Sirloin
It was the sirloin that did it.
Sitting on the 6th floor of a modern, restaurant-laden building in Tokyo, a small, coal-burning grill steamed in front of us. The sirloin was the third, maybe fourth dish of the Wagyu tasting menu at Sumibiyakiniku Nakahara. Jade and I had sat down without much presupposition after a long day on our feet. Glancing at the menu, my eyes were drawn to a singular statement printed at the top.
Verbatim it read: “A slight change in a knife's angle, or a mere 0.2mm difference in thickness can completely transform the beef’s texture and taste. This is why we carefully cut our meat by hand.”
My Americanized mind dismissed this as hyperbole. Marketing copy. So accustomed I am to being inundated with that sort of bullshit in my day to day.
But then the sirloin hit my tongue.
My eyes closed without the conscious intent to close them. The sweetness of the marination did a dance with the buttery fat. Together, they created a dissolving effect, causing the meat to vanish after just a few chews, and leaving behind a sense of astonishment. As quickly as it began, it was over. Akin to taking acid for the first time, the sirloin showed me an alternative way of seeing the world and whispered to me that there was no going back.
Stunned, almost frozen in time, it took me a while to recover from that bite. With the passage of several minutes, and another cold pilsner, I eventually managed, still shaking my head continuously, “we’re just so mediocre aren’t we?” I said to Jade, finally speaking words again.
Puzzled, she looked at me demanding further explanation.
“Sorry, I just mean us. Americans. The U.S. We are just simply not committed to quality in the way I just experienced in that bite.”
Jade laughed at how meta I had made this. But there it was. The realization of what really separates the Japanese, conveyed through a bite of sirloin, cut 2mm away from being good, and instead being fucking great, enabling a swell of new emotions in a way typically only possible through psychedelics.
I continued, “I think we’re just overly capitalistic. In the pursuit of pure profit, we’ve settled at good. But somewhere behind the deliberate equation of: ‘as good as it needs to be to justify the price’, lies excellence. Not for the sake of the money, but for the sake of craft. For the sake of continuous learning and actually enjoying the journey. For the sake of cooking a piece of sirloin so damn great that it causes some westernized kid to go on and write 500 words about it…”
As I create the space to think more about work, what it means to me, and how I can get closer to spending each day doing what makes me feel most like myself, I’m realizing that all I want to do is cook that piece of sirloin.
Jade rolled her eyes. “You’re talking too much, the next bite is getting cold.”
