Talk to the Lobster

Erstwhile called me up and wanted sushi. A close friend of hers had returned from her Peace Corps duty in Africa and had a birthday coming up. Erstwhile wanted to take her out to someplace special and different. Sushi came to mind. She called me to ask if the Brain and I wouldn't mind taking them out to celebrate.

"Sure, of course." I said. "I know just the place."

"Great! By the way, she's vegan."

"Vegan? Are you sure?"

"Oh, absolutely. One-hundred percent vegan."

"Perhaps," I suggested, "sushi wouldn't be the best idea, if she's vegan. I could cook something..."

"Oh, no!" replied Erstwhile in all earnestness. "She wants to try sushi."

"You do realize," I said carefully, "that according to my understanding of veganism, the practice does not involve the consumption of usually raw slices of fish whereas, on the other hand, the consumption of sushi does, in fact, normally involve said slices of raw fish?"

"Oh, yes, absolutely!" replied Erstwhile cheerfully. "She wants to try it."

We met at Chaya Sushi at 7 P.M. Yama-san, the owner, had recently returned from a trip to Japan where he had gained another rank in sushi-do. Yama-san was a cheerful Japanese man who ruled over his tiny sushi bar like an emperor and would greet you with a boisterous ohayo gozaimasu when you entered his miniscule restaurant. He knew the Brain and I on sight, and bowed deeply when we came in with friends.

Erstwhile's friend, Angie, was a vegan, but she had learned in the Peace Corps in Africa that veganism is an affectatious conceit of a ludicrously fat and wealthy society, where a person can actually not only decide what he will eat each day, but can pay a person to prepare it for him. Such civilized conceits are as pratical in poverty-riddled countries, such as exist in many parts of Africa, as a Rolls-Royce would be on the goat-choked dirt tracks they use for roads there. Angie had spent two years in the poorest of parts of Africa, building wells for villages and digging irrigation ditches. The Africans could feed her goat meat, goat milk, and mullet. Angie quickly realized she could no longer hold to her conceited veganism and expect to survive. As far as sushi goes, she said, once you've seen a live goat killed at the table, cooked, and served to you, watching a man carve little squares of fish off a bigger square of fish so you can eat it is no big deal.

We ordered carefully. I'd tread this path before, initiating a curious neophyte into sushi and sashimi. Once the person grasps that raw fish does, in fact, taste just like cooked fish only "fresher" and that not all sushi involves exotic, raw, scary sea creatures but has many safe havens like vegetables and fried shrimp to harbor in before taking another sally at eels or urchins, he or she relaxes into the experience. Angie was no different, and we carefully threaded our way from "easy" sushi like California rolls to slightly harder morsels like toro sashimi. Angie took everything in stride, tasting and enjoying all the food Yama-san slid before us.

We were sitting at the bar before the glass case that displayed Yama-san's edibles. Prominently perched atop a pile of ice in the center of the bar was a live lobster.

"Yama-san," I inquired, "are you serving lobster tonight?"

Yama-san got a huge grin on his face. "Oh, yes!" he replied, bobbing his head, "Tonight we have, ah, lobster sashimi!"

"Lobster sashimi?" I asked, intriqued, having never heard of lobster sashimi before. "Is it good?"

"Oh, yes! Lobster sashimi! Very suh-weet-uh, very suh-weet-uh!"

I glanced at the Brain, who's eyes were already glittering. "Very well," I said, "could we please have one?"

"Oh, yes!" said Yama-san with a deep bow. He ducked under the noren into the kitchen. A few minutes later, he returned with a huge lobster, twice the size of the one sitting on the pile of ice in the case before us. The lobster was dripping wet and struggling vigorously, snapping its claws at him, at us, and at the whole world in general. He held the lobster up to us for inspection, and we nodded approvingly and exchanged glances.

"Lobster sashimi!" shouted Yama-san proudly as he slammed the lobster done on the cutting board. His display had attracted the attention of the other diners in the restaurant, who all turned as one to watch the chef go about his butchery.

