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SCENTS AND THE CITY1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Itinerary | Home There are many ways to find the essence of Tokyo. One of them is to follow your nose.
Chef Yoshiaki Takazawa brings to the table a strange glass serving vessel, which looks like an upside-down tumbler of salad. He frowns slightly and adjusts its placement on my plate by three degrees. I am in an obscure two-table restaurant behind an obscure white door in an obscure back street of Tokyo, and here, like everywhere in this city, things are done just so. (Even my T-shirts came back from the hotel laundry elaborately wrapped like gifts.) The bottom of the inverted glass is coated with something red; a dimple on the upturned end holds a sprig of green. Though chef’s face looks stern, his long fingers flutter gently in encouragement: Smell. It looks like rosemary. It smells like earth, forest, ancient evergreens after a rain, Stanley Park a half a world away at home. He pours a soupçon of boiling water on the sprig; steam rises, scent expands. Then a marvellous thing happens. The hot water creates a vacuum and the red coating whooshes down to dress the micro-greens and perfectly crusted sweetbreads inside the glass. The tumbler is whisked away. |
