No way. We went on. Calling for more, more, Philippe telling the chef,
in halting Japanese, that we were ready for anything he had—we wanted
his choice, give us your best shot, motherfucker (though I'm sure he
phrased it more elegantly). The other customers began to melt away, and
our hosts, the chef joined by an assistant now, seemed impressed with
our zeal, the blissed-out looks on our faces, our endless capacity for
more, more, more. Another clam arrived, this one tiny, more roes, some
baby flounder—it kept coming, accompanied by pickled wasabi stem,
seaweed so fresh I could taste deep ocean water. Another tiny moist
towel was provided in a little basket and Philippe informed me that
custom allowed us to eat with our hands at this point in the meal. Tuna
arrived, from the belly, from the loin. We kept grinning, kept bowing,
kept eating.
Our sakes were refilled, the chef openly smiling now. These crazy gaijin
wanted it all, baby! The best course yet arrived: a quickly grilled, halved
fish head. The chef watched us, curious, I imagine, to see how we'd deal
with this new development.
It was unbelievable: every crevice, every scrap of this sweet, delicate
dorade or Chilean pompano (I didn't know from looking at the partly
charred face, and by now didn't much care) had responded differently to
the heat of the grill. From the fully cooked remnant of body behind the
head to the crispy skin and cartilage, the tender, translucently rare
cheeks, it was a mosaic of distinct flavors and textures. And the eye! Oh,
yeah! We dug out the orbs, slurped down the gelatinous matter behind it,
deep in the socket, we gnawed the eyeball down to a hard white core.
When we were done with this collage of good stuff, when we'd fully
picked over every tiny flake and scrap, there was nothing left but teeth
and a few bones. Were we finished? No way!
More sashimi, more sushi, some tiger shrimp, what looked like herring
—so fresh it crunched. I didn't care what they put in front of me any
more, I trusted the smiling chef and his crew, I was going along for the