Steak - Mark Schatzker [82]
Not far from the washlets was an aisle full of brand-new fridges. A fridge of medium quality—it didn’t include ice making or rapid freezing, as better models do—featured a sticker depicting ridiculously marbled steak on its door. “At least A4,” Chada-san remarked. The sticker suggested a tier of steak eating totally out of line with the fridge’s price point. Next to it was a more expensive model whose meat drawer featured four stickers—steak, fish, fruit, and raw tuna—so that its new owner would know what food goes where. The tuna was lean akami, but the steak was A4. It was becoming clear to me that in Japan, the very concept of beef is highly marbled. While marbled beef is prized in America, the generic image of a standard American steak is red, not white. In Tom and Jerry cartoons, when a bulldog is thrown a big steak, the only white is in the trim and the bone; the meat is a model specimen USDA Standard. In Japan, on the other hand, all steak is at least half white.
Inside one of the better fridges at Takashimaya, I found a steak—a slice of rib eye, by the looks of things, A4 or A5—made out of plastic, though you had to reach out and touch it to know for sure. A lot of the food in Japan is fake. You see it displayed in restaurant windows or sitting on tables outside, so that potential patrons have an idea of the creations being served inside. If you avoid places like Tsukiji fish market, the likelihood is you will probably see more fake food in Japan than real food.
Chada-san explained that high-quality plastic food is an art, and the people who make it are respected and well paid. Over in the frying pan aisle, we found an entire plastic dinner sitting atop an electric Sanyo fryer: a fake crab claw, three fake scallops, three fake matsutake mushrooms, two fake whole green peppers, and a fake A3 strip loin. For a customer who couldn’t afford to buy an actual stove, it was quite the meal.
The next floor down, Chada-san and I spotted a bottle of Kobe water and it was very fancy. The bottle appeared to be inset with fake diamonds, and it cost more than lunch at a fine restaurant. Chada-san now seemed embarrassed. He acknowledged that Kobe wasn’t actually famous for its water. “No one I know,” he said, “drinks Kobe water.”
A young and fashionably dressed Japanese couple was standing in front of the Kobe water display, holding hands. The woman, gazing at the bottle with a misty-eyed look that seemed almost a parody of rapture, whispered, “It’s so beautiful.” We did not stay to see if they bought one. The Kobe water had put us both in the mood for Kobe beef.
Outside Seryna, a squad of dignified-looking middle-aged parking attendants stood on the sidewalk, wearing gray tuxedos with blue lapels and white gloves, waiting for cars to pull up. Inside Seryna, it was wall-to-wall carpet and silence. The lighting was dim, and the staff moved noiselessly in dress that harkened to a more formal era, with waiters in black tuxedos and waitresses in kimonos. The manager, also in a tuxedo, beckoned us to sit. He assured us that Seryna sold true A5 Kobe beef. It sold other brands of beef, too, he said, but many of his customers preferred beef from Kobe. More important, he confided, some restaurants lied about their beef, claiming it to be Kobe when it was not. Seryna was not one of them. He got up from the table and returned with a plaque that certified that Seryna sold beef from cattle that were born, fed, and slaughtered in Hyogo Prefecture, of which Kobe is the capital. The cattle also drink Kobe water, but not out of fancy bottles. The manager handed me a piece of paper that listed the specific cows whose meat had been sold to Seryna that day. In minutes,