hours in June. And I do mean just that; I flew in on a Thursday, wandered around their understudy rehearsal that afternoon, and then headed back to New York at oh-dark-thirty the next morning. About a month later I was paying for the upgrade on a Delta widebody to Narita with a group of people I barely knew who’d been doing the show together for eighteen months.
I can’t overstate how tricky joining such a tight company can be. Especially when you’re joining the company in place of a person who was beloved, as Stephen was. But I had a couple friends in the cast that I’d worked with before, and they helped introduce me to what ended up being a very lovely group of people. And while I’d traveled to nearly every corner of the continental United States, I hadn’t traveled much overseas, and I had no idea what the Land of the Rising Sun would be like for me. Frankly, I was nervous.
My trepidation was so misplaced. I LOVED Japan.
I’d go back in a heartbeat. (Especially if someone else was paying the tab.) Because it’s EXPENSIVE. But, National Tour, baby - I had a nice per diem, and once we settled in to Tokyo, after each show I’d depart our brand new, three thousand seat theatre (on the TWENTIETH floor of a skyscraper) and look at my options for that day or evening: Would I take hushed steps though an incredibly gorgeous shrine? Sip Japanese craft beer at an upscale craft bar? Or just indulge in a noodle nosh at some corner dive? (I came home an absolute ramen freak.)
Tokyo is vibrant, thrilling, and oxymoronic; somehow neat as a pin and absolutely filthy all at the same time. And in July, it’s HOT. And humid. A small paper Japanese fan looks rather silly when you see someone waving it in their face in the states, but during a Tokyo July, it’s a necessity. I took to carrying one on me at all times, along with a small damp towel that I would hang around my neck on especially thick days. When we reached our hotel in Shibuya (a main shopping / dining / fun district of Tokyo) it was already 90 degrees at around 10am. I still carry a Japanese fan in my backpack, out of habit, to this day.
I had also reached out to some of our Happy Hour Guys contacts looking for anyone who might have their finger on the pulse of the craft landscape in Tokyo; and lo and behold, through a beer connection, Brian H appeared. Brian had been a journalist and ad writer for a major Japanese beer company for years after moving to the country from San Francisco. He had lived just outside of Tokyo for decades, spoke fluent Japanese, and volunteered to be my guide. I asked him by Skype what he had to show me.
“Lots of options. Here are some craft bars you should check out when you get to town. Craft Beer Faucets, and Popeye’s. I have a craft saké bar I want to take you to. And, oh - have you ever been to a standing bar?”
“A what?”
He chuckled. “You’re going to enjoy this.”
A couple weeks later Brian met me and two of our pit musicians outside our hotel in Shibuya. With no explanation, he turned and began walking. Just a short distance away on foot, along a nondescript block that sat in the shadow of several skyscrapers and under an elevated highway, there was a door. This door opened to a rickety stairway that descended below street level to a room that - well, looked like a 1970s basement. Fluorescent lighting, formica bar countertops stretching every which way, and hardly any seats. The name: Fujiya Honten. The four of us wandered in around five thirty in the afternoon. Brian ordered a bottle of saké and some tempura and turned to us.
“This all started with liquor stores,” he said. “Many years ago, they realized that they could sell more product late in the day if they put out some sawhorses and planks, and served cheap libations and a few snacks to catch the salarymen on their way home from work. No seats; just a place to stand for a minute, grab a drink and some nosh, and then be on your way.”
The bartender brought our saké - the good stuff, which cost a whole 1000 yen (about eight dollars) and then set out our saké cups and began to pour.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Why is each cup sitting in a little dish?”
Brian smiled. “Watch,” he answered.
The bartender poured the saké carefully to the very lip of the cup, and then continued to pour. The saké overflowed the cup, ran down the sides, and filled the dish as well. Brian then reached out and picked up both from underneath the dish, with the cup balanced inside.
“See? Now that’s a fair pour,” he said. “Tradition is to overflow the cup, so you know you’re getting the same pour as everyone else.”
I’ve been on the receiving end of more than my share of bad pours; this is something the whole damn world should do. Next to us, a salaryman with a ready smile pointed at our history class, and said something to Brian, who answered back with a grin.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He has us pegged,” Brian answered. “Pretty much he said, ‘First time at a standing bar?’”
We all laughed, and I bought the salaryman a round of drinks and bowed, which he accepted with a bow of his own. Then our tempura and edamame appeared on the bar, and we dug in.
“So, Standing Bars, as a rule, open at around five pm, and then close just a few hours later, around eight thirty,” Brian continued. “Very specialized, and very local. Zero ambiance, just serving a very specific need: Happy Hour.”
Happy Hour is universal, I thought. “How long has Fujiya Honten been here?” I expected an answer that matched the 70s decór.
Brian thought for a moment. “I would say close to a hundred years.”
