Here's what I was served today for breakfast here in the guesthouse:
On the top left is shredded cabbage salad topped with a bit of carrot and cucumber. Top right is nori -- strips of dried, salted, deep-fried seaweed. There's a nice piece of fish in the middle. And right in front it takoyaki: fried octopus balls. On the left is my rice bowl, which is overturned on top of my teacup. Yesterday, my first day eating breakfast, I walked over to the rice cooker and put the rice into my teacup.
That egg is not hard-boiled. In fact, it's not any kind of boiled. It's completely raw.
You put the raw egg in a cup, beat it with your chopsticks, add some soy sauce, and then stir it into the rice. It's surprisingly good.
Once I'm seated soup and green tea are added to the meal. It's an awful lot of food for breakfast.
The middle-aged woman who runs the guesthouse speaks almost no English and seems to do everything herself: cook the meals, clean the rooms, set out newspapers in the lobby, etc. The first day she knocked on my door and said to me: "Eggu! Eggu! Boiru? Sukuramburu?" My Japanese (we'll discuss this more later) is about as rudimentary as her English. "Ashita no asagohan?" I asked, ascertaining that this was about breakfast. I somehow conveyed to her that any kind of egg was fine with me. That's why I thought my egg was boiled when I first saw it. But I think by "scrambled" she didn't mean what we mean by that term in English. She meant "beaten raw".
The guesthouse is pretty empty right now. There seem to be two other rooms occupied, but I've never seen the inhabitants. I'm the only one eating breakfast at 7:30 am, and the woman seems to feel obligated to entertain me. Even though I had something to read with me, she turned on the TV and invited me to change the channel to something I liked. Then she pulled this out and set it one the table:
She spent about 15 minutes trying to get it work, and then, after changing the batteries, insisted I watch while she repeatedly tickled Elmo and made him roll around on the table. Really, I just wanted to read my magazine and eat my breakfast and go back up to my room, but I feel obligated to be polite.
Among my weirdest breakfast experiences ever.
That breakfast looks delicious. I want it. Can't get anything that traditional at my Tokyo hotel. I can't wait to see what your lunch looks like.
ReplyDeleteJohn, unfortunately only breakfast is served here at the guesthouse. I'll probably be having lunch in one of the university dining halls on most days. That will be nothing to write home about, but I probably will anyway.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading, I thought "Oh! You can ask for the egg to be cooked!" I think she would have not only boiled it, but also done scrambled egg if you wanted. Japanese do say スクランブル for scrambled egg.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like it raw! And, as for Elmo, that's Japanese traditional hospitality for ya! (but surreal that such hospitality was displayed with an American muppet toy that was probably made in China!)
It's possible that I misremember what she said. Maybe she said "mikusu" instead of "sukuramburu". And she definitely made a beating-egg motion with her hand. But regardless, it certainly never occurred to me that one of the options she was giving me was for a raw egg! I think it made her really happy that I wanted to try it this way.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, the woman who ate breakfast at the same time as me the next day also had her egg raw. And -- more amazing -- she ate EVERYTHING. She was thin as a rail, but either had quite an appetite or a very strong drive to act the polite guest.