If by "Tofu" You Mean "Slabs of Beef", then Yes
Saturday, I spent some time with The Assassin. He really wanted me to try out this Korean place in Chinatown (look, we just don't have that many Koreans in Houston, ok?) called Tofu Village. Now, I grew up near Chinatown, and was very familiar with the area. How hard could it be to find a Korean tofu restaurant in an area I already knew? Harder than you'd think, apparently. This was complicated by the fact that there were not one but two Korean tofu restaurants across the street from each other, each buried deep in the back of a different shopping plaza. Once I got there, it took fifteen minutes just to find him.
We did manage to find each other, and when we sat down and opened the menu, I realized that it wasn't a tofu restaurant at all; it was a Korean yakinikuya. This seems ironic, somehow. I know it couldn't possibly be some comical mistranslation, as above the restaurant, the name was written in hanja as 豆腐村、 which reads directly as "tofu village". Bait and switch. Indeed, two other patrons came up to The Assassin and me to ask us what on the menu was vegetarian. You might think that that would be a better question for the staff, but in this instance, could you blame them? We were more than happy to help.
After all that wandering around outside in 105˚ heat, I was not ready for yakiniku, or bibimbap, or any other such dish that would place something hot enough to catch fire (or nearly so) right in front of my face. In the noodles section of the menu, I found a dish described as "cold buckwheat noodles in a beef broth". That sounded an awful lot like zaru soba to me, and just the right thing for a scorching summer day. Imagine my surprise when the waitress looked at me askance and asked, "Are you sure you want that?" I imagine that in her head, she appended "white boy" to the end of that question.
Now, the last time this happened to me was at Hoa Hoa in Dobie Mall. I was ordering a Vietnamese dish consisting mostly of shredded pork. The waitress refused to give it to me at first, because "white people always send that dish back. They say it tastes like sand." I knew exactly what the dish was, and liked it. She only agreed to give it to me after I promised not to send it back. I ate every damn bit of it, and even though it was good, I never went back again. In retrospect, I ought to have had some compassion; little things like that add up quickly at a restaurant, and it is more than a little presumptuous of a customer to waste a restaurant's food and expect to not have to pay for it. Could she help it if most of the white people who ordered it tended to have the same complaint and reaction?
Newfound compassion for restauranteurs aside, my gut reaction in a situation like this is to regard it as a challenge, and not to back down. I insisted on the cold buckwheat noodles in beef broth. Did I ever regret that.
Surprise number one came when the dish was served with a pair of scissors. I was utterly bewildered at this; the best guess I could venture was that she thought I might not be very adept with chopsticks. But then why not bring a fork?
Surprise number two came when she put the dish down in front of me. It was ice. Imagine my shock when I realized I had ordered what was, for all intents and purposes, a beef Slurpee. This...was unexpected.
Surprise number three came when I first put the noodles to my mouth. Or more accurately, to my teeth. It was then that I learned what the scissors were for. The noodles would not pull apart into small groups for love or money, and teeth certainly weren't going to cut them apart.
I steadfastly refused to use the scissors, though, and worked at pulling out bite-size groups from the mass in the center. Once I'd mastered that, I actually started to taste them. It was then that I encountered surprise number four. Now, when you cook buckwheat noodles, one of the most important steps in the process is to wash them thoroughly in cold water, even if they are to be served hot (if serving hot, maintain a separate pot of boiling water to immerse the soba in after washing). For why? After boiling, the noodles will be coated thickly in starch. This starch is the consistency of snot. Now, I don't know what the procedure is generally in Korean cuisine, but at Tofu Village, this through washing is not part of the process. So my lunch was a tangled mass of hard, slimy noodles in a beef slushie. This was not as bad to eat as I'm sure it sounds, but it certainly wasn't appetizing. Waitress, one; white boy, zero.
The Assassin generously donated me his grilled kkongchi so that I could have something that wasn't frozen.
Still, though, it could have been worse: in the same plaza was Café 101, which specializes in extremely traditional Chinese food. My Taiwanese and Hong Konger friends recommend it highly. (I think it's named after Taipei 101?) The Saturday beforehand,
cat_bandit told me of her recent, stomach-wrenching visit to Café 101 with some friends. I mentioned the "blood cubes" to The Assassin, whose family is from Taiwan; his response was a sympathetically wary "I have heard of those."
[Aside: Although many have joked over the years about my family being vampires, they are just that: jokes. BLOOD IS NOT FOOD, okay people? I've had enough bloody lips, finger cuts and nosebleeds to know what blood tastes like, and it's just not pleasant.]
After lunch, The Assassin took me to this Japanese lifestyle goods store across the plaza. It's truly amazing; they had any and everything you could need to totally recreate your life in Japan right here in Houston. Why anyone would need their dish soap imported from Japan is a complete mystery to me, but it's there if you want it. It felt very much like I'd walked into a shop somewhere in the suburbs of Sendai (Nagamachi, perhaps). The single most Japanese thing about the store, though, was that as soon as I walked in, a staff member instantly approached me, never getting too close, and followed me in a very obvious manner everywhere I went in the store, making sure I didn't shoplift anything.
I needed some things from Nippan Daidô, so I headed there. The difference in the shopping experience was palpable. I mean, customers at Daidô might be uncomfortable with me every now and then, but the staff couldn't care less. There, I am treated no differently from any other customer. And it is one of a very limited number of places where, if I chat a little bit with the checker, I don't get an 「御上手ですね」 (in context, "Your Japanese is very good," which is really condescending; if it really is good, nobody will mention it).
