Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

Happy Birthday to my DAD, for yesterday.

Before we plunge back into the ongoing tragedy that IS my life, I’ll finish off talking about my holiday which I’m sure is about as interesting to everyone as watching paint dry whilst dead.

A night in Kobe meant we had to try Kobe beef. Kobe beef, for the culinary obtuse, is a much ooh-ed about type of beef that is both expensive and laughable in the way it is made. You see, the cows that make Kobe beef are reared in a rather unique way. Throughout their lives as cows, before they turn into big juicy steaks, they are fed large amounts of BEER every day and are also massaged with sake. I can only begin to imagine the way in which the miraculous discovery of how getting cows drunk and then molesting them produces delicious, tender meat was initially made, but at the same time it seems to have an almost uncannily Japanese hallmark written all over it in frenzied, metaphorical crayon. After thinking long and hard about what a cow drinking song would sound like (”MOO MOO MOO moo”), I chose a suitable restaurant (STEAK LAND) and prepared myself to be impressed on a biblical scale.

So what does it taste like? Well, after getting the hotplate guy to cook it a bit more, seeing as how the Japanese idea of “medium” (as requested by me) is to gently waft the beef over the hotplate for a 3 seconds and then slap the meat down on your plate, I had a few mouthfuls and concluded that a) it still wasn’t fricking cooked (but this is Japan yadda yadda raw everything) and b) it was indeed very smooth and soft.

So smooth and soft, in fact, that it was not unlike eating pure gristle and because of that, I concluded that I prefer normal beef, although I can say it was the best beef-tasting gristle-like substance that I have ever put in my mouth. And whilst I clean off the sexual innuendo in that last sentence that was so obvious it actually manifested itself in semen rising up through my keyboard, I’ll move onto talking about Osaka. Note, I’m going to skip talking about Kyoto, since while it was a place of remarkable beauty for culture-hungry tourists of Japan, it really didn’t have a whole lot else to offer.

Osaka is a really bloody cool place, and to all the JETs who live there, I really fricking hate you from the bottom of my cold black heart. It is the first city I have been to in Japan (apart from Tokyo, obviously) that really DESERVES to be called a city. It has a skyline. Lots of shops. Mental traffic. Constant waves of people walking by. We had a fantastic time in Osaka, shopping and eating out. Anyway, one of the more interesting places we went to was a restaurant called Christon Café. No doubt any people from Osaka who happen to be reading this will be raising a little smile. For this place is a restaurant/bar themed like a CHURCH. There is an altar. A statue of the Virgin Mary. Candles. Jesus. I LOVE the way Japan can get away with this, probably the epitome of tackiness in the themed restaurant world and THAT is a huge achievement. There was something remarkably unnerving about knocking back a beer under the visage (I mean literally UNDER) of Jesus, although I quickly reasoned that as a Catholic, we have practically been trained to drink alcohol (communion wine) at Church, so if wine is passed off as Jesus’ blood, Beer could almost just as easily be his piss. So it was all ok.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2003 at 5:31 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.