Two Japanese Restaurants in NYT Top Ten New Restaurants List…So What of It?

The New York Times food critic weighs in on the top ten new restaurants in New York—he probably means Manhattan—and a sushi restaurant tops the list. There’s an Asian-Japanese-sushi restaurant (what, tuna roll shabu-shabu dipped in tom yum goong soup?)—in sixth place. There are four French restaurants (including one French-New American), two New American (one of them the French-American), and three Italian. No Chinese, no Indian, no Russian, no Arabic, and nothing from the rest of Europe. Is Japanese cuisine one of the Big Three as far as gustatory civilization is concerned? Or is it that you can simply charge more for Japanese food? I would love to have Frank Bruni’s expense account—I mean, see it.

As if to prove my point, NYT’s list of “some of the best inexpensive places reviewed in the Dining section [last] year” includes Spanish, Mexican, Druse, and even a couple of American restaurants without the obscurant adjective New, although Japanese fast food—a couple of soba shops and even a ramen diner—also made the list. And yes, four out of the fourteen listed in the report are located in Brooklyn.

Note though, that the Japanese menu is heavily weighted towards sushi and soba (read the individual listings and it’ll be even more obvious) two fast food genres (yes, sushi is essentially an expensive fast food) that vie with a myriad of likeminded competitors for our attention in Japan. Moreover, although there are regional differences, the udon, originally a Chinese import (but then, what isn’t?) has a larger national following than the soba, and the ramen noodle (a more recent variation on Chinese cuisine) easily eclipses both in the popular mind and media attention. Japanese food has been branded as health food, and America—Manhattan at least—has chosen accordingly.

Krispy Kreme Kraze Koming to a Klose

On 15 December 2006, Krispy Kreme, the U.S. doughnut chain, opened its first Japanese store a couple of hundred yards from the south exit of the JR Shinku Station and became an instant smash hit. For over a year, day and night, in every clime and weather, the line of customers would fold back and forth on the storefront patio originally intended for outdoor tables and chairs, then snake halfway or more across a conveniently adjacent land bridge that spans the twenty or so sets of JR railroad tracks. The waiting time at the end of the line would be somewhere between 75 minutes and 115 minutes. The figure would be posted on signboards like a Disneyland ride, one freestanding and another carried by one of a pair of Krispy Kreme ushers, and dutifully updated.

No one waits well over an hour just to grab a doughnut and a cup of joe or to use the bathroom. (Besides, unlike Manhattan, where residents routinely commit to memory the location of every Starbucks and Barnes and Noble, Shinjuku, indeed much of Metropolitan Tokyo, is stocked with publicly accessible toilets, as long as you do not look and smell like a homeless derelict, who have to make do with the less-well-maintained, truly public toilets in the parks.) Instead, they would purchase at least one large box-full, often more, to later share with family and friends.

The wave has crested. In recent weeks, the waiting line has shrunk back to the Krispy Kreme patio, and the signboards are posting 25-, 35-minute waits. The now lone usher no longer needs to carry toteboards. As early as this spring, the waiting time had begun dipping near the one-hour threshold. Still, it’s only recently that the land bridge has reverted completely to the public domain. It was a great run while it lasted. And most customers still carry away large boxes, each containing a dozen or so of the delectable hydrocarbon macro-rings.

I have never seen a food fad of this scale in my lifetime, and I do not expect to see such a one again. The year-long streak of hour-and-a-half waiting lines is a feat never to be repeated, like Ted Williams hitting 400 for the season, or Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in a game. Thus, it deserves to be recorded, on this, the blog of record.

You Drink Our Calpis and We'll Eat Your McWrap

The Golden Arch launched McWrap today. For some reason, the page is entitled: WrapSLYME

The gaijin cachet that transforms hopeless dork into irresistible hunk has been chronicled here by The Asian Exile. But this phenomenon is not limited to men. It extends to all sorts of consumer products and services, not the least of which is the fast food industry.

Take Krispy Kreme: Now as doughnuts go, I think that KK is fine. In fact, I thought it was much better than Dunkin' Donuts, or even (I am ashamed to admit) most of the donuts sold at New York delis. Not only did they come warm to the touch, but managed to maintain their chewiness longer than their scientifically less sophisticated competitors.

But donuts is donuts, and it never fails to amaze me when, almost a year after it opened, I walk past the Shinjuku Krispy Kreme and rain or shine; weekdays, weekends; morning, noon, or night; always I see that one-hour-plus waiting line folding over itself again and again like a small intestine until it spills over onto the JR Higashi Nihon overpass nearby.

And it's not just Krispy Kreme. Maybe it was just New York, but I remember inner city McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys as down-scale, often depressing, once even alarming, places, and not the brightly-lit shops full of high school students, moms with kids, and salarymen in a hurry that we see in Japan.

So I guess my question is: can White Castle be far behind?

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Of course it works the other way around as well. The basic Yoshinoya beef bowl debuted in New York at roughly twice the Japanese price (this was before the mad cow disease scare), and you had to get used to paying $10 and more for non-gourmet udon and ramen. And much of Japan cool is actually Japan kitsch.