Tetris Effect

What on earth could be interesting about another version of Tetris?
Well, how about if it was made by the same person, Tetsuya Mizuguchi that did Rez Infinite - a game so affecting to me that truly nothing could be the same again [link]^[1] . That was always going to pique my interest and it was further piqued by PSVR support. I wondered what would even be the point of VR for Tetris.

Tetris, itself, is a stone-cold classic and left the ”games” world to enter into the real world with the incredible success of the Gameboy version. I’m a huge fan and it is arguably the game that I have played most of all. It was my “T” in my “A-Z” rundown and that is probably a better guide to the basics of Tetris although I would be surprised if many required a primer on this particular puzzler. Tetris is about creating space to be ready for the future and filling an absence. What we are doing, when playing Tetris, is making gaps to fill later - it is the making gaps that is the game, filling them later is almost an incidental part of the process. Filling those gaps is satisfying, no doubt, but it is only satisfying in the sense that you have prepared for it. And that preparation is all about managing risk using the probability of pieces - what are we going to get and how can we use it? As you get better and better, you can have a plan for each eventuality which is pure risk management. Because you are working in this way, this is actually management of negative space^[2] which is quite counter-intuitive. I think this is what appeals about Tetris - the anticipation is so enjoyable.

In many ways, it might be easier to list how Tetris Effect differs from the versions we have all played before and the biggest gameplay alteration is the use of variable speed throughout the game. I say, “throughout the game” but actually, once you start, there are two major sections to choose between - “Journey Mode” and “Effect Mode”. Journey Mode acts as a type of campaign mode and see you start off a series of 27 levels (or skins, as they are often referred to) grouped into bundles. The Effect Mode has a number of different variations on classic Tetris gameplay with different scoring mechanics with similar gameplay. As you unlock skins for Effect Mode by reaching them in the Journey mode, it probably makes sense to go through the Journey first to unlock as much as you can to use in the Effect Mode. There are some nice modes included with a number of variations on the theme with combo modes, speed runs and a weird infection mode too. The meat of the game, in my opinion, is the Journey mode however.

Variable speed is an interesting gameplay choice and one that was taken in Lumines - the musical puzzle game Mizuguchi released in 2004 to coincide with the launch of the PlayStation Portable. The effect of this variable speed is to lengthen a given “run” so rather than being a spurt of gaming with growing intensity, it has the ebb and flow of an album - a Journey in fact. This had quite a weird effect on the way that you played it in that it could last for a very long time within one run and had the effect of transporting you through the game and you felt that you were playing with it rather than trying to beat it^[3]. It also lends the game an experiential air rather than the score chasing mechanic that you come to expect from a puzzle game. I think that this is also true of Tetris Effect which, although it does have an explicit scoring system with grading, feels like a trip or a journey into and through the game. There are periods of intense pressure - and Tetris has a suffocating pressure as you tip so easily from manageable to "impossible to salvage" - but there is always a chance that the game will give you a chance if you can get to the next segment of a level that has lower speeds.

The start of the Journey mode is indeed slow and it does not speed up significantly for a while, it guides you in with a very calm hand and music that is both welcoming and sparse. Those first few sections are a great introduction to what Tetris Effect does and with such a relaxed pace, you can rack up the points with Tetris after Tetris.

The key differentiator with Tetris Effect is the connection and that connection is built through the sonic and visual flourishes that accompany your actions. Each time you move or rotate a block, that is accompanied by a sound effect which changes depending on skin. This is pretty standard in games - jumping in Mario will play the jump sound effect. And, as in Mario, that sound effect latches you into the game. Each line you clear will also generate a sound and a visual trick of some kind - a colourful particle explosion^[4] that is in some way related to the skin you are currently playing. This hardly sounds groundbreaking - this is just videogame mechanics. But, The Beatles (see Yesterday (2019)) were just guitar, bass, drums and vocals. The choices made by the development team to create that connection is on another plane with all those sounds making sense of what is around you in a way that seems barely human. And what a selection of sounds and visuals that have been created here, truly taking on the journey aspect of the game. Starting off in the deep, deep sea with whale sounds and effects to link you in, it is striking from the first minute. The initial minimalist soundscapes are layered on as you get more lines and progress through the stage with whale sounds accompanying the line clears. The next stage mixes that approach up straight away with an "in your face" set of sounds and music resetting your feelings and preparing you for an eclectic and always interesting selection of music through the journey.