With a single deft, crunching stroke of his knife, he sliced off the whole tail from the lobster. He pushed the squirming lobster body to the side and began to struggle with the tail, flipping it over as it twitched and curled beneath his knife. In two quick cuts, he had removed the meat from the shell, splaying it flat between the thumb and fore-finger of his left hand while his right hand used the knife to dice the still quivering flesh into cubes. Once the tail was cubed, he scooped the meat up with his knife and slid it into the tail-shell. By now, the lobster itself had crawled about a foot away, no doubt wondering where the hell its tail had gotten off to. He picked it up, tsk-ing, and proceeded to stuff a handful of shredded daikon radish into the hole in the back of its body where the tail had been attached. He remarried the tail-cum-bowl of lobster meat and the still furiously squirming and snapping body together on a large glass platter. Then with a huge smile, he gracefully lifted the platter over the bar and set it down in front of us.

"Lobster sashimi! Very suh-weet-uh!" he said again enthusiastically.

The entire restaurant was absolutely, deathly quiet. Everyone was watching us. The patrons were watching us. The staff was watching us. Yama-san was watching us. The lobsters were watching us, one of them clack-clack-clicking his claws at us. He looked like the spunky little guy in old movies who, despite being beat to a pulp by the bully, throws up his fists shouting "Put up yer dukes! Come on! Put 'em up!"

"Domo!" I sputtered. I looked at the Brain, who was looking at me. Angie and Erstwhile were pale as sheets. The lobster was beginning to crawl off the platter toward Erstwhile. The other lobster, sitting on the pile of ice, turned its body to get a better look. Yama-san stood there, smiling, waiting.

I picked up my chopsticks and lifted a piece of the pale white-pink flesh to my mouth and chewed.

It was the best meat I have ever tasted. My eyes widened in surprise. The Brain, seeing my expression, seized up his chopsticks and took a bite. His eyes closed as he chewed orgasmically. Erstwhile and Angie exchanged glances, then took up their chopsticks and dug in. With my left hand, I held the lobster down on the plate while it and its companion in the case watched us. The Brain pointed out that the lobster on the plate was giving him reproachful glances from its eyestalks.

Let me explain the taste of nearly-still-quivering raw lobster meat. It is sweet. Very sweet. It is toothsome. It tastes like clean, fresh water. It tastes electric. The flavor drives through your tongue directly to your medula oblongata, where it bounces off some long-dormant reptilian pleasure center. It conjures up images of chasing down your prey and biting into it. It is suh-weet-uh.

Yama-san smiled happily to himself at our obvious enjoyment. He returned to making other orders of sushi while we finished the lobster.

"All done?" he inquired. The lobster tail was empty and I was still struggling with my left hand to hold the lobster's squirming, snapping body on the platter. Yama-san lifted the platter away, and we relaxed a bit. The trial by fire was over, we thought.

We thought.

Yama-san took the lobster's body and hacked it, length-wise, into two. A lady sitting at a table behind us stifled a shriek. Casually, he flung the now wildly squirming lobster halves onto the hibachi grill, where they independently tried to crawl away. Yama-san calmly returned to preparing other sushi while the lobster halves crawled and crawled and, finally, stopped crawling. After another minute, he lifted the halves away, cracked the claws, re-arranged them on clean platter, and presented the remainders of the lobster to us.

"Look!" he said cheerfully, "It's a girl. Lots of roe! Very good!" He was pointing a long noodle of brilliant red eggs in the cooked body halves. The Brain ate the roe (I am not fond of fish eggs with the exception of Caspian beluga), while the rest of us picked meat out of the claws and legs. Eventually, the lobster was completely reduced to a charred, broken husk.

We'd done it. We'd overcome lobster sashimi. With a vegan. Only Everest remained.

Angie patted her lips with her napkin, setting it on the bar before her. "That was really good." she said brightly.

As we got up to leave, I leaned over to the sushi case and in a low whisper spoke to the luckier, smaller lobster still perched atop his pile of ice, "Gomen-nasai. Odaijini, lobster-san."