Like I said, I’m not super sophisticated in my taste, but I’ve been to places like Blue Bottle and Four Barrel, and Grumpy and Stumptown, and Chinatown Coffee is my local shop, but BPE was by far the sweetest and most chocolatey I’ve had. Of course, he’s aiming for that extreme so it makes it difficult to compare to other shops with different goals.
I think he had just opened BPE in 2009. I’m surprised it’s still open, as when I was there he and his wife were preparing to go back to the US to stay for a few months and do their green card interviews, which seemed to augur a move back to NYC. Then again, the whole No.8 thing doesn’t make a ton of sense for someone so rigorous, but it shows he isn’t totally adverse to letting others make his product while he’s away.[quote=“teapot, post:20, topic:28681”]
In terms of customer relations it’s excellent. Staff are usually friendly everywhere, even when dealing with drunk-ass salarymen shouting for service on a Friday night, but in many places if you ask for something that’s not specifically on the menu or the way they normally do things you’ll be met with the staff and even managers telling you your request is “difficult” - Polite Japanese for “ummmm, no”.
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I’ve had Japanese tell me that the make-your-own concept behind Subway is challenging, because you have to make so many decisions, and they can’t imagine having to make choices between dozens of car insurers, health care plans, etc. Too much choice leads to a kind of counterproductive paralysis. They probably have a point, especially to the extent having a competent food professional design a sandwich menu almost certainly leads to better gastronomic outcomes than some yahoo deciding to slap together this and that into a grotesque frankensub.
I can imagine that being true, though Subway was starting to open up stores and take off there 6(ish?) years ago.
The one that blew me away was when I asked for a coffee that was only sold in a medium size to be sold to me in a large size (they had large cups for other drink types) and I would pay twice the price. That was, amusingly, too “difficult” a request to fulfil because the manager couldn’t figure out how he’d ring it up on the register.
There is a definite “craftsmanship” or “expert” persona to skilled trades (be it swordmaking or cooking), where it is really actually considered rude to some degree to assume that you as a consumer could ever hope to understand the product as much as the person who has dedicated their life to producing it. Therefore, you asking someone to modify their menu, or produce something out of their normal production is considered quite egotistical. (i.e. that’s why when you sit at a “real” Japanese sushi bar, you do not order your favorites, you humbly ask the chef for his recommendation.)
As such, it can be hard to get Japanese customers to tell you their preferences (even if you are requesting them). You will inevitably be told something along the lines of “whatever you think is best” or “Whatever you normally do will be excellent I’m sure”.
The US, presumably. But that’s what I get for picking the highest-quality version of the clip, I guess.
I was struck by how much better constructed clothing was in Japan. I mean, not only was much of it made in Japan, but shirts were made with better fabric and details not seen except in the priciest of Western clothes. Split yokes, real shell buttons, and unfused collars, cuffs, and plackets were common. Very few shirts in the West offer these features, especially if you want to pay less than $200 per shirt. In Japan these are pretty commonplace. I took a look at the website of Kamakura Shirts (as mentioned in the Smithsonian piece), and they have shirts with all of these features except the split yoke (which I presume is a conscious choice in emulation of trad Ivy style, since it’s the most commonly available feature), for less than $80.
Sometimes but overall not so much. By my experience the number of customers at a decent sushi shop here in Tokyo who just do omakase is pretty low. Even at high end places like Sushi Jiro, its no problem to tell the chef that you are allergic to or don’t like certain things and they will accommodate you.
Most customers have some definite preferences which they will express, even if they don’t do so immediately upon sitting down. Aside from that there has been a definite increase over time of eateries willing to support the customer’s individual preferences.
In a way, the same goes for the craftsman type trades going all the way back in history. The master craftsmen often got to be that way by listening to customer feedback and adapting their product over time to incorporate the best suggestions of their users.