With classic Tetris being so well known, there is a school of thought that Tetris Effect is just Tetris but prettier and with nice music. I can’t disagree but “just” is doing a hell of a lot of work here, and elevates a game that is already at the pinnacle of the genre to a geostationary orbit above it. It is worth thinking about what the purpose of those pretty graphics and nice music is and what they are doing to the player. That isn't a side effect of the game - that is gaming in a nutshell. The enjoyment of doing interactions is surely all that gaming is. Is that side-effect, what art is, in a nutshell? Invoking or evoking emotion into the "observer" is surely one of the defining traits of art. This isn't a debate worth having - Mizuguchi is an artist and so much more layered on top of that.
Tetris Effect is an absolutely stellar addition to the world of gaming with top tier graphics, an exceptional soundtrack and gameplay that fuses Tetris, a game that many would argue has claims to be a perfect game, to that visual and audio tour de force. And then layers a coherent and beautiful virtual reality implementation on top of it.

I can't really recommend this highly enough. It might not hit you in the same way, but it is so, so simple to at least try.
Honestly, I was really looking forward to this and many have said that it can be a transcendental experience and the pinnacle of what VR can do, and I do sort of agree with that but for me, this does not quite match that moment when it is all connected in Rez. But to be the second most transcendental experience (I have had) in all of the time I have been playing games is not a bad recommendation. Please do play.

Come follow me
I'll show you the side of yourself
The person that you've always been
But never dreamed
-------------------------------------

<sup>1. This was pretty hyperbolic in 2016 but I do still stand by it - “Rez Infinite is an incredible experience and game and I am not honestly sure that anything will be the same again.”↩
2. At school, many years ago, I used to do a subject called design and communication. I rather enjoyed it as it was about presentation of ideas. At the time, the teacher used to walk around and offer comments on our work and one time, he mentioned that one of my drawings was very good use of negative space. This brought a lot of laughter and mocking of my work by some friends as he seemed to basically be saying that the bits I didn't do (the white space) were very good. We all understood what was meant but it was still brought up even decades later!↩
3. Although it was very much trying to beat you!↩
4. These particles are used in a similar way to the particle effects in Rez Infinite's Area X which lends an impressionistic air to the explosions. ↩</sup>

Carried Away (2019)

One of the incredibly fortunate things about the way that I have grown up is that I have ended up being acquaintances with some very interesting and capable people. One of my friends from school (who I used to sit next to in Maths and Physics over twenty years ago! This feels like a less than standard path to being “in Theatre”) entered a playwriting competition for the first time:

We are looking to choose 12 pieces around the theme “Carried Away”, that are no longer than 4 sides of A4 paper, and need no more than 3 actors. They say restriction breeds creativity…

Although this was originally meant to be at The Lion & Unicorn in Kentish Town, and so rather convenient for me, I found myself, instead, at The Drayton Arms in SW5 - not NW5.
I asked whether this was a collection of retellings of the Miyazaki classic Spirited Away but it was not, it was a number of short plays based on the theme of “Carried Away” but with different titles.
I was, ostensibly, going to see “Jessica” by James Taverner^[1] but would obviously watch the others.

I got to the pub and then entered the theatre, but without the information sheet explaining a little more about the evening’s performances. As I found out later, there were two parts to the performances and fifteen plays altogether. Now, the thing about that information sheet was that it also had the names of the plays and the order they were in - so I was going in blind^[2] which was quite an enlightening experience. Unencumbered with the knowledge of which one I was supposed to like, I was able to watch the plays with a bit more freedom to like or dislike. The first part had a number of decent plays of differing types and with quite different ideas on what “Carried Away” could mean. It is worth saying that the competition entrants also had no idea what other pieces were entered so there was also not that sense of self editing by the entrants. There were a rotating cast of actors that switched roles and plays to go through them all. It was quite impressive to see them (and all very close - the benefits of an “intimate” venue) running through these varied roles that were nominally connected by the Carried Away thread. I liked about 60-70% of the first half which isn’t a bad hit rate for the cocktail of ideas presented. Importantly, I did not know if James’ play was in that 60-70% or not. I found out within the interval that it was not…

I enjoyed, most, a play about a woman on her wedding day being told by her brother that her husband-to-be was a knob. A short play like this can only ever be a little conversation but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

