Meals that change lives. Soujiki Nakahigashi

This is not intended to be a restaurant review, nor is it an in-depth foodie study. In fact you can find a great article which first introduced me to Nakahigashi here. I would like to take whoever might be interested through what I derived out of my dinner at Soujiki Nakahigashi the last day of June, 2010, and what it meant to me meeting Mr. Nakahigashi.

Dear Mr. Nakahigashi:

I have been lucky to have traveled; profoundly experienced different cultures and lived in exciting cities; eaten wonderful meals, many of them which have had a long lasting effect, not only in my memory, but also on my philosophies and the way I live my daily life.

Every day Mr. Nakahigashi brings vegetables and fruits from the mountains near Kyoto. This eventually makes it to his daily dishes. In this case the wild ajisai (hortensia) flowers and their aroma were a sweet reminder of the season, right before the meal.

On June 30, 2010 my wife, her parents and I visited your restaurant. We had been in Kyoto for two days and had been enjoying the colors, sounds and nuances of this tsuyu (rainy) season. Your meal came as an encore to all our experiences, synthesizing into an edible form what tsuyu in Kyoto became to mean to us.

Saba sushi

As dishes arrived to our table on the second floor dinning room, your kind wife described each dish not only in the way that we could understand it from a culinary point of view, but also imagine how your curiosity and respect for nature has is a strong influence in your daily creations. Through your wife, we begin to know you intimately, although indirectly, and begin to construct a personal context around this meal.

Grilled Ayu (sweetfish)


Koi sashimi

Plate after plate the beauty of the food in front of us, or even the succulent, respectfully simple preparation of it became a backdrop for what the real focus of the dinner. I began to intimately experience your philosophies of life, and the harmony of your craft with humanity.

Kome no Hana (rice blossoming). The point in which Kome (raw rice) becomes Gohan (cooked rice)

This dish is a play of the seasonal Minazuki sweet which is traditionally in the shape of a triangle. The seasonal sweet of the month of June (June used to be called Minazuki) is symbolic to the ice shape as it is so hot in Kyoto in these season. also the shape became popular as the sweet was more affordable than ice to the common people. For us this dish was a distillation of our prior days in Kyoto. It concentrated all the green that blankets the city and the mountains around it, the many way water makes itself present in Kyoto in this season through the rivers and streams, or through rain and ponds at temples.


Oshi sushi, very strong fermented rice, almost blue cheese like. Accompanied with a Niagara sweet muscat wine.


Vegetables and fish in broth

Slowly, you created an experience that resembled the one at Chadō between the host and the guest, in which 2 minds become one, sharing one time and space. The difference this time is that you are not present, but that changed once your wife invited us to have dessert served by you at the counter.

The Main dish: Rice.


Accompaniments to our rice


Even Koge (the layer of rice that is closest to the clay pot) is celebrated

After two hours of looking at your soul through your food I sat down in front of you. Looking at the mirror of your eyes I saw myself, and felt uncomfortable. I must honestly tell you that having experienced what I have in my life has made me arrogant—albeit unconsciously and unwillingly. I saw this arrogance in your eyes, but realized that arrogance was mine. Although this was painful it was also illuminating.

Coffee, 蘇 ("So" is made with milk but it's not cheese, but it certainly tastes like cheese), and brown sugar sweets.

We finished enjoying our dessert; we spoke about your son in New York and promised to visit him at Kajitsu, the restaurant where he is apprenticing. It had been raining throughout the evening and our taxi arrived as I began to ask you about the way other non Japanese customers appreciated your food. You showed us the article written about you in Saveur Magazine, but I had run out of time; it was now time to part.

Your food had not only amazed my eyes and nourished my body. Through it you shed some light onto an unnoticed facet of person, which since that day, I have been working hard on rectifying. As we exited your restaurant you and your wife kindly walked us to our taxi. A loving warmth surrounded me as you both waved farewell. I waved farewell back to you.

Things that make me smile

Imperia SP150 Pasta Machine

Designer: Unknown

Three things I find engaging in this design:

1. Its impactful simplicity
2. Colorful boldness
3. Its humor

What it does very well is that whenever it was designed ( I am assuming sometime in the 60's) someone, unknowingly, designed a package that in my opinion would still work on today's shelves quite successfully, compare it to the redesigned version.

A ritual on becoming an "American"

At the mention of sports, my mind draws a blank. There are not many that interest me, not many that i follow or that i feel inspired to see. Some that i find entertaining are ruggby, MMA, and—perhaps a testament of my true origins—futbol (a.k.a. soccer), and Mexican free wrestling. So I guess I have not been incredibly interested in american sports. Today is different. I feel part of a ritual that unites the people of the land which has been my home for more than eight years.

Today is the XLII Superbowl and I must admit i feel a bit different. When Obama was voted by the majority of American voters as the next president of the United States I felt I could become more committed, more attached to this country of the free, as I was witnessing that the values that are sung and recited still hold true in these times of hardship. I cared.

The day Barack Obama became the President I did like many other Americans. I went down to the pub and watched this historic event in the company of my fellow citizens. It was a touching moment for obvious reasons, but not so obvious was that feeling, again, of caring.

Today I watch the superbowl caring, not for the teams, or for the commercials, nor for the illusions of becoming an "American." I watch for solidarity. It is in tough times that people bind together. In these times of economic and social uncertainty I care for an event that, as the Obama inauguration, will bind people, and will connect them in a spiritual level.

Last weekend FT columnist Simon Kuper wrote a column that speaks about some of the meanings he sees in the Super Bowl, click here to read it. Enjoy.