Unlike the low-tide reek of Fulton, Tsukiji smelled hardly at all. What
scent it had was not of fish, but of seawater and the cigarettes of the
fishmongers, I had never seen, or even imagined, many of the creatures I
saw.
Hungry, I pushed into a nearby stall, the Japanese version of Rosie's
diner: a place packed with rubber-booted market workers eating
breakfast. The signs were entirely in Japanese, with no helpful pictures,
but a friendly fishmonger took charge. What arrived was, of course,
flawless. Here I was in the Tokyo version of a greasy spoon, surrounded
by a mob of tough-looking bastards in dripping boots and the requisite
New York-style rude waitress, and the food was on a par with the best of
my hometown: fresh, clean, beautifully, if simply, presented. Soon, I was
wolfing down sushi, miso soup, a tail section of braised fish in sauce,
and an impressive array of pickles. Beats two eggs over.
I loaded up with cockles and squid for the restaurant, bought some
knives for my sous-chef back in New York and, head aching, stopped off
at Akasuka Temple where the ailing apparently waft incense smoke over
their afflicted parts. The smoke did nothing for my head. I bought aspirin
—which incongruously came with free candy and pamphlets advertising
patent medicines—and took a taxi to Kappabashi, Tokyo's Bowery.
It was the perfect metaphor for Tokyo: ringing up some wine glasses,
cocktail shakers, tablecloth clips and cake molds, the clerk at the
restaurant supply store added up my bill on an abacus—but computed
the tax on a calculator.
I was really beginning to worry about my head when I finally bumped
into Philippe again at the restaurant. Can this still be jet lag, I asked him.
The pain seemed to be aspirin-proof. Am I dying?
"Oh, you mean 'the helmut'?" he asked, circling his own head with his
fingers to indicate the exact location of the pain. He shrugged, "C'est