The second half did include the aforementioned Jessica and I can say that this tale, told through the rather neat conceit of a speed date, was probably most to my taste of all of the plays. I guess that this may partially be due to my tastes overlapping with those of my friend’s but I think it was also just a very good monologue. It told a tale of the use of technology and asked questions of the audience around the nature of ourselves, our memories and that which we leave behind which I think I have referenced multiple times throughout my blog. It was sort of lucky that I did not have to do any socially acceptable lying^[3] when James asked how it was. The second set of plays was probably a little more enjoyable overall and I had a good evening although the venue was very warm. I might search out more of these kinds of things (or, of course, I might not, as is more likely with my motivation) as the short plays have a structure that I can get with and even if I do not like an individual play, I am probably already quite a way through it by the time I realise! Also, the smaller plays will often have the cast and writers hanging out for a drink afterwards which is sort of fun.

In the unlikely event that you will be able to attend, Carried Away is by KDC Theatre and is running 9 - 13 July 2019.

<sup>1. I have actually mentioned James before, somewhat obliquely, when I revived my old Japanese blog [http://walletsandswords.blogspot.com/2013/07/revival.html] as he was living in China at the time and had started his own blog.↩
2. More blind than normal - don’t mock the afflicted.↩
3. I am a terrible liar anyway.↩</sup>

Yesterday (2019)

I like Danny Boyle and I like The Beatles, so why would I not like this? And therein lies a meta-question at the heart of this film - would the songs by The Beatles be popular if they were not by The Beatles?

I went to see this^[1] largely off the strength of it being by Danny Boyle rather than The Beatles as there is a lot of Beatles stuff. As a director, he has an interesting collection of films and he isn’t afraid of trying things out - and they definitely don’t always work. I always thought of him as someone that likes to challenge himself and might put obstacles in his way or try to achieve the best he could with limited resources^[2] . I do not think he has tried anything quite like Yesterday before - his last “feelgood” film I recall was Slumdog Millionaire and that had rather a lot of torture and pain for a proper feelgood film.
Yesterday’s setup is pretty simple, a jobbing singer-songwriter (Jack) is having trouble getting anyone to like his self-penned songs as he plays around local pubs and hotels Suffolk. Having played yet another poorly received gig in a small tent at the Latitude Festival, he decides to jack it all in - fed up with it all. Although his friend and manager, Ellie, tries to persuade him otherwise, he has had enough. And in this daze, he cycles off confused, annoyed and frustrated by it all. This state of mind isn’t conducive to safe cycling at night, especially in conjunction with a weird blackout and leads to him being hit by a bus. When he comes around he finds himself in a world where the Beatles have not existed - but he still knows all the songs. This, he discovers after singing “Yesterday” to some friends and discovering that they really like it (although, comically, it is hardly “Fix You” by Coldplay). What a power to have. It leads to a meteoric rise - but what happens after the rise?
The film answers the question of the Beatles’ songs by saying, “Yes, they would still be hugely popular”. Bereft of context, musical narrative and some of the pure innovation of The Beatles, yes, they would still be popular if heard for the first time. In this instance, the pure songwriting of The Beatles is being tested with no play made to the instrumentation nor the avant-garde production techniques pioneered George Martin. But that is just the music - none of the extra-curricular elements, none of the charm of the Fab Four, no Beatlemania, no Wings^[3] , no Imagine, no Thomas the Tank Engine, no Concert for Bangladesh. In a way, the absence of all of these elements to concentrate on just the music makes you realise what an amazing force they were in just over seven years (1963-1970). And what music.