We went back to The Assassin's house afterwards, and had a grand old time. Fun though it was, we didn't do too much that was terribly interesting. This is fortuitous, as it's half an hour to midnight, and I have to get to bed. Abruptly, I'm wrapping this up. Sfida, signing off.
We did manage to find each other, and when we sat down and opened the menu, I realized that it wasn't a tofu restaurant at all; it was a Korean yakinikuya. This seems ironic, somehow. I know it couldn't possibly be some comical mistranslation, as above the restaurant, the name was written in hanja as 豆腐村、 which reads directly as "tofu village". Bait and switch. Indeed, two other patrons came up to The Assassin and me to ask us what on the menu was vegetarian. You might think that that would be a better question for the staff, but in this instance, could you blame them? We were more than happy to help.
After all that wandering around outside in 105˚ heat, I was not ready for yakiniku, or bibimbap, or any other such dish that would place something hot enough to catch fire (or nearly so) right in front of my face. In the noodles section of the menu, I found a dish described as "cold buckwheat noodles in a beef broth". That sounded an awful lot like zaru soba to me, and just the right thing for a scorching summer day. Imagine my surprise when the waitress looked at me askance and asked, "Are you sure you want that?" I imagine that in her head, she appended "white boy" to the end of that question.
Now, the last time this happened to me was at Hoa Hoa in Dobie Mall. I was ordering a Vietnamese dish consisting mostly of shredded pork. The waitress refused to give it to me at first, because "white people always send that dish back. They say it tastes like sand." I knew exactly what the dish was, and liked it. She only agreed to give it to me after I promised not to send it back. I ate every damn bit of it, and even though it was good, I never went back again. In retrospect, I ought to have had some compassion; little things like that add up quickly at a restaurant, and it is more than a little presumptuous of a customer to waste a restaurant's food and expect to not have to pay for it. Could she help it if most of the white people who ordered it tended to have the same complaint and reaction?
Newfound compassion for restauranteurs aside, my gut reaction in a situation like this is to regard it as a challenge, and not to back down. I insisted on the cold buckwheat noodles in beef broth. Did I ever regret that.
Surprise number one came when the dish was served with a pair of scissors. I was utterly bewildered at this; the best guess I could venture was that she thought I might not be very adept with chopsticks. But then why not bring a fork?
Surprise number two came when she put the dish down in front of me. It was ice. Imagine my shock when I realized I had ordered what was, for all intents and purposes, a beef Slurpee. This...was unexpected.
Surprise number three came when I first put the noodles to my mouth. Or more accurately, to my teeth. It was then that I learned what the scissors were for. The noodles would not pull apart into small groups for love or money, and teeth certainly weren't going to cut them apart.
I steadfastly refused to use the scissors, though, and worked at pulling out bite-size groups from the mass in the center. Once I'd mastered that, I actually started to taste them. It was then that I encountered surprise number four. Now, when you cook buckwheat noodles, one of the most important steps in the process is to wash them thoroughly in cold water, even if they are to be served hot (if serving hot, maintain a separate pot of boiling water to immerse the soba in after washing). For why? After boiling, the noodles will be coated thickly in starch. This starch is the consistency of snot. Now, I don't know what the procedure is generally in Korean cuisine, but at Tofu Village, this through washing is not part of the process. So my lunch was a tangled mass of hard, slimy noodles in a beef slushie. This was not as bad to eat as I'm sure it sounds, but it certainly wasn't appetizing. Waitress, one; white boy, zero.
The Assassin generously donated me his grilled kkongchi so that I could have something that wasn't frozen.
Still, though, it could have been worse: in the same plaza was Café 101, which specializes in extremely traditional Chinese food. My Taiwanese and Hong Konger friends recommend it highly. (I think it's named after Taipei 101?) The Saturday beforehand,
cat_bandit told me of her recent, stomach-wrenching visit to Café 101 with some friends. I mentioned the "blood cubes" to The Assassin, whose family is from Taiwan; his response was a sympathetically wary "I have heard of those."
[Aside: Although many have joked over the years about my family being vampires, they are just that: jokes. BLOOD IS NOT FOOD, okay people? I've had enough bloody lips, finger cuts and nosebleeds to know what blood tastes like, and it's just not pleasant.]
After lunch, The Assassin took me to this Japanese lifestyle goods store across the plaza. It's truly amazing; they had any and everything you could need to totally recreate your life in Japan right here in Houston. Why anyone would need their dish soap imported from Japan is a complete mystery to me, but it's there if you want it. It felt very much like I'd walked into a shop somewhere in the suburbs of Sendai (Nagamachi, perhaps). The single most Japanese thing about the store, though, was that as soon as I walked in, a staff member instantly approached me, never getting too close, and followed me in a very obvious manner everywhere I went in the store, making sure I didn't shoplift anything.
I needed some things from Nippan Daidô, so I headed there. The difference in the shopping experience was palpable. I mean, customers at Daidô might be uncomfortable with me every now and then, but the staff couldn't care less. There, I am treated no differently from any other customer. And it is one of a very limited number of places where, if I chat a little bit with the checker, I don't get an 「御上手ですね」 (in context, "Your Japanese is very good," which is really condescending; if it really is good, nobody will mention it).
We went back to The Assassin's house afterwards, and had a grand old time. Fun though it was, we didn't do too much that was terribly interesting. This is fortuitous, as it's half an hour to midnight, and I have to get to bed. Abruptly, I'm wrapping this up. Sfida, signing off.