taste bud orgasm
I got off the train in Suidobashi and met up with my Chinese friend outside the station. Yui was dressed in his usual fashion. Pastel shirt, greenish, big sunglasses, and a white jacket with a certain kind of neck strap buckle that seems to be always in fashion in Tokyo. We crossed the river and the street, shamefully avoiding eye contact with the volunteers collecting money for earthquake victims. They have no shame and approach everyone but usually zero in on us. Foreigners are somehow percieved as philanthropists by nature and the charity workers are keenly aware of this fact. They persist in the face of all protest. When the long red light pins you on the street corner, only if you are the most hardened tightwad can you resist them. Near Suidobashi all the alms collectors have awful teeth. When I first ran across them in February, I thought they were collecting for the purpose of having their teeth fixed. For some reason this inspired more pity in me and I gave as handsomely as I could. But, strangely the earthquake victims don’t garner as much sympathy.
We were lucky, the light was green, and we slipped by the almsmen undetected (though, later, on our way home we forked over our change). We headed to Tokyo Dome City, the theme park near the Yomiuri Giant’s home stadium. In the park there is a burger place called Zest Burger. As far as I know their burgers are the best in Japan. They’re made from quality beef, and in fact, you can watch the staff carve up the beef and make the patties. Next to the register there’s a glass partition behind which the meat handler (for lack of a better term, butcher doesn’t fit) unpacks the raw meat slab, sponges off the excess, and chops it up. More often than not you’ll witness the fatty beef being molded into patties ready for cooking, but if you’re lucky you might catch the actual cutting of the beef. There is something fascinating about watching a college-age Japanese chick handle a thirty pound slab of prime cut steak.
Besides the live show, the menu is interesting. Though I’m sure it’s not unique in the world, my favorite menu item which I have not tasted anywhere else is the Avocado Burger. It’s a standard burger with avocado in place of the cheese. Between the juicy ground beef and the soft avocado, the sandwich is a taste bud orgasm. Add some grilled onion, fresh tomato, and lettuce all on a toasted bun, and fries and of course a coke to match, and you have yourself something truly special.
But where the burgers succeed in taste, creativity, and presentation they fail miserably in construction and structural integrity. All but once have the burgers slipped apart on me. The juices from the meat and the onion and the slippery texture of the sliced avocado combine to create one of the most effective lubricants known to science. Something always slips out of the undersized bun. This one caveat aside, I love these burgers and never miss a chance to have one when I’m in the area. For 800 yen during lunch time, and a little over 1000 after that, they’re worth the price.
We ate our burgers at one of the tables outside, underneath the ferris wheel, the roller coaster, in sunlit shade. As we ate, we eyed the beauties that like to hang out in Korakuen on a sunny Thursday afternoon.
There’s yet more to this wonderful day.