The questions asked of me when watching this, however, were slightly different to the original one. Of course, it is still a point to ponder how much we can ever separate the art from the author and whether some of that art would ever have got a fair listen without the weight of previous history. But I think we can all agree that an album with Octopus’ Garden^[4] would be unlikely to be a multi-million seller without The Beatles previous work!
The creative process is a mystery to most of us and there is an argument to say that competence is doing something we know of very well but genius is doing something that most cannot even comprehend. So, within the film, when Jack is asked where all these songs are coming from, he can appear to legitimately say he doesn’t know. He keeps drawing from the well as he needs to but he is effectively communing with another world and drawing influence and inspiration from the multiverse. Is this really what genius is? I am not sure the film presents^[5] it like that - this isn’t a metaphysical exploration of the creative process - it is a much fluffier film than that. This is fundamentally a feelgood romantic comedy and more Richard Curtis than Danny Boyle.
Throughout the film, Jack is drawing on the past and so he knows that it is not creative, he comes up with post-hoc justifications but he knows himself that it is not real. There are some nods to imposter syndrome here which I kept returning to - the belief, or fear, you are about to be found out as a self-promoting charlatan is one that I have (and one I wish some more people in government had). Again, I am not sure that it was meant to be presented as such but the exploration of this theme did end in people just being happy about good things rather than wanting to see Jack’s failure.
As a film then, I have to say that it lacked some of the flourishes I was hoping for and really was played pretty straight. To go back to the premise, this was not something I could have pegged as a Danny Boyle film particularly. The whirling nature of the bus collision (which is very early within the film) was the closest I felt to directorial flair. The soundtracking at this point alludes to Beatles songs without being explicit - it felt very much like “A Day In The Life” and this method is used through the film. It is fairly subtle but will set the mood for the scene without quite being the “fanservice” that many will want. There are some interesting shots sprinkled in but nothing that really sears into your mind’s eye. But, sometimes flair just gets in the way and I think this simple film is not trying to be provocative or trying too much. Similarly, thinking too much about time warps like this is not worth the effort - be comfortable with suspending your disbelief.

The questions asked of me by the film are less relevant than the questions asked of me by people talking to me - “would I recommend the film?”. Yes. It is enjoyable crap - simultaneously memorable due to the content and yet fairly forgettable due to the softness of the whole thing. And sometimes, that is exactly what you want - whether you know it or not. It is genuinely quite a happy film with the skeleton of a great soundtrack - but the real songs are better.
It may not be the best film I have seen with a title shared with a Beatles song (that would be Helter Skelter) but definitely worth watching for fans and non-fans alike. If nothing else, I hope some people are introduced to the complete spectrum of music of The Beatles^[6] as then the world really does end up being a better place.

The trailer:

<sup>1. I saw this at the ever-reliable Barbican. It had an older crowd than the last few films I have been to see with quite a few older than even me!↩
2. For example, I thought he made Trance as an object lesson in what was the best you could do with a terrible film.↩
3. Wings? Who are they? Only the band The Beatles could have been. ↩
4. I use this for effect, I quite like it actually and is a component of probably my favourite album by The Beatles - Abbey Road.↩
5. But, how the film presents itself and what I get from it is often not the same thing.↩
6. as I was only ten years ago with the album re-releases↩</sup>

Brexit Day 29/3/2019

As the infamous Brexit Day (29 March 2019) passes us by with nary a flicker of change in the UK position, I can't help but feel irritated at where we are. Where I am is Poland (when written). My work cycle of seasons almost dictates my leave^[1] pattern and so I usually book some time off in March before my year end (I work for a company with a March year end and I help to create Statutory accounts - check them out at Clarion Investor Relations) work kicks off. This year, that happens to coincide with a weekend so I took the last week of the year off - mainly because I also wanted to be out of the country on Brexit Day. I had no desire to see the gurning faces of victory (and the potential disaster on day one if the many things not thought about had still not been thought about). Poland seemed appropriate for a few reasons.

• I hadn't been to Poland before
• I knew a few Polish people and I even liked some of them (this is soft power)
• Poland, as an Accession (2014) country, was arguably the reason why British people wanted to leave the EU.

The third item seems debatable but I'm happy to have that debate any time. Not one to go to one place, I decided to also go to Ukraine as it was neighbouring, I'd not been there either and I knew a few Ukrainians that I liked. And as it happens it was in an odd political space being pulled by Russia as an ex-Soviet state and pushed to the EU by desires to be a functioning part of the continent.

I travelled in a similar vein in 2010 when Cameron came to power which I didn't want to see. And like 2010, it hasn't quite been as smooth a transition to the next stage that I had feared. It has been a different kind of shitshow altogether.

Brexit has been a chastening experience, all told, and has seen me feel varying degrees of detachment and attachment to the UK as time has worn on. My blogging had always been a way to order thoughts (link) and pretty effective in making me feel better. The process, and the results, of that blogging has been having positive effects but I've been a little less forthcoming with posts (other than gyudon related posts)of late. The reason? Honestly? Brexit. Brexit has been quite debilitating for me and making sense of it all has been a journey that is unending and unyielding. I don't think I have been operating at what I thought was my normal level for a while now. I've tried to gather my thoughts on Brexit a few times but it is really hard to go back far enough, to order them in any meaningful way and also not become exhausted with rage.

