crowds of people—row after row after row of them, surging through
intersections in orderly fashion. This was not America or anyplace
remotely like it. Things on the other side of the world were very, very
different.
The bus unloaded at a hotel in Roppongi district, and a helpful dispatcher
in a uniform hailed me a cab. The rear passenger door swung open for
me, operated by the driver by lever, and I slid on to a clean, white slip-
covered back seat. Dispatcher and driver examined the Les Halles
business card with address, debating route and destination. When the
matter was decided, the door swung closed and we were off. The driver
wore white gloves.
Roppongi district is international in character—like an Asian
Georgetown—and Les Halles Tokyo, located in the shadow of the Eiffel-
like Tokyo Tower, and across the street from a pachinko parlor, looked
much like its older brother in New York, though spanking new and
impeccably, surgically clean. Les Halles New York is loved for its
smoke-stained walls, creaky chairs, weathered wooden bar—the fact that
it resembles what it is: a familiar, worn, old-school brasserie of the
Parisian model. Les Halles Tokyo, on the other hand, though accurate to
the model down to the tiniest design detail, was shiny and undamaged,
and apparently kept that way.
It was a warm night when I arrived, and the French doors to the café
were opened. Philippe saw me from the bar. He'd arrived a day earlier.
He came out to greet me.
"Welcome to Tokyo, Chef," he said.
I had been provided with an apartment nearby, and Philippe helped load
my luggage on the handlebars of two borrowed bicycles for the short trip
over. My first close-up look at Tokyo was from the seat of a rickety
three-gear as I pedaled furiously to keep up with Philippe. He took off at