Bushi-Tei for my birthday
My birthday celebration a few weeks ago featured three things: work, work, and dinner at Bushi-Tei in Japan Town. It was a last minute decision involving a toss-up between A) an impossibly busy artisanal pizza place in our neighborhood and a movie at the Balboa Theater (free admission on your birthday!) or B) a fancy, expensive dinner that would also grant us access to the toilet that's the talk of San Francisco.
It was a difficult choice.
Bushi-Tei is French-Japanese, and the interior is pleasingly minimalist. Sometimes minimalist strays into bad 80's territory, but here the walls are made of 150-year-old Japanese wood and lend the space a warmth that keeps things feeling very contemporary (I realize how contradictory this sounds, but trust me, it works). There is a giant glass table in the middle of the room lined with smooth, black pebbles where you may be given the chance to dine family-style. Thankfully we were not afforded that opportunity.
Somebody in the kitchen clearly also appreciates that quality of velvety richness that makes me go bonkers for foie gras. Their version involved a modest slice (slightly too modest for my piggish tastes) - seared - atop a kabocha squash pot de creme and adorned with red onion marmalade and pistachios. I could eat one of those suckers every day. It was smooth and silky - but not too sweet. Unctuous, if you will.
Randy's appetizer was more esoteric - a slice of Kobe beef that had been marinated in miso for three days was hiding under some languid and melty Camembert and served atop a crispy thing, drizzled with lemon oil. It was interesting, but not as sexy as mine.
Our main dishes were not quite on the level of my foie gras. I had seared bigeye tuna with a coconut curry and a neat, thin slice of dried pineapple. Randy opted for a duck breast; I remember nothing else about it. Couldn't stop revelling in my pumpkin pot de creme loveliness, I guess.
Reviewers of Bushi-Tei always insist that a visit to the bathroom is mandatory, so after we finished our entrees, I decided it was time for the toilet course.
Let me say that despite unhealthy levels of fascination with the country, I have thus far gotten no closer to visiting Japan than a brief, gut-churning stopover at the Narita airport. (My plane had a slight problem landing due to wind shear. I'm sure it's not uncommon, but it pretty much felt like we were going to go splat on the tarmac. After disembarking, I steadied my quaking hands, blubberingly called my mom from a payphone at great expense, and then drowned my terror in a large bowl of tempura udon before boarding my connecting flight. That was My Only Japan Experience.) For this reason, I was forced to wait until my twenty-ninth birthday to experience a high-tech Japanese toilet.
Bushi-Tei's toilet is a Toto (the BEST!), and is accompanied by a panel on the wall that offers a multitude of cleansing options that you never knew you needed. Push a button and a jet of warm water caresses your nether regions. Push another and a gentle breeze dries you off. A heated seat and an automated lid cap off the experience. I was gone so long, Randy thought I fell in. I felt slightly ashamed upon exiting, as if the waitstaff knew I'd been hanging out in there playing with their toilet. Actually, they probably just assume everybody does, right?
For dessert, my black sesame blancmange, topped with a thick layer of coconut cream and some perfectly diced tropical fruits, had a very similar texture to the foie gras. To me it was divine, but Randy thought its grey pasty texture was unappealing and preferred his apple dumplings. I guess grey food does kind of present a certain aesthetic challenge.
Afterwards we checked out the plastic tempura udon displays at the Japan Center mall and took some extremely flattering photos to commemorate the start of my final twentysomething year. Here's the best part: the photo booth, with instructions written entirely in Japanese, actually had a disturbing setting for "Whitening" (helpfully translated and available on a flipchart that helped us navigate through the complicated photo creation and Sanrio-fication process). Naturally we chose it; who better to benefit from flesh whitening than two of the pastiest people on Earth?
We are, in fact, so white that we have become virtually invisible, except for nostrils and beady little eyes. And lo, now I am twenty-nine.
It was a difficult choice.
Bushi-Tei is French-Japanese, and the interior is pleasingly minimalist. Sometimes minimalist strays into bad 80's territory, but here the walls are made of 150-year-old Japanese wood and lend the space a warmth that keeps things feeling very contemporary (I realize how contradictory this sounds, but trust me, it works). There is a giant glass table in the middle of the room lined with smooth, black pebbles where you may be given the chance to dine family-style. Thankfully we were not afforded that opportunity.
Somebody in the kitchen clearly also appreciates that quality of velvety richness that makes me go bonkers for foie gras. Their version involved a modest slice (slightly too modest for my piggish tastes) - seared - atop a kabocha squash pot de creme and adorned with red onion marmalade and pistachios. I could eat one of those suckers every day. It was smooth and silky - but not too sweet. Unctuous, if you will.
Randy's appetizer was more esoteric - a slice of Kobe beef that had been marinated in miso for three days was hiding under some languid and melty Camembert and served atop a crispy thing, drizzled with lemon oil. It was interesting, but not as sexy as mine.
Our main dishes were not quite on the level of my foie gras. I had seared bigeye tuna with a coconut curry and a neat, thin slice of dried pineapple. Randy opted for a duck breast; I remember nothing else about it. Couldn't stop revelling in my pumpkin pot de creme loveliness, I guess.
Reviewers of Bushi-Tei always insist that a visit to the bathroom is mandatory, so after we finished our entrees, I decided it was time for the toilet course.
Let me say that despite unhealthy levels of fascination with the country, I have thus far gotten no closer to visiting Japan than a brief, gut-churning stopover at the Narita airport. (My plane had a slight problem landing due to wind shear. I'm sure it's not uncommon, but it pretty much felt like we were going to go splat on the tarmac. After disembarking, I steadied my quaking hands, blubberingly called my mom from a payphone at great expense, and then drowned my terror in a large bowl of tempura udon before boarding my connecting flight. That was My Only Japan Experience.) For this reason, I was forced to wait until my twenty-ninth birthday to experience a high-tech Japanese toilet.
Bushi-Tei's toilet is a Toto (the BEST!), and is accompanied by a panel on the wall that offers a multitude of cleansing options that you never knew you needed. Push a button and a jet of warm water caresses your nether regions. Push another and a gentle breeze dries you off. A heated seat and an automated lid cap off the experience. I was gone so long, Randy thought I fell in. I felt slightly ashamed upon exiting, as if the waitstaff knew I'd been hanging out in there playing with their toilet. Actually, they probably just assume everybody does, right?
For dessert, my black sesame blancmange, topped with a thick layer of coconut cream and some perfectly diced tropical fruits, had a very similar texture to the foie gras. To me it was divine, but Randy thought its grey pasty texture was unappealing and preferred his apple dumplings. I guess grey food does kind of present a certain aesthetic challenge.
Afterwards we checked out the plastic tempura udon displays at the Japan Center mall and took some extremely flattering photos to commemorate the start of my final twentysomething year. Here's the best part: the photo booth, with instructions written entirely in Japanese, actually had a disturbing setting for "Whitening" (helpfully translated and available on a flipchart that helped us navigate through the complicated photo creation and Sanrio-fication process). Naturally we chose it; who better to benefit from flesh whitening than two of the pastiest people on Earth?
We are, in fact, so white that we have become virtually invisible, except for nostrils and beady little eyes. And lo, now I am twenty-nine.
posted by cindym at 8:00 PM
5 Comments:
rock on, 29er!
and there ain't no shame in playing with a fun toilet. everybody poops. the lucky do it in style.
Toto toilets are overrated. Call me impatient, but I hate that you have to hold down the handle for a beat or else everything just swirls lazily around in the toilet bowl without actually going anywhere. I don't always have the time to remember to do that or to wait around to make sure I leave no trace. Incidentally, our friends Mark and Beth have Totos at their house. They also happen to have a fancy bidet attachment on one of their Totos. (If you're interested in having one at home, you should read Beth's review of them here: http://shopguides.msn.com/shopping/beth-t/ChoosingABidetTotoEclipseOfTheHeart)
When they invited us over to show off their new bidet, they eagerly suggested we try it out! And I might have had they not demo'd it for us... We all watched with great interest and giggled as the thing clicked and whirred to life, but when I saw that "magic wand" suddenly appear from under the toilet seat, I think I screamed and then ran out of the room. I trust you didn't check out the mechanism before using it or you might have done the same. The angles seemed all wrong. I thought of anal probes and could not get my head around how it stayed hygienic after that entered my mind.
I have since tried the bidet since then and, yes, Japanese bidets are pretty cool. The water pressure can be kind of prickly and the heat, well, a little too hot, but I guess pushing all those buttons to get it just right is part of the fun. Not sure I'd want to do it in a (semi-)public place because, like you mention, I'd think all eyes would be on me as I exited, gauging my reaction. :)
Happy Birthday, Cindy! Playing with the Japanese toilet seems like an auspicious way to begin your final 20th year.
thanks moxie - ha!
chloe - i must respectfully disagree. we are the proud users of two toto toilets in our apartment and we have been very satisfied with their performance overall, especially given that they're energy saving. i think you must have tried a different model; ours have a normal handle situation and a very powerful flush. i admit they sometimes require a double flush for extreme cleaning but the flush is so fast that it doesn't matter. we don't have the bidet function on our home models; they're pretty plain and simple (although they do have a softer lid closing feature that i like). and dude, OF COURSE i checked out the magic wand first. and yeah, i hesitated, mainly because i was worried the wand would fail to aim properly and I'd wind up with water shooting up the back of my dress, but all went well. Don't be a toto hater, girl!
thanks mrs delish - very auspicious indeed.
Happy Birthday, KID! And, I mean that in the nicest sense of the word. I'm scratching my head trying to remember 29. Tee hee.
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