This feeling has been pretty obvious to some and less obvious to others but it has asked some questions of me that I probably didn't want to answer. Chief among them -”Do I belong?”

Is the UK racist?

The interesting thing about this question is the difference between “is the UK racist? “ and “are British people racist?”. That's probably for another time, to be honest, but there would be different answers, I think, to those questions.

Running through my life as a Briton and Londoner, I'm not sure I noticed much racism within my lived experience^[2] . I cannot think of any that I comprehended at primary school and just some odd comments at secondary school that were passive rather than active. Racism wasn't on my radar at all and I remember, at secondary school, hearing about some form of prize or scholarship for minorities and wondering how that was fair. My school friends were all “white” to me to distinguish them from my friends via family who were largely of Bengali descent. It was only later that I realised how few of my “white” friends were actually white - it was a fairly classic multicultural environment.

University was my first, extended exposure to people that were not from London (or even cities at all) and, like a reverse of so many people that escape from small towns to the fresh air of University life, I was met by a new life. I didn't particularly like university life and regularly felt out of place in ways that I had not done before. I don't think this was racism either, in the main. But I do remember people often being a bit off with me in the first few weeks. It felt a little like a monoculture, to be honest. So far, so quiet.

After university, I went to Japan and that opened my eyes, a little more, to racism (in the sense of prejudice based on race). I taught English and the disappointment in some faces to be taught by a British person like me seemed palpable (but never voiced - so it could be paranoia). I think I generally won them over but that little kick of disappointment is one I sense in other situations now^[3] . I went to Japan in 2003 and the other big global event in that year was probably the Iraq war. Anti-Muslim sentiment ran high in the UK^[4] at the time and there were a few marches. One of those marches was said to be the biggest in modern political times^[5] and I was fairly anti-war at this point. I went to a demo/march in Tokyo too and my representative status there really gave me food for thought. If, for whatever reason, I'd been caught up in anything (such that the embassy would have to step in), I have no doubt that I would have been vilified by the right-wing press. How much would I belong to the British citizenship at that point? The biggest impact, however, was not my lived experience but my observed experience. Japan is a pretty monocultural environment and most of my friends there were other teachers - usually white. Some were very aware of, and sensitive to, (perceived) racism towards them in spite of not actually being able to understand Japanese to any real level. The classic exemplar of the time was when two white female teachers (and friends at the time) sat on either side of a Japanese woman on a train and the woman offered to swap with one. She offered in Japanese but also motioned to explain so that the friends could sit together. This seemed pretty kind and considerate to me (I was, of course, standing) and the teachers accepted. Afterwards, however, I was told that the woman had offered her seat because she didn't want to be surrounded by “gaijin” (foreigners ^[6]). This was claiming victimhood^[7] and made me think of all the things that they would definitely dismiss as not racist if it had happened to me in the UK.
One thing I've learnt is that British people are not racist (or xenophobic). They can't be - they are better than others. Brexit feels like this dissonance made flesh.

We were all representatives in Japan and I didn't take that responsibility lightly. I felt the weight of responsibility from a young age (maybe five or so) when I used to go to Bangladesh with my parents. I don't think I was ever told this, but I had to be engaging and Bengali enough to represent British Bengalis as part of the culture. It probably was never going to be enough for some - as I felt on later visits. In the same way that I will never be British enough for some people and, caught between those two stools, sometimes it feels inevitable that this means falling into the abyss.

Returning to the UK in 2006, it all seemed fine in my lived experience but I could see more and more anti-immigrant rhetoric from the mainstream media with the added benefit being that it could not be “racist” because we now disliked some white people too (Romanians [Farage says this: link], for example). This was the poison injected into the country's bloodstream and the amazing wrongness of the position was clear to me and then made even clearer at a talk I went to by David Goodhart [link]. That takes me to 2013 - and not June 2016. June 2016 was not the beginning of the sense of it, it was a tipping point though and I felt the split a month before the vote [link] when I visited Yorkshire. Ultimately I have not really suffered directly but have seen and heard enough to feel anxious about my place. And not just my place, but the place of people that are not like me and the fact that the clarity of Goodhart's position is never swayed by facts. And he is meant to be a clever one. The Pandora's Box is clearly open and I'm not sure if it can be shut soon.

This all predates the referendum itself and is worth pointing out to the many that seem to think it was all OK before that. But, it was better. The difference is how much people have been emboldened by now feeling that loads of people are actually racist/xenophobic like them.

