The Ramen King and I Read Online Free PDF Page A

Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu.
    Tetsuo screamed again, but this time it was at Junko.
    “Toroku shite ii yo!”
    I wondered if I had misunderstood. Because the meaning of what I thought I heard was, “Go ahead and register him!”
    I had not misunderstood, because right after that, Junko walked over to the telephone and pulled out a small notebook. She opened the book, waving a ballpoint pen in the air.
    “What did you say your name was?” she asked.
    I repeated it.
    “Hmm,” Junko said. “We already have a regular customer named Andy.”
    She thought for a moment.
    “I know. We’ll give you a nickname. We’ll call you Hakata Andy.”
    Hakata is the city in Fukuoka Prefecture where I worked as a management consultant.
    Junko closed the notebook and clasped her hands together.
    “Hakata Andy,” she said, “now you can make a reservation.”
     
     
    W hen I got home I logged on to Chowhound and wrote about the visit to Hamako. I noted agreement with the previous entry about the monkfish liver—not pasty like at other places—and heaped praise on a piece of mirugai that was still squirming as it slid down my throat. I bragged about getting the nickname and being able to make reservations.
    The subtext of my post was, “I am totally in with Tetsuo and Junko.”
    Before my second visit, I called ahead and said it was Hakata Andy. I made a reservation at the counter, and when I arrived, table-bound patrons stared enviously as Junko ushered me toward Tetsuo’s station.
    “Hakata Andy!” he said.
    I ordered omakase , even though I didn’t have a picture of my five starving children. Over the course of an hour, Tetsuo threw sixteen pieces of sushi—including abalone, oyster, and squid with shiso leaf—onto the wood tray in front of me.
    In Shota’s Sushi , when a contestant in the All-Tokyo Rookie Sushi Chef Competition serves a truly great piece of nigiri , the next few frames in the comic depict the judges in various states of sushi bliss. Their eyes bulge and their mouths pucker. They look possessed. Then they’re shown hovering over an ocean, as if the sushi has transported them there. Images of shrimps, lobsters, fish, or whatever else they’ve just eaten spin around their heads. While savoring a particularly fine piece of uni , one the comic’s judges finds himself hurtling through outer space. “It’s like I’m flying in a universe of amazing sea urchin flavor!” he exclaims.
    It wasn’t quite like that at Hamako, and shortly before I asked for the check, I found out one reason why.
    “Hakata Andy,” Tetsuo said, “I am about to give you the second-best piece of fatty tuna you will eat in your life.”
    With that, he reached his pudgy hand over the glass case and dropped a soft mound of pinkish flesh onto my tray. I pondered the tuna, chopsticks in hand, for some time before gathering enough courage to ask the obvious question.
    “How come not first best?”
    Tetsuo did not look up from his work.
    “You’re not ready yet,” he said.
    There are many people who would refuse to patronize a restaurant in which they’re expected to earn the chef’s highest-quality cuisine. What I learned on my first night at the Hamako counter was that I was not one of them. Rather, I committed to becoming Tetsuo’s sushi disciple. I submitted to his will, devoting months to learning his rules. Still I couldn’t help but wonder: What was it about me that made me want to be worthy of first-best fatty tuna?
    The biggest challenge early on was appreciating the holy status of the counter. One day a former business school classmate called to say that he was in town from Tokyo and wanted to get together for dinner. He had to wake up early the next morning to catch a bus to Yosemite National Park, so I called Hamako and asked for a reservation at six thirty—right when the restaurant opened.
    “I guess you’ll be sitting at a table, then,” Junko said.
    “Can’t we sit at the