Still do.
But OK. The Power of Kate.
A quick rundown on everything that had to happen before opening. Phase I. Get a public health licence (takes one day) and a fire safety certificate (two days). There were free courses for both. Next, apply for a restaurant permit—which takes nearly a month. Put together tons of forms for the tax office. Then burn through loads of cash on equipment. Interior renovations, dishes, recruitment…
My only job was going to be running the place. Not cooking, not serving. So—Phase II.
Cooking: I know a guy. No worries there.
Serving: I track down a few foreign waiters. Easy enough. Phase II is over in no time.
Phase III. Set up thirty or so cockroach traps on the premises. Cleanliness is everything.
Then Kate opens. On the second floor of a renovated home on Nakasugi Avenue. I give the place everything I have—guerrilla warfare against my shitty karma. Not much later, my third girlfriend makes her first appearance in the chronicle of my life.
She came from the east…
But, wait, her brother came first. I met him at a beef-bowl joint. No, not at the counter—behind it. In the kitchen. I’d been working there maybe a couple of months. Night shift. (It was one of those twenty-four-hour places.)
Watching him wrist-deep in the pickles, I had to ask:
“You been at this long? You’ve got the best pickles in the business.”
“Huh?”
I figured he was two or three years older than me. His close-cropped hair made him look a little thuggish.
He stares at me, picks up a loaded dish and hurls it to the floor. SMASH! Pickles and broken ceramic pieces everywhere.
“What kind of fuckin’ question is that?” he says.
“Wh—what?” I just stand there, stunned.
“Listen to me, you little shit…” He’s looking me right in the eye. “I’m not some grunt making fast food by the fucking manual. Got it?”
“Ye—yeah. I got it…”
“Here. Try this, asshole.”
He grabs something out of the kitchen fridge. It looks a lot like foie gras. When did he make this? He’s been feeding this to the staff? Looks amazing. What is it?
“Angler liver—fresh as fuck.”
This ain’t no yellowtail.
Angler liver and daikon.
“How is it?”
“…”
“Well?”
“Well… damn.”
No other words for this. It’s like an ambush of flavour, so good, really good. My taste buds explode. I look at him and say: “Kaboom!!!”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
I take another bite. That’s answer enough.
He starts explaining: “My family’s been making sushi for three generations. My old man taught me Edo-style before I could read… I was a teenage sous-chef… I can make any dish you can name. Get it?”
Pretty sure I got it.
“But…” I say.
“What, you want more?”
“Um, yeah… But…”
“But what?”
“If you’re this good, why are you working at some no-name beef-bowl?”
He just looks away, coolly.
“Nowhere else I can go. I’ve got a record.”
“A criminal record?”
“Shut up and eat.”
That was the beginning of a deeply satisfying partnership.
From then on, nearly every night, I ate what he made for the staff. Soon kaboom wasn’t cutting it. I had to find new adjectives. Like kablam or kablooey. How did he come up with all of his mind-blowing creations?
This has to be what they call “fusion”.
He was a perfect fit for Kate. I had him on the phone maybe two seconds after I decided to open a place. It was obvious, right?
The first few months went fantastically. Kate drew in plenty of customers, and they seemed pretty satisfied. I know I was. Kate had a potent mix of exotic spices, a regionfree menu and nomadic DJs (who were under explicit instructions to sound like anything but Tokyo). To destroy any lingering trace of the city, I covered every surface with giant ferns. In time, the place started to look like Jurassic Park—minus all the killer dinos. Most critics raved about the excess of oxygen. They loved Kate. Funny. Kate had been misread again—billed as a café ahead of its time.
It was a hit.
Idiots. Tokyo thought my Trojan Horse was avant-garde?
Die, Tokyo, die.
So—did my escape plan work?
Well, Kate hit a bit of a speed bump in June. A slipped disc sidelined my chef (the beef-bowl ex-con). “Ca–can’t move…” his pained voice hissed through my cell phone. “I’m in the hospital.”
“What? Are you OK?”
“Shit no—that’s why I’m in the hospital.”
“Seriously? What do we do?”
“Man up.”
“Huh? You mean like ritual suicide?”
“Yeah, right. Look—Kate has to stay open, with or without me. The doctor has no idea what’s wrong. All he does is giggle like a fucking idiot. I can’t make any promises about coming back to work. Hate to wuss out like this, but I think I have to hang up my apron.”
“CHEF!”
My brain was a total blank.
“Man up, man!”
“Suicide isn’t the answer…”
“Knock it off.”
Chef was hors de combat, but he was going to make sure Kate stayed open for business. He told me he’d already lined up a replacement, someone he trusted. Nothing for me to do but wait for said help to arrive.
Then help arrived.
It was a few hours later. No introductions, no questions. No “Hello”, no “Nice to meet you”. She just made a beeline for the kitchen—like she was ready to clock in.
I mean, she didn’t look anything like the help I had in mind. My first thought was: Strange. Kate doesn’t get that many high-school girls in uniforms—and they almost never come alone. My second thought was: Isn’t it a little hot for a blazer?
That was all I was thinking.
I mean, I thought she was a misguided customer.
“That’s the kitchen! You can’t—” I start to say.
But the schoolgirl just stares me down. Doesn’t say anything.
“You… you can’t be back here.”
I tried to sound like I was in charge, but—on the inside—all I was thinking was: Hey, she’s pretty cute. Piercing eyes. Nice full body.
I guess I was checking her out.
She looks right at me and says sharply:
“Of course I can.”
She whips her cell phone out of her skirt pocket and puts it down on the counter like she means business. There’s a Snoopy figure dangling from the strap. Then, right in front of me, she starts unbuttoning her blazer. Pop, pop, pop. Wh–what is she doing!? She’s not gonna show me her boobs or anything!? No. This was no striptease. Not even close.
She opens her blazer to reveal four streaks of metal in the lining—two on each side. Knives.
“My brother says I’m running this kitchen—starting tonight.”
“Say what?”
“Don’t worry,” she says with a smile.
Holy shit, she’s cute.
“Just leave everything to me.”
Then she heads over to the vegetable stash, grabs a long white daikon and gets to work—reducing it to ultra-thin slices at superhuman speed. Sssh-sssh-sssh. Then, ch-ch-ch-ch-chop. She fills a bowl with water to soak the diaphanous strands.
I’m speechless.
What skill. No movement is wasted.
A sight to behold.
Then, with a cool look that says this is nothing, she turns to me and says: