Oishii!

My Life 4.6 - Oishii!

Oishii is a Japanese word.

It's always good in business to learn a little of the local language. I
once learnt Finnish counting (uksi, kaksi, kolme, nelya, viisi etc.and
I always wanted to order 'kaksi taksi'). In the Nokia factory I
surprised an executive by telling him they'd just asked him to call
extension 'xyz?' on the loudspeaker system. Kudos! That is what it was
about.

In Japan, the Japanese executives were so sure that English people
could not understand Japanese they would conduct private discussions in
front of you during contract negotiations. They asked permission very
politely. I always agreed enthusiastically! I found as a negotiator
that I was a good intuitive reader of motivation, mood and meaning. In
Japan, my few words helped a bit, but the 'inscrutable' Japanese are
nothing of the sort! Given I knew the topic they were discussing -
price, or a requested feature on the products - and given that most
technical and marketing words are of English origin, often with an 'o'
on the end. I gazed on blandly as the factory man argued with the
marketing man, and the boss chimed in, generally getting the picture,
and the 'yes' or 'no' indications form the different parties. Once the
discussion was resumed in English, I would stay away from the disputed
point, and gradually step my way back to a position using what I
understood to be their own arguments selectively. From their point of
view, I began to offer a point of view or a price that they had been
discussing, so they might inevitably accept it. Very nebulous, but
sometimes it worked!

"Oishii" the lady in the Kimono said, as we sat on the floor of one of
a restaurant in one of the oldest wooden houses in Osaka. She was
stirring the stew with a chopstick. The stew was contained in a
parchment, supported in a tripod, bulging down like a big bag, directly
over a naked flame.

"She has to be very careful with the chopstick" our host declared. I
believed him.

They had a special barbecue style in Osaka. We sat in a restaurant high
up overlooking Osaka Bay, where they were building the artificial
islands. Here we had the 'Genghis Khan' So-called after a Mongolian
shield; it was a round convex iron plate, heated from underneath. It
had ridges running radially, and around the edge was a moat of water.
As the succulent meat fizzed, the fat ran away into the water. Very
healthy! And so tasty! It was just one version of the barbecue, common
in restaurants in Japan. In the underground mall near Akasaka, 4 floors
down, close to the waterfall, I would often sit with a colleague,
dumping small pieces of meat on the hot plate, dipping them in sauce
and consuming them. There we had big paper napkins, as the fat really
did spit!

The most sophisticated version of this was probably the stone. A large
stone (you would need two hands to pick it up) was placed in front of
you, sitting on an iron cradle. It was hot! Small pieces of juicy Kobe
beef (tiny veins of fat ran through the meat - it was rumoured they
massaged the cattle with beer!) were provided. You lay these on the
surface of the stone with a hiss, turned them over, dipped and ate.
After the steak on the stone, we would have Snow Crab legs. With
segments about eight inches long, thicker than my thumb, the shell was
sliced diagonally so you could snap them open and pull out the
succulent, stringy white meat.

I was once presented with a tray of tiny crabs, about ?" to 1" across.
They had been baked whole, and were sprinkled with salt. They were an
appetiser. Under the guidance of my hosts, I popped one in my mouth.
"You must crunch all the shell - don't leave any large pieces" they
told me. I did so. Oishii!

I remember my first meal in Tokyo. We sat at a counter, a white-garbed
chef standing in front of us. There was a stainless steel hot plate in
front of him. This was what the downmarket 'Beni Hana' chain copied -
in the same way the motorway services copy a good restaurant. The chef
cooked garlic, presenting us with tiny slivers of the roasted bulb. It
was delicious! Then came the prawns! You can't escape the prawns in
Japan. These were striped grey monsters, eight inches long. They were
lying in a bowl of rice wine, covered to prevent them jumping out. The
chef pressed them onto the hotplate, first one side and then the other.
The prawns was still by now, pink on each side, but still grey down the
back. The chef took a copper dome, poured a small cup of water onto the
plate, and slammed the dome down over the prawns. A short time later he
removed it, a cloud of prawn-smelling steam rising, the prawns now
glowing pink all over. A short-snick snack of the chef's knives, and
the shelled prawn lay on my plate. Oishii!

One thing I really liked in Osaka was the motorway down the river. The
Japanese are nothing if not practical, and as I gazed from my room at
the Sheraton I could see the road, built on stilts rising from the
river. It was like those old Sci-Fi Illustrations of the 50's. At about
the 6th floor level of two glass office blocks, a road emerged from the
slim gap and joined the river motorway. It just looked fantastic! Mind
you, just as impressive was Tokyo with three levels of roads, with
occasional ramps up and down so you could change levels to get the
right turnoffs which spun away between buildings, or ramps which
plunged into tunnels.

My taxi driver once missed the turn to my Hotel in Tokyo. The road
plunged into a tunnel and emerged the other side of the Imperial
Palace. It took an hour to get back!

"Oishii!" I often said, even in Tokyo.

It means 'delicious'.

It was - and I miss it!

(1983-86)