Hungry for danger? DIY Kushiage
A big part of living abroad is finding the things in that culture that really feel 'foreign' to you. The things that you just can't imagine being a part of your home country. Like, for example, going to a restaurant for an 'all-you-can-drink' 90 minute booze-a-thon whilst deep frying your own food in your tabletop's personal vat of hot oil.At first thought it's great....greasy fried foods and lots of beer. It's a classic 'match made in heaven,' but when you ask yourself if the person drinking all those beers should be the same person making that fried food, as an American, I questioned it.
So what is 'koo-she-ah-gay' anyways? It's simple enough, just wooden skewers containing a variety of meats and vegetables that are breaded (typically in panko) and deep fried. At a traditional kushiage restaurant, the skewers you order arrive fully cooked, prepared in the kitchen by a trained professional. However, the all-you-can-eat kushiage buffet, Kushiya Monogatari, is located on the eighth floor of the Yodobashi Camera store in Akihabara and is totally DIY. It consists of 90 minutes of all-you-can-eat food on sticks for approximately $15. For an additional cost, you can add drink plans as well. One was unlimited sodas and juices, the other unlimited alcohol.
This type of all-you-can-eat (tabehodai) and all-you-can-drink (nomihodai) are quite common plans here in Japan, so that wasn't too surprising. What shocked me the most was that you sat at a table, unsupervised, mere inches away from a hot vat of oil, and there was no liability waiver to sign or legal disclaimers in sight. For someone coming from a sue-happy country like America, this seemed out right insane. What, do they actually think, that patrons are capable of being responsible for their own safety and the use of common sense? Unbelievable. In America, I could imagine personal injury lawyers lined up outside just waiting for an opportunity, and I imagine it wouldn't take long.
As we were breading our food sticks at our table and dropping them into the deep fat fryer, oil spattered around the table. I couldn't help but wonder if or how many people get burned? Then as I took a photo and held my phone over the fryer, I wondered, how many phones have fallen into the fryer? Do people let little kids do this? How is this whole concept possible? I just kept thinking...."This would never be allowed in America!"
Luckily we managed to eat all we wanted and remained unscathed, except for the mild indigestion from all that fried food!
