100 servings!

100 servngs!, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

Yup. I managed to consume 100 servings of wanko soba at the main Azuma-Ya restaurant in Morioka. In case you're wondering about the scale of the photo, those bowls are about the size of a small miso soup bowl. They each contained about a mouthful of soba.

The way wanko soba is consumed is quite the thing. Your place setting has your main bowl for eating soba, a "spittoon" for excess soba "shiru" (sauce), a side order of tuna sashimi, and a number of things you can add to your soba. There are rules to eating: you remove the lid from your main bowl (hang on firmly!) and your waitress drops a serving of soba in it. You eat that and she replenishes it. Repeat the process. After your third serving you're allowed to drain your bowl (I think that was the rule). You can add stuff such as "tororo" (ground yam), ground radish(sic) and mushrooms, a concoction containing beans, wasabi, green onions, bonito flakes or other "condiments". The general trick seems to be not to chew on your soba. Just swallow.

The pace of replenishment is quite brisk. The next serving is in your bowl pretty well the second you finish the previous serving. Just the thought of that makes me feel full. Each time the waitress drops some soba in your bowl she'll say something like "Hai, jyan, jyan" or similar. At some point it becomes a bit maddening as you swallow your soba, take a breath and watch the serving land in your bowl.

The only way to end this cycle of consumption and replenishment is to place the lid back on top of your bowl. Once you've done that then your meal is finished. In a way it's a relief when you throw in the towel and call it quits.

Anyways, for my efforts I was rewarded with a small wooden plaque noted with the date of my accomplishment and the number of servings I had consumed. Everyone gets a printed certificate with the date and number of servings but those who get to the century mark get the wooden plaque. I found out about the wooden plaque when I was at 90 servings and about to call it quits. At around 98 servings I just about heaved. Luckily I was able to quash that impulse and I hung in there for the last two bowls. I certainly didn't regret putting the lid on the bowl at that point in time.

Other things about my trip to Morioka:
1) It's still funny watching people who drive expensive import cars having to get out of their vehicles to walk around and get their parking lot tickets out of the machine mounted on the right side of the parking lot entrance.
2) I wasn't aware that Morioka was the hometown of Yonai Mitsumasa. His life is celebrated in the city hall of notable citizens. One of the other people recognized in the hall is Nitobe Inazo. He is the person whom the Nitobe Garden at UBC in Vancouver is named after. I learned that Nitobe passed away in Victoria, BC. Also he had married an American woman in a Quaker wedding ceremony. He was an exceptional educator and also a diplomat having served as an under-secretary of the League of Nations.
3) Another Individual mentioned a fair bit in Morioka is the late Miyazawa Kenji. The name "Ihatovo", his Esperanto version of the old name for Iwate, "Ihate", pops up in a lot of places. It turns up a on banners promoting tourism for the city and Iwate. I know of Miyazawa from the anime movies "Night on the Galactic Railroad" and "Ihatov Fantasy: Kenji's Spring". The latter is a biography which depicts all of the characters as cats.

My guide for this weekend trip to Morioka was Mr. Ito, a friend of my father. He had met my father when he had visited Vancouver and Victoria about 10 years ago. Victoria has been a sister city with Morioka since 1985. One story Mr. Ito told me had me laughing: Years ago when he worked for the city of Morioka he often went down to Tokyo for various meetings. He and his compatriots always seemed to get a chuckle out of the Yamagata contingent when the meetings were held in the winter. The Yamagata folks would show up wearing their big rubber boots (which usually are calf high if not almost knee high). One winter the Yamagata delegation showed up wearing rather normal dress shoes. When asked where their boots were they replied they had left them stored in coin lockers in the train stations back home.

Anyways, I've written enough for today...

ttfn!