More Adventures in Food Land

Kitchener-Waterloo can be a real food wasteland, or so I cynically came to realize today spending a good part of my day looking for something called yuzu koshou- a kind of green chili paste- and when getting the gull to walk into the only Sushi shop I know that has legitimate Japanese owners, of whom had no idea what I was talking about. We can get tuna but not a green Japanese chili paste? It's mind blowing. Maybe the waitress, who I saw asking the boss across the room, only pretended to remember the name of the paste and dismissed my question. But that's a little naive, even for me, who stubbornly spent 5 hours walking by foot to every Asian grocery and convenient store, not to mention Japanese-Korean restaurant in search of the most obscure thing. Barthes was right, cooking's not the problem, but having access to the ingredient is, even today, a good 40 years after he wrote it.

But, things ain't that bad. I had a little heart left, which was enough to get me some red miso paste. Yeah, yeah, I could have easily dropped 5 bucks buying an obscene amount at the grocery store, but I refused. Maybe on some level I wanted to see if my dream of becoming a humble ramen noodle cook was still feasible, and to do that I had to put myself out there and ask multiple Japanese restaurants if they'd have the heart to sell me a little red paste. One had no idea what I was talking about, saying they didn't use red bean paste in their restaurant- in their sushi restaurant; in their miso soup they serve as a starter. I dunno. Red miso must have been something lost in translation. Between red bean paste, aka miso and "the paste used to make miso soup" the manager's Mainland Chinese history must have somehow interfered with her culinary perspective . . . in a Japanese sushi restaurant. I had to stop to think before I exited the place, wondering if I had exhausted every possible name for red miso paste in both Chinese and Japanese and English, not that Japanese would have helped, or Mandarin apparently. Sometimes I think people just shut themselves off when they see a white guy asking about their food, like I immediately wouldn't know about it or what I'm talking about, but that's a crass judgment, because someone was nice enough to take the time to listen, and what's more, give me some red miso for free. A Korean woman, who I can only assume took pity on me having heard my story of trying to find red miso, which in the end took me longer to find than it did Tripitaka to get the sacred Buddhist scrolls. To top it off, after having spoke with her husband, she gave me copious amounts. It may not seem like it, but to someone as poor as me, that small amount of Miso was the equivalent to 500 dollars of a rich man's salary. I thank her and her husband's restaurant. If they're that sympathetic, I can only assume they know the power of food and and what it does for somebody. Now, I won't tell you that the couple were the proprietors of Iron Chef Fusion Restaurant and owners of some of the biggest hearts I'd seen in a long time, nor will I tell you that you should go support them and eat at their restaurant because this town needs people like them. But I will tell you this, they certainly saved my chicken dumplings. I've visited them in the past- when they first opened- and maybe judged them a little harshly, ignoring the Peter Meehan Principle- only judge a place 8 months down the road when it's had a chance to establish itself. And I may have judged them when I applied for a job and didn't get it, but the Buddha kept bringing me back. I thank you Iron Chef. 君から俺はまだまだ食べることが出来る。


Iron Chef Japanese Fusion Restaurant
117 University Plaza
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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