My jaw hit the floor. Everywhere else in the world besides the US, everything just seems to have more history. We exchanged a few more words with our new friend the salaryman, and I bought him and his pals another round of drinks. They were so cheap! Then the salaryman piped up again, speaking excitedly to Brian, who turned to us, smiling.
“You’ve made a friend,” he said. “He wants to take a picture with us, and then he’d like to take us to a gyoza shop that he knows. You guys like dumplings?”
I couldn’t stop smiling. “Is that a trick question?”
I don’t remember much about the journey to the Gyoza place; we were pretty buzzed when we left Fujiya Honten. I just followed our new friend’s lead, trying not to wander in to traffic most of the time. Toyko at night is riotous with light and movement, and in some neighborhoods, every surface just seems to sizzle. I had hoped the walk would sober us up some, but the sake had done its work as we moved - there’s a reason they call it ‘the velvet hammer’. When we finally arrived at the tiny joint buried deep in a crazy tangle of buildings and the elevated tracks of the Tokyo Metro I was somehow drunker than when we left.
Our salaryman friend, Haruto, ushered us in had showed us around the tiny place, grinning as if he owned it himself. It was a barely closed off structure at corner of a quiet street; more tent than building, with thick plastic sheeting separating us from the weather and the asphalt. He ordered bottles of Umeshu, each sip more sweetsour glorious than the last, and our laughter echoed through the night.
Later as we boozily leaned into each other he had attempted his limited version of English with me, putting his arm around my shoulder and pointing out the particularly fetching servers. Our conversation was mostly laughter. At one point he even grabbed the camera and began recording, when he ordered one of the specials of the house, beef tongue. I think he expected me to recoil - and when he saw my expression as he named the dish that had been placed in front of me, he roared with laughter.
It was delicious, by the way.
Cut back to: Falling OH SHIT-NESS.
“Um, Brian?”
“Yeah?”
“I used up all my per diem at the standing bar. I have no cash! And I left my credit card at the hotel.” (Who knew I’d be headed out on an all-night dumpling bender?)
“How the f*ck are we going to pay for this?”
Brian’s brows knitted, as if I’d somehow chosen a different language than either English or Japanese. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it, paused, then shook it again. Finally, he laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I groused. “This is serious.”
Brian’s laughter began to subside. “No, no, it’s okay,” he said, patting my arm. “It’s okay.”
Now it seemed like he was speaking gibberish. I tossed my hands in the air. “Why?”
Brian smiled, this time warmly. “You have a lot to learn about Japanese culture,” he murmured, hooking his thumb towards Haruto, our salaryman friend, who sat there glowing with joy. By this point in the night he was basically family. I nodded in his direction and turned back, lowering my voice again.
“He’s a great guy, Brian, but don’t you think that’s going to come to a quick halt when the bill comes?”
Brian shook his head as if I were a kindergartener asking where the potty was. “He’s traditional.”
Umeshu and gyoza had made me particularly dense. “What?”
“This is his place. His idea. He’s going to pick up the entire tab. He has to.”
And that’s exactly what he did. The bill landed in his hands, and he signed the credit slip with all the grandiosity of a member of the royal court receiving a commendation.
In my humble opinion, no American would have done such a thing. I was a total stranger to him - a foreigner - I didn’t look like him, speak like him, and I routinely stomped on his traditions out of pure ignorance. I was a rock thrower in his glass house. And yet, rarely have I been treated to an evening with more warmth and generosity. This man and I could not have been more different, and he treated me like his dearest friend.
America is a baby country. We think that 246 years is something special. Truth? It’s an eye blink in most other places. We’re babies, and like babies, we place our needs over everyone else's - not because we’re evil (although maybe sometimes we are); but mostly because we still have an incredible amount to learn.
I discovered later that my friend’s first name, Haruto, means ‘brings hope to others like the sun’. Did he know that? Or was it somehow ingrained in him, genetic? Nevertheless, he was a lovely host with a great first name.
I never did learn his last.
See you in a few weeks.
Fujiya Honten, 150-0031 Tōkyō-to, Shibuya-ku, Sakuragaokachō, 2−2, Japan
An absolute must-see. Try everything, buy drinks, make friends. Make sure you watch them pour over. And they will. Laughter: Loud, explosive and frequent.
Sasagin, 1 Chome-32-15 Uehara, Shibuya, Tokyo 151-0064, Japan
A craft saké bar just outside of downtown, easily reachable by subway. The owner, Narita-san, is a lovely gentleman who speaks English, but the bartenders only Japanese. The food is terrific, and the selection of craft and small batch saké is unparalleled. This is where I learned once and for all that the nickname for Saké is “The Velvet Hammer”. These pours were so wonderful - every kind of subtle flavor and mouthfeel - and at 18-22% ABV, I still have no idea how I navigated the Tokyo Metro that night and made it home afterwards. Laughter: More of a hushed, spiritual feel, punctuated by hilarity.