Ryoshi No Mise (EN)

The Old Man is sitting on a plastic chair, slowly smoking a cigarette.

”Are you open?” I ask.

Gently he brown his head, and a kind of smile starts designing on his face. He opens the palm,  with tortured fingers looking like branches of a vine, bent by the arthrosis of someone who, all his life, has earned a living with his hands in the water. He taps three times with the other hand, indicating 5+3: food is served from 8 onwards.

Ryoshi No Mise, I hope the transliteration is correct, “Fishermen’s home”: it’s a coffee shop run by an elderly couple in the northern suburb of Wakkanai.

He is a fisherman until dawn, and when the sun marks the shadows, he becomes a chef, preparing food in a kitchen where I would not fit standing. His wife handles the clients’ orders, running between the register, refrigerators and kitchen, paddling back and forth with the dining room, which is, of course, in a separate part of the house, forcing her to jump outside in the courtyard constantly.

I want to see this in Winter, when temperatures can easily drop below -30c.

She is always in a hurry, but also always kind to pay attention to any new guest.

Few minutes after 8 in the morning, I order my breakfast here, on the extreme land of Hokkaido Island in Japan. I master the local language still far below what could be an acceptable set of few words: google translator and a few photos helpme better: hotate, uni-don, kai-jiru. Scallops, sea urchins and a cockles miso soup.

While I sit in front of a gas grill, the old woman arranges the scallops on top of it, leaving me also a semi-burned wool glove to move the shells without injuring my fingers..

You eat in silence, and once finished it’s time to make room for another guest, while the table is quirky cleaned. Dishes are delicious. I can feel the taste of the sea on my tongue, a freshness that only fish caught for a few hours before can have.

Food simplicity transformed into a culinary delight, The bill comes to 15$ in total, including free-flow green tea: this makes me smile thinking about the cost of sea urchins on a table in Singapore, Milan or Dubai.

I get in the car, heading south, I will drive along the coast for a long stretch before turning left, towards the center of Hokkaido, getting into Furano tonight.