The Japanese are coming, again

AT Nobu New York, getting a table is a problem “unless you’re Cameron Diaz”. That was Zagat’s description of the high-end Japanese restaurant co-owned by actor Robert De Niro, which allows up to one month's advance reservations.

It is, according to a newspaper columnist, New York’s legendary inaccessible restaurant.

More shock-and-awe news: at Masa in midtown Manhattan, cancellations made less than 48 hours before the reservation would mean a fine of US$150 (RM490) per person.

But to the moneyed folk, that is a paltry sum because the average cost of a dinner for one (plus drink and tips) at Masa is about US$485 (RM1,584).

Nobu and Masa are among “America’s Top Japanese Restaurants”, according to the latest guide from Zagat Survey, which is based on views submitted by 139,000 respondents in 49 cities.

The little red guidebook is a collaboration between Zagat Survey and the Organisation to Promote Japanese Restaurants Abroad (Jiro).

The Japanese have, indeed, invaded the American taste bud with an estimated 10,000 places throughout the country where people can go for their sushi and sake. In New York City, there are 800 to 1,000 Japanese restaurants.

“Just 10 to 15 years ago, the cuisine was not on the map as far as the American taste was concerned,” said Tim Zagat, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Zagat Survey. “Back then, mention Asian cuisine and people would think of Chinese food.”

The menu, so to speak, has changed drastically. “In New York, Japanese cuisine has far surpassed any other Asian food,” he said.

According to him, Japanese restaurants ranked among the top 20 in the city, getting much higher ratings than the top Chinese restaurants.

“Almost every major American city voted Japanese ahead of others,” he said. It is number one in cities such as Baltimore, Denver, Austin, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Washington DC and Seattle.

In most other cities, residents would name a Japanese restaurant as second or third on the roll of honour.

Zagat listed four factors for the Japanese appeal: the discipline and professionalism of Japanese chefs, fresh ingredients, elegant presentation and healthy preparation methods.

“Many of the best Western chefs in the United States have been extremely influenced by Japanese culinary techniques,” Zagat said.

Launched in 1979, Zagat Survey provides reviews on the best places to eat, drink, play and stay. It publishes guides covering 100 countries. No establishment is allowed to pay to be included in the survey.

Ordinary folk, however, may find Zagat’s recommendations quite out of reach in terms of pricing.

“I haven’t been to many of the restaurants that they recommend because they are so expensive,” said one Japanese correspondent.

Besides, nothing compares to what he gets in Tokyo. “It’s not so fresh here,” he said.

It is a view shared by food writer Asao Teshirogi.

“Japanese food is very expensive here. The quality is not as good as what we get back home, but I would say it is still quite good here overall,” she said.

“Ramen, for example, is a very popular casual food in Japan but even at the most expensive place, you can eat it for less than US$10 (R32.62). A basic ramen would cost about US$6 (RM19.58). Here in New York, it would set you back at least US$9 (RM29.37), which means US$12 (RM39.15) including tax and tip.”

At one new ramen restaurant, she ended up paying US$14 (RM45.69), double what she normally pays in Japan.

The good news, however, is that more ramen shops are opening here.

“Until recently, we could not find decent ramen in New York. And the new ramen shops are getting better,” she said.

She has no comments about Nobu or Masa since she has not patronised them yet. “But I assume that high-end restaurants here are as good as those in Japan.”

Jiro, the collaborator in Zagat’s guide on America’s top Japanese restaurants, noted that there was now a worldwide boom in Japanese food.

“Many people in Japan believe that it is time to take advantage of this trend,” it said, which was why the organisation was formed last year.

Its main agenda is to accelerate the promotion of Japanese food culture to the world. So, watch out. The Japanese are coming. Again.

The American dream ... well, almost

At the Evergreen Presbyterian Church on 33rd Avenue, worshippers attend their service in Korean language. Next door, the Afghans and Pakistanis pray at Masjid Hazrat-i-Abu Bakr led by an imam from Bangladesh.

“There is also a temple just over there,” said pastor Stephen S. Kim, pointing to his left.

Despite the proximity of the different worship places, “none of us have had problems with each other so far.”

A sign near the entrance of the mosque reminds budding mischief-makers that New York law forbids people from creating disturbances in religious places.

The church was built in 1988 and Kim has served there for 15 years. The mosque has been around even longer.

Religious plurality is the nature of Flushing, a mainly Asian neighbourhood in Queens, the most diverse New York City county where 140 languages are spoken.

A Harvard University project estimated that places of worship such as mosques, churches, synagogues, gurdwaras, Buddhist and Hindu temples numbered almost 400 in a neighbourhood of 2.5 square miles.

