“I Leave it Up to You”

by T.S. Cuccia

The wait to be seated for our 6:00PM reservation at Namo is short and deliberate. Nestled beside a permanent jewelry store and a spa also claiming to be an “apothecary,” the sushi bar in Dallas’s West Village has caught our eye before—it’s dark, tinted windows and elusive signage obscuring what’s within—but tonight, we become the mysterious patrons behind the glass. It’s late May, and while the heat is still bearable, it serves as a warning of the summer to come. We are asked by the host to wait with the other guests on the patio before being brought inside, one couple at a time, to our seats at the U-shaped bar. A. and I are to be served sushi omakase-style—meaning chef’s choice—an exclusive, Wednesday-only offering for a maximum of fourteen guests. We’ve anticipated this to be a religious if not deliriously indulgent experience, and thus one we’ve been saving for a special occasion.

Happy anniversary to us.

Barely wider than the bar within, the interior of the restaurant is small but sophisticated, simple yet unmistakably cool. On the back wall, inset in floor-to-ceiling wood are rows of whiskey bottles tightly shelved, their labeled bellies shown proudly outward. Behind us on the wall are additional shelves and more Japanese whisky punctuated by pops of red: a Takashi Murakami skateboard deck and two LPs—a Japanese edition of a Stones album and a well-worn copy of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

We are propositioned with the first of only two selections we’ll make ourselves: “Still or sparkling water?” As in, Acqua Panna or San Pellegrino? Already, we’re in love.

The second selection is sake. A semi-dry for A. For me, a glass described as pear and round. I choose it because it reminds me of my favorite line from the movie Meet Joe Black in which Death (Brad Pitt) chides Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) for speaking about love in “round, pear-shaped tones.” Don’t you love that? The poetry seems an appropriate prelude to the evening ahead: a promise of sensory pleasures abundant as ripe fruit in the summertime. 

There are three sushi chefs behind the bar, one head and two sous. A. and I watch hushed and reverent, eyes wide as children’s as the head chef—a handsome Japanese man, bald with high cheekbones—lifts a length of white fish from a wood box to lay it on the cutting surface of the counter. He draws his knife’s blade along its flesh like a bow angled along a violin’s strings.

His cuts are elegant. Precise.

The first piece of sashimi is served on a blue and white plate the shape of a four-petaled flower. Painted gold lines curve from edge to center. The fish—kochi, or flathead—is transparent white, delicately rolled and topped with a tiny purple flower (what kind, I am too shy to ask). The chef explains that the sauce, so clear and light I’m not sure it’s sauced at all, is a soy reduction made with bonito flakes.

A. and I smile and nod, pleased with ourselves for recognizing the ingredient. “We love bonito flakes,” A. tells Chef. “At home, we make cat rice.” Cat rice, a simple Japanese recipe we learned from a charmingly low-budget Netflix series called Midnight Diner, consists solely of steamed white rice, soy sauce, and a topping of bonito flakes: the fragrant, salty shavings of smoked and fermented skipjack tuna.

This makes Chef laugh. “You like that?” he asks, and I’m not sure if he’s questioning our taste or if it’s surprising to him that two Americans know cat rice in the first place. “When I was young my mom used to yell at me for that,” he tells us.

“Really?”

“She was old-school,” he continues. “You know, nothing on the rice. Not even soy sauce. You’re supposed to enjoy the flavor of the rice by itself.”

Each bite of food for the body is preluded by a feast for the eyes. The chefs in their close-quarters dance of prep and presentation. Their bare, graceful hands perfectly manicured as they grind fresh wasabi into paste, shape soft rice. All the surfaces are warm and wood. I am reminded for a moment of the old butcher-block countertop in the apartment A. and I would eventually share, where on my first visit he cooked me a simple meal of summer squash and rice. I remember how quietly he moved then, how humbling it was to be cared for that way. At the heart of my favorite memories with A. there is always a meal—modest or extravagant—that we are enjoying together.

In Japanese, omakase means something like “I leave it up to you,” but what I’d anticipated to be the free-styling performance of an experienced jazz musician reveals itself instead to be a carefully curated setlist of intentional cadence, the thoughtfulness of which extends into every detail. Each of the first five servings are presented individually on small stone or ceramic plates unique to that bite, a backdrop chosen consciously to compliment the fish placed upon it. I’d listened to an episode of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s podcast Wiser than Me in which she interviews legendary food writer Ruth Riechl. In it, Riechl explains that she tries to describe food not by referencing flavors, but by transcending flavor—comparing the taste of food to an experience so that someone who’d never had anything like it might understand the feeling evoked by eating it. For example, she compares eating a soufflé to catching a snowflake on your tongue: “it just evaporates.” I think about this, and I think about uni, the sex organs of a sea urchin, which holds a place among sushi’s delicacies. While it’s true that uni is undeniably oceanic, underlying its flavor is something more grounding and sensual than seafoam. With each small, wooden spoonful, the pumpkin-orange meat recalls the bubbling excitement and warmth of a first kiss,  not unlike the one I shared with A. in that little apartment four years ago today, when a friendship was alchemized into something deeper, more devoted, more precious. 

During the second course, A. asks Head Chef what question other guests ask him the most. He thinks for a second. “They want to know what my favorite fish is.”

We too press him for his answer.

“I don’t like sushi.” He shrugs and smiles. He likes fried chicken. “And French fries with ranch,” he says and mimes dunking fries—not one, but a greedy bundle of them—into an imaginary side of ranch. We laugh and so do the other chefs. We agree that Mike’s Chicken is superior, and Head Chef gives me an enthusiastic fist-bump. I beam.

For all the sophistication of the sushi ritual, the staff and other guests are friendly and relaxed, and we begin conversing more with one another as the night (and the sake) flows on. We learn that to the left of us, a mother and son are celebrating the mother’s birthday. She, like A.’s mother, introduced him to sushi as a young boy. They take a typical vague interest in us. How long have we been married? In what neighborhood do we live? Are we from Dallas? When they ask what we do, I want to say, I’m a writer! In my head, I am writing right now!, but A., sitting closer and more easily heard, gives our day jobs.

I gather from eavesdropping that I am the only person in the restaurant for whom this is their first omakase experience. Moreover, while A. has had omakase in the past, it seems that we as a pair are the only two who haven’t actually been to Japan. (Most others, I gather, have been at least twice.) Needless to say, I am out of my league. This is, by a comically-wide margin, the most expensive meal I’ve ever had. It’s worth it. And whether I belong here or not, I feel so glad to have the chance to be. 

I am uncomfortably full by the time service is over, but I can’t miss a bite. We end the night with miso soup, tamago (a sweet, fluffy bite of egg custard), and a yellow scoop of yuzu sorbet in a little glass dish. The images of the evening are settling warm and blurry in my mind, softened by sake and the food-stoned feeling brought on by raw fish. I didn’t want to take pictures or notes for fear of interrupting the experience, and as I begin to worry I’ll have no momento of the meal, the waiter brings around a single printed note card for each guest. It’s a typed menu for the evening which lists each fish, first in Japanese, then English, followed by the city in Japan from where it came. In the lower right corner is today’s date.

I might frame mine.

A. does indeed have our trusty film camera with him, and before we leave he asks the waiter if he’ll take our picture. “Would you mind getting the chefs in the background? Is that okay with you?” he asks them. They oblige. I have yet to see the photo, but I imagine it will look something like this: Behind the bar, the chefs standing a little apart and (I hope) smiling. In the foreground A. and I, his arm around me, our heads together, my belly (I worry) visibly full, and my eyes (I’m sure) shut from smiling so widely.

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