La Dolce Vita
At first we were horrified. Sushi? Cooked on an open flame? [insert Edvard Munch-style Scream here]
- I mean, cooked fish is good and all in it's own right, but the point of sushi is to enjoy the fish in its entirely different uncooked state, a flavor and texture completely different. Especially in a place as rarefied as the famed central Tsukiji Fish Market of Tokyo, where the fish was so fresh it often still flopped. Having one's pick of all the fish caught literally hours before hundreds of kilometers in the deepest ocean, choosing the most perfect slices of rich, marbled tuna from the very heart of the fish, and then letting that glorious specimen of raw fish touch fire? That's almost like taking fine embroidery and using it for baby diapers. Sacrilege! ;-)
hoya99 grinned, explaining that the sushi masters of Tsukiji weren't, of course, totally insane barbarians. What would in the rest of our hands be a desecration was, in the hands of someone who knew *exactly* what they were doing, a step to a higher level. And the masters of fish of Tsukiji, of course, knew exactly what they were doing. By taking those carefully selected, cost-as-much-as-a-whole-sushi-meal individual slices, and with swift, careful motions applying flame like a calligrapher does ink with a brush, one could just barely sear off the connective tissue and transmute the surface fats into something sublime, while leaving the rest of the fish untouched and even still cold. These and other stories hoya99 shared with missysedai, Mark and I over dinner at Gratzi, desserts at La Dolce Vita, and later that evening, as seen at left, in the voluminous pictures from his laptop...
Fire too figured prominently in another culinary performance, this time right in front of our eyes, just a few weeks later. The waitress came up to our low-seated table, carefully put a drop cloth on the ground to catch excess, then took her prepared glass and lit the flame.
"Spanish coffee" the propetiors of La Dolce Vita called it, and I'm unsure what exactly it has. But as performance art it sure was a neato thing to watch, the nearly invisible blue alcohol flame she lit leaping to brilliant, golden sparkling life by the cinnamon/sugar/spice powder she sifted into the heart of the fire. (The drop cloth was to catch the rest on the floor.) Definately a spectacle, and littleholly seemed to enjoy the taste results, too. :-)
Of the marvelous little restaurant that began life long ago as the Orpheum Theatre, I first introduced in the entry A Night at the Old Orpheum. Of the directly next door specialty dessert botique, owned by the same group, I have not. La Dolce Vita is an elegant setting of plush leather and fabrics and dark woods, a recreation of the grand old lounges the mighty and powerful once filled with cigar smoke and strategems. They have an excellent selection of cognacs, single malt scotches, ports, and other liquors; and for those (like me) who don't drink, they have a most excellent selection of hand-made gelatos, sorbets, tortes, crepes, and the like. You can literally walk right next door from Gratzi to La Dolce Vita, and it makes a most excellent place to cap of a lovely dinner, a marvelous one-two punch for a evening with friends.
- Neither Gratzi nor La Dolce Vita is anywhere near the most expensive restaurant on Ann Arbor's Main Street In fact, of all the multi-starred members of the Main Street Ventures group, Gratzi is the *least* expensive. But tho' I've been lucky enough on business to eat at many of them, I still think Gratzi is the best, in terms of variety, creativity, and portion. Factor the conicidental fact it is also the least expensive, and it leaves no question why, for special occasions, the Gratzi / La Dolce Vita combination remains one of my favorites. Many, *many* good friends have I had the privelege of sharing an evening with at these places over the years, and so naturally when I finally have the privelege of introducing one of my very closest female friends to my closest and oldest friend *period*, it's only natural I'd invite missysedai and hoya99 there.
We had a lovely dinner at Gratzi, up on the balcony overlooking the grandly outfitted main dining room. We had an equally lovely time afterwards at La Dolce Vita. missysedai and hoya99, to my delight, enjoyed each other's companies quite a bit. That both are pretty good chefs, avid foodies, and world travellers made the conversation even more marvelous. Curled up on couches, it was a warm, friendly and happy time, one that echoed most closely another happy time, on another set of couches, with hoya99 and another one of my very closest female friends, at a place called College Perk months ago. And echoed so many other happy times with so many others as well.
hoya99 and I have been friends almost half our lives, virtually our entire adult lives, without a serious argument or break the whole way. Which has to do with hoya99's enormous good-natured patience -- the man's a Red Sox fan for crying out loud, he knows a thing or two about good-natured, steadfast patience under the most trying circumstances -- and his great heart. I suppose, in retrospect, it's very little surprise he's gotten along as well as he has with the friends of mine I have had the wonderful chance to introduce him to; and a privelege to have been his friend first and so long.
hoya99 and I have been close friends fourteen years and, as we mused together this latest time he was here, we're not sure either one of us has ever given the other a Christmas or birthday present. We've never done so -- and never needed to. Our friendship -- and our friendships in general -- wasn't ever built on the mechanical exchange of gifts and favors or the tallying of relative scales of give and take. Such calculations belong in the world of politics and professions, where it is necessary to audit human transactions and confirm always the strength of alliances that shift and switch and link and loose as the needs of the game demand. Friendships, in contrast, are built on far firmer stuff; on loyalty, on honesty, on shared trust and shared experience. I've never needed anything as proof from him of his enduring friendship with me, nor he of I. Happy surprises of stuff are neat things, and as much a joyful rush to the giver as the recipient. (Which explains the happy glee with which I've done myself a spot of mischief or two in my own past. :-) ) But the most important gifts we've ever given each other -- or that we recieve from the broad constellation of folks we're priveleged to have as friends -- were the intangible gifts of time and happy memories, of which his latest visit to Ann Arbor was yet one more.
Of my happy relationship with my family I've usually kept a clear berth from in my diary, out of a desire not to rub salt on other reader's wounds. But friendships I feel a lot safer discussing. And the friendships, like the family, that I have been blessed with were never bound by constrained time tables and traditions. We do and share whenever the inspiration strikes, and merry make the mischief way, whatever the time. (There was, for example, no discernable timing reason I can figure out why silmaril, bkleber and Jesse chose mid-October of last year to spring the happy parking lot ambush other than Turnberry's in town, let's get him now! Awww. ) Stuff doesn't make a friendship, as neat and marvelous as stuff can be for giver and recipient alike. Trust and honesty do. And that gift, of deep trust and total honesty, from so many kind folks I've been deeply honored with along the way, and is the most important gift of all.
- A birthday, in fact, is what we were doing in La Dolce Vita for the Spanish Coffee demonstration, among other things, just this past weekend. A quiet happy dinner with Ann Arbor folks, with littleholly and her boyfriend and Jesse, outdoors in the warm late evening spring, followed by desserts at La Dolce Vita, happy silly surprises (see left bottom, awww!), and silly conversation the whole way. (I'd never heard of Squirrel Fishing, for example, until Jesse and littleholly introduced the idea to me. ;-) )
A happy fun evening, like so many others in these past few seasons since littleholly came to town; since Jesse first came to town seasons earlier. And like the upcoming weekend silmaril and blueeowyn are kindly hosting me for when I come to NIH in a few weeks time. As with hoya99, so too with so many of those folks who have in the years since, all of them -- all of you -- who have so generously given me their friendship and their trust, a progression of happy moments, the collection of which is the primary purpose of this diary...
- La Dolce Vita is Italian for "The sweet life". And such would be as apt a description of that which so many of you so kindly give to me, for which, I can say only this: Gratzi. :-)