According to the US Census Bureau, at least 46% of Queens’ 2.2 million population is foreign-born; English is second language to 54% of them.

“This is America!” one middle-aged Korean churchgoer said, looking incredulous that he should be asked whether he had had problems with his foreign neighbour.

In limited English, he said his adopted country was all about peace and tolerance in a diverse society.

The bustling Korean community in Flushing has a great variety of churches available for them, which range from huge chapels to little churches operating from the basement of shop houses.

But, as they say, the mirror has two faces. Beneath the shiny veneer, communities sometimes co-exist like some strange bedfellows.

One neighbourhood in Brooklyn was simmering in April when an orthodox Jew attacked a black man. This was followed by reports of a Jewish teenager assaulted and robbed by two black youths.

Scores of policemen were sent there to keep a lid on the tension, as it was not the first time such a clash erupted there.

Pastor Kim, a former diplomat, has his own theory on the uneasiness there. The blacks and the Jews, he said, each had a long, troubled past. Their history of being a persecuted people cannot be easily overcome.

Kim, who spent four years in Ghana during the 1980s as a diplomat, said he understood the black community quite well.

“I have also worked with them when I was a store manager in Philadelphia previously,” said Kim, who has lived in the United States for 25 years.

He found them to be good and kind, striking firm friendships with many of them.

“But they are sensitive, easily hurt,” said Kim, who felt that the black community still held deep-rooted emotions that went back a long way.

“Who can forget that they were forced to come to the country as slaves?” he asked. “This is unlike the Korean and Chinese immigrants who came here willingly, wanting to make a better life for themselves,” he said.

Besides, they suffered no self-esteem whatsoever, according to Kim. “There is still great pride in their motherland. They hold their heads up high, thrilled with the economic progress in China and Korea.”

The blacks, however, are still carrying their scars and the healing process takes a much longer time.

“It wasn’t till 1965 that all blacks were given voting rights,” he said, citing as an example of the plight of the people.

In states such as Oregon, blacks were not allowed to live there until a law that prevented them from becoming residents was finally abolished in 1919.

Kim believed that a better education was the key for the black community. “Right now, their dropout rate is too high,” he said.

One survey cited about half of those male African-Africans who quit school would have spent time in jail by the time they are in their 30s.

Other statistics show that the United States has about two million people behind bars, out of which about half are blacks.

Kim and his 200-strong congregation face no such emotional baggage. This is their home now and to them, they are a step closer to their American Dream.

Rushdie wows 'em with wild tales

HERE’S a tabloid moment with writer Salman Rushdie. The Booker Prize winner says he wished he had written the Kama Sutra.

He went on to talk about the use of fingernails to enhance sexual desire as taught in chapter four of the classic love guide.

Then there are other tips, drinks and potions, such as the boiling of the internal organs of a she-goat, “which requires a certain amount of work, unless you can persuade someone to do it for you.”

Author of nine novels, Rushdie was at a book reading of his latest work The Enchantress of Florence in Manhattan last week.

“He has beady eyes,” one guy remarked, upon the arrival of the bearded author that evening.

The writer of such works as Midnight’s Children sure has a strong following.

There were no empty seats at the bookstore and most of those who turned up wanted him to autograph their copy of his book.

No longer shadowed by the fatwa, which called for his head, Rushdie, who recently appeared in a Scarlett Johansson music video Falling Down, certainly captivated his audience at the Barnes & Noble store.

Someone asked him for reading recommendations as a prelude to understanding his newest book. The author of The Satanic Verses was quick in his reply, tickling everybody with his remarks.

“It all depends on your interest. If you are interested in sex, there is a good book which can tell you a lot of things you don’t know,” he said.

According to him, there are three large works on the heightening of sexual desires. He also mentioned a trick men could employ to score countless ejaculations in one night.

But the 61-year-old writer hastened to add that he had not tried any of the sex tips which he shared with the audience that evening; “but let’s just say that I have offered you a piece of ancient wisdom.”

There were serious moments, of course, from the writer whom one columnist commented as “more widely known than read.”

It was, in Rushdie’s view, that human nature had remained constant. “If people were brutal then, they are brutal now,” he said. “If they were bigoted then, they are bigoted now. It is surprising how little has changed.”

Machievelli, he said, had not been wrong, and it was sad to see him being misunderstood. “He opposed tyranny. His tragedy was that he saw it too clearly. He saw what was going on, he wrote it down,” Rushdie said. “He got blamed for what he saw. It was a classic case of shooting the messenger.”

Authors are usually queried about the books they have read and it was no different that evening.

Rushdie said he often reads about 15 books at any one time. “The books are always in some stage of being finished.

So whenever I am asked ‘what are you reading now’ I don’t know how to answer that,” he said.

