The Mecca of Chefs

Banquets settled down, so I started to search for a way to serve better food. Takashi would come to work every day at 1:00 PM and the first thing he would do was go pick up his food from the storeroom. He was the shit. He ordered stuff that I had never heard of like Turbot, Brill, Loup De Mar, and my new favorite fish John Dory (aka St. Pierre). I would show up in the storeroom everyday at one just to see what he ordered. I would also spend my nights off in Takashi’s kitchen. I would just stand there and ask him not only what he was doing, but also why he was doing it. It was a fun little game to him, because he would never tell me. He would just make me guess until I got it right. His answers were short and simple: If I was right, he would say, “That‟s correct.” If I was wrong, he would say, “No.”

He would cook anything he felt like for his guests. Whenever I was there, he would pass me a small plate to try, as he went along with his evening. I remember the first time I tried John Dory.