Speed Screed: Specialty Restaraunts

In Japan, there is a curious culinary phenomenon that is partially influenced by Zen philosophy: restaurants that only serve one type of food. And I don’t they only serve Chinese food, or Indian food, for example. I mean this restaurant only serves tempura. Or eel.

The idea is this: A place that serves only tempura will necessarily serve better tempura than a place that serves tempura along with other items. This idea is logically true first and foremost on an economic basis; if a place only serves one kind of item, then people will only go to that restaurant for that item, and it’s success would logically be predicated on whether better tempura is available anywhere else, including other more general restaurants. Since it’s a sink or swim proposition, they have to make good tempura to succeed. We’re used to this phenomenon in the States mostly in the form of sushi bars. Hell, in real sushi bars you don’t even get to pick what you want; the chef just gives you what he wants, or what he thinks you’ll like.

The Zen part comes in with the “doing one thing to the point of mastery” idea. That’s the philosophy behind the Zen tea ceremony, for example. The actual performance of a tea ceremony, in terms of formal steps, is relatively simple. But the ability to do something perfectly and yet naturally is the heart of learning any discipline, including martial arts. You may think the analogy somewhat far-fetched, but this can even be applied to cuisine. Some guy who has been making tempura for 30 years is going to turn out perfect tempura every time. And perfect tempura every time is how one keeps a tempura-only restaurant going. As well as how one keeps it profitable; after all, if you’re dropping twenty bucks for a couple pieces of tempura, you’ll be happy to do it if it’s amazingly good, and quite pissed off if it isn’t. Such is the delicate balance these specialty restaurants maintain.