He named, among others, Junot Diaz, as writers he respected. “There are so many other books that I’ve been promising myself to read.”

Born in India, educated in Britain and now living in New York, Rushdie reads poetry as well.

“I do it to remind myself about good writing. There is no reason why prose should not be as intense as poetry,” said Rushdie, described as one of the world’s most important living writers (at least according to the book jacket of his newest novel.)

Poetry, he said, “keeps me in my mark. It shows the level of care, attention and intensity that you can give to words.”

A digression here. A 15-year practice by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of placing selected poems inside subway cars in New York City will come to an end soon.

Poetry in Motion will be replaced by Train of Thought, which will highlight quotations from great thinkers.

So, it is goodbye to the poems, which have made their mark on subway passengers. According to The New York Times, one poem that had touched people out there was “Always” by Irving Berlin:

Days may not be fair always,

That’s when I’ll be there always.

Not for just an hour,

Not for just a day,

Not for just a year,

But always.

American history being written

THERE they were on Tuesday night, waiting for those hear-me-roar moments.

So when Hillary Clinton declared “I will be making no decisions tonight,” it was all that they needed. A young African-American, clenching her fist, went “Yes! Yes!”

It was 9.30pm outside a side entrance of Baruch College in New York City. Dozens of Clinton supporters stood waiting; hundreds more were inside to see her on the final night of the primary season.

Those who did not get to go into the building made do with what they had. One guy brought along a small radio for the 'live' broadcast of Clinton’s speech. Many gathered around, listening to the Democratic presidential contender who was supposed to quit the race then.

But, that night, there was no sweet surrender, and the language of defeat was lost on the Clinton loyalists.

“It’s not over. We still have the convention,” someone said, ever hopeful, referring to the Democratic national convention in August when the party officially anoints its presidential nominee.

Other supporters like businesswoman Becky Lechner, 29, were more pragmatic. “It’s time to move on. She has to give it up sooner or later.”

(For the record, Clinton is bowing out, telling supporters in an email on Thursday: “I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama.”)

No one bothered a man who wore an Obama T-shirt, carrying a sign: “Drop out now”. Another fellow held a placard saying: “Hillary, there’s no ‘I’ in Democrat”. (Clinton critics felt that her presidential bid was all about her, never about the party.)

But when a TV crew approached to interview the Obama supporters, the Clinton side quickly rushed over, holding up “Hillary for president” posters to make known their stand.

Both camps were shooed away by the police. “Sorry folks, this is a public space but we have to ask you to leave for security purposes,” one officer said.

For good measure, a passer-by shouted for John McCain, the Republican’s 71-year-old nominee whose campaign last month released 1,173 pages of medical records of the past eight years to prove his good health.

Bottomline: Send him to the White House, not the old folks’ home.

America is divided, that’s for sure.

WomenCount PAC, a political action committee set up by a group of women last month, put up full-page newspaper advertisements on May 20 when there were five more primaries to go. They were upset about calls for the New York senator to drop out.

“We want Hillary to stay in this race until every vote is cast, every vote is counted,” the group said, making clear that the candidate did not authorise the advertisement.

The California-based women stood “united in our unwavering support” for Clinton “as this indefatigable woman speaks with our voice. She carries our hopes, dreams and aspirations with her”.

But for now, Barack Obama has etched his name in history as the first black presidential nominee.

Those who smelled Clinton’s defeat weeks ago have been giving Obama royal attention.

In one article two weeks ago, the usually serious The New York Times covered him the way celebrity magazines write about Hollywood stars.

The newspaper made two charts, listing out Obama’s favourite things. He likes roasted almonds, pistachios, Nicorette, broccoli and spinach. Dislikes: Mayonnaise, asparagus and soft drinks.

No details are too minute. His blood pressure was 90/60 last year, his pulse 60 beats a minute and no cholesterol problem. In short, he is fit to run the country.

Clinton’s refusal to concede on Tuesday prompted a multitude of comments and criticisms.

“It reminded me of a song by Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls' And I am telling you, I’m not going,” said comedienne Joy Behar during a morning talkshow.

As much as Clinton is a divisive figure, the crowd outside Baruch College was a diverse lot. Male, female, white, black, Hispanic.

Incidentally, there are about 46 million Hispanics in the United States, a number which is expected to triple come 2050.

“They are about 14% of the population now,” said Susan Minushkin, deputy director of the Pew Hispanic Centre. These minority groups, mainly from Mexico, are projected to grow into the majority of the American population within five decades.

Most of them leaned towards the Democratic Party, she told foreign journalists in a briefing on The 2008 Elections and the Hispanic Vote. They favoured Clinton over Obama two to one.

So, as of right now, American history is being written as the face of the country alters.