An unforgettable dinner

On July 2004 M. and I visited Tokyo and we went through several interesting experiences. One Friday evening there was an unforgettable dinner.

The dinner we had was splendid, magnificent. That was after a day of intense work. I delivered two talks, of two hours each, with only a half-hour break in between. The seminar room was crowded with a good number of attentive and respectful Japanese astrophysicists, from full professors to undergraduates. At the end of the day I was exhausted. It was Friday and we, M. and I, were invited to dinner. We were taken to a lively neighbourhood a few train stations away from the Komaba campus. The place was flooded with youngsters and salarymen in their traditional weekly outing. The restaurant our hosts chose had a well-deserved reputation, we were informed. The dinner, indeed, consisting of an elaborate selection of Japanese cuisine dishes, confirmed those expectations. We started simple, with raw fish and seafood, the kind of sashimi and sushi stuff you can get anywhere today. Only this one was delicious, music to our ears. We ate a fancy assortment of fish-related dishes, tapas style, finding them all great. At some point the dinner almost seemed a competition, our Japanese hosts ordering ever more unfamiliar, intriguing and bizarre choices, which we gulped down without any apprehension, genuinely enjoying the sensational feast. They kept on trying to defeat us yet we proved infallible. Out of desperation they ordered the jewel in the crown, as their last resort to put us down, fugu, Japanese for pufferfish. This is a lethally poisonous fish if prepared incorrectly, so the restaurants that serve it need to have a specially licensed chef to prepare it. No funny matter: about ten people die in Japan every year as a result of fugu intoxication. We couldn't believe we were going to try fugu. We were delighted. And we ate it alright, safely enjoying its delicious taste.

I don't know if our hosts were disappointed in the end since we had passed their unwritten test with flying colours, all I know is that the prevailing mood was very friendly and cheerful. This was partly due to all the alcohol we drank. That was amazing, spectacular. I was not aware that Japanese could drink so much. We started simple as well, with beer, but along the dinner the choices strengthened. Beer was soon substituted by red wine (imported from Chile and New Zealand), followed by whisky at dessert time and, topping it all, we ended up shouting our cheers with sake. Drinking-wise we were amply defeated. We had to self-control, it soon became clear. Had we tried and followed their pace we would still be drunk today. They weren't drunk, however, to our complete amazement, extremely cheerful but not drunk. When the dinner was over they suggested to go somewhere else and have a few more drinks. We apologized and told them we had to go back to the hotel. Our level of dizziness was well above what could be considered safe and I was really in the need of a good rest after my four-hour long lectures and the monumental dinner. They waved us goodbye, my host patting on my back as in delirium tremens mode he went on insisting us to "enjoy your visit, enjoy your visit".

A silent student took the train back with us, he was headed for Shibuya. I tried to stir a conversation with him to ease the ten minutes ride we had to share. It soon became obvious that he did not understand anything I said, so poor was his English. Giving up on the attempt I marveled at the stoicism of this young man who earlier that day had been listening to me for four hours without grasping a single word of what I was saying.