My boss's favorite soba place is down the side street of a side street, an ally barely big enough for two suited salarymen to pass each other. The air conditioning from the back of a ramen place blows what is inevitably the wrong temperature (and garlic flavored) air from one side, while a rusty pink bike with a large white basket waits to trip anyone walking too far on the other. The store is marked only by a sliding wooden door and a half curtain, and also the two piles of salt on each end of the short step.
Inside, the restaurant is warm and fragrant with the subtle sent of broth and, on most days, a hint of stale cigarette smoke. Everyone is inside is wearing a suit, cell phones on neck straps and stuck into front pockets, ties slung over the shoulder or tucked between the buttons of shirts. The server announces us and sends us to our table, easily heard over the very low murmer of conversation from the tables waiting for food and the slurping from everywhere else.
We never get menus because we already know what we want, and most of the dishes are on the walls anyway. The mainstays are carved in to a wood panel on the far side of the restaurant, and the newer dishes are written on colored pieces of paper and taped randomly around the room.
We make small talk as we wait for our food, and every few months or so my boss remembers that I'm a foreigner and goes into another discourse about slurping my noodles.
"Because you need to bring in the air," he says, half in English, half in Japanese, "it cools down the soup and makes it taste better." I know, I know. I remind him that it's hard to unlearn a lifetime of manners in a few months, and also that its not as easy as it looks. Japanese soup noodle slurping isn't like you as a 5 year old sucking in spaghetti noodles like a vacuum cleaner. Soba slurping is a more gentle suction, mouth open a little bit, and using your chopsticks to help the food into your mouth. Close your mouth too much and you end up with a wild noodle that sprays broth all over your co-worker's waishatsu (white business shirt). But I'm trying to fit in here, and I do slurp my soba. This also enables me to eat at a pace more acceptable to my co-workers, since I happen to have what they call a "cat tongue", meaning I can't eat hot foods and I'm always waiting an unacceptable amount of time for my soup to cool.
My co-worker once told me that to survive in the Japanese business world a man must posses three important skills: first he should be able to play golf. Secondly, he should be able to sing karaoke. And finally, he should be able to eat his lunch in 5 minutes. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, pretty much every company in any given area has lunch at the same time: 12-1. The surrounding restaurants do a significant portion of their business in that one hour, and if people don't eat, get out, and make room for more people, the shop wouldn't be able to make any money. Our soba place has only 9 four-person tables, and every seat is full most of the time. If you show up with a party of 2 you will definitely be asked to share your table, aiseki, with another couple. (Seated side-by-side, not across from each other. I never get why)
The other reason for the quick lunch of course- so you can go back to work. I belong to a pretty relaxed company, and we are offered the luxury of a trip to starbucks after we eat to kill time until 1; however many other companies go straight back to the office after only a half hour out. Freshman employees especially are often so inundated with busy work that they simply go right through lunch, scarfing down instant ramen at their desks just so they don't faint.
For me, five minute soba represents everything I love and hate about office work in Japan. The taste, the ceremony, the haste, the precision, the seclusion, the cliquishness, the consideration, and the sen en that I fork over at the end. Years of Japanese study and a lucky invitation to join the very small distribution company of a Japanese acquaintance has allowed me an extraordinary glimpse into a world I would never have known about, a world filled with sake and cigarettes, euphemisms and shou ga nais, rigid codes of conduct and myriad ways to escape them. I started this blog because I appreciate the writing of other people who've carved out a lifestyle in places I will never know, and because I'd like to be a part of the very excellent work being done by fellow gaijin bloggers and commentators.
If you have any questions about working in Japan, Tokyo, or any of the Japanese words I use in my blog, just leave me a comment, and I'll get back to you. :)