The referendum and all that has come after it has absolutely shaken my sense of belonging to the country and also my belief that people in power actually knew when they didn't know something and would then defer as a result of that self-awareness.

I often feel like an alien in the UK and I also feel burdened with this sense that people that hate immigration actually hate me. And that I have not done enough to make them not hate me - and by extension anyone else, other people considered as immigrants, that is lumped with me.

I don't think people necessarily realise the pressure that some people from minority groups can feel in the representative sense. I know that my actions will, for many people, define a whole group of people. If I act badly, many will see that as people like me acting badly. For white men, they will not tar all white men with the same thing.

I have always thought this, but travelling with a friend recently reminded me of this disconnect more. I thought of how I try to stay calm and not raise my voice when speaking to staff at airports/airlines for example. And how if I spoke any differently, I am far more likely to be hauled away. As one of them.
I'm not coping well. I look around and wonder:

"Why are you not concerned?"; "Why do you do nothing?".

And then I think:

"Is it because you know you won't be first against the wall?"; “Is this solidarity?”

Brexit has sort of broken me, to be honest, by breaking that sense of belonging. And we all need a sense of belonging, we all choose what group we decide to belong to, to some degree but some of those choices are taken away.

I don't know how to put this really. I have a sense of loss. A disconnect from society. I guess I always knew that they never really had my back but then tried to pretend it wasn't the case. And I always felt that the "they" here were not as numerous as they are.

But they probably are that numerous.

I'll never forget, of course, but I'm also not sure I will ever forgive.

<sup>1. This word. This word… ↩
2. I was clearly aware of it outside my circle but, as someone that didn't go outside of London much as a child in the UK, I didn't feel it. I felt at home here but I didn't know that particular feeling was what I felt - I didn't have anything to compare it to. How would anyone feel at home if they've never felt not at home? ↩
3. Usually, when I tell people I am an accountant, for example.↩
4. More often called Islamophobia now to the disgust of racists, such as Melanie Phillips, who think this is a made up word. Because, of course, most words are given to us from up on high as any etymologist would tell you. ↩
5. Some are saying that the Brexit march of 23 March 2019 which I missed due to this holiday in Ukraine might have been bigger. ↩
6. I use this word as this is the word they knew for foreigners and is often pejorative (instead of gaikokujin). ↩
7. I think claiming victimhood is a major driver of the right wing's populist movement and this can be seen regularly in the claim of being against an elite and having an incredibly pliant media still be against them. ↩</sup>

ロン丼牛ドン / London Gyudon 09: Dozo Sushi

In all honesty, the well is running somewhat dry for this project and each new entry is requiring more and more effort to do. Paul found a place in Willesden (Sushi Masa, visited in a previous form: Sushi Say) but I didn't particularly feel like the journey so persuaded him to visit Dozo Sushi instead. We were going on a Monday and I'd never heard of it before the Sunday (the day before) when I walked past it. I often walk past Japanese restaurants and now I try to check the menu to see if I can add some water to the somewhat dry well.
Situated in Soho, on the outskirts of Chinatown, it had a good location and competition nearby in the form of Eat Tokyo (Holborn branch visited) and plenty of others further afield. This suggested it had to be good in order to keep competitive and there would be plenty of potential customers^[1].

We met at quarter to seven on a Monday evening so I was surprised to see a fairly lengthy queue out of the door. This seemed a positive point to recommend it and the majority of those people had oriental^[2] skin - this had to be good, surely. I checked inside about the queue and was told to wait outside which seemed obvious but is always worth checking in case people with bookings are queueing. This queue was constantly outside the door, even once we went in, so it was consistently popular throughout the evening. As Paul and I do understand, to varying degrees, Japanese, it took moments to confirm that the voices we heard in the queue were not Japanese and so, the chances were, that the people were not Japanese either. As I have mentioned quite a few times, this is not a factor that particularly bothers me but it is worth thinking about what you would think of a French restaurant that had groups of German people in the queue. Or an Indian restaurant with mainly Bengali^[3] patrons.

Once shown to our seats (which were sunk into the floor in a pleasing Japanese touch), we were told that we had a 90-minute time limit for our seats which made the popularity of the restaurant even clearer. Ninety minutes isn't too bad but the fact that they have to say at the beginning, almost a caveat emptor, it really drove home how popular it was.
Of course, we ordered two gyudon and the sides were some yakitori and some nasu dengaku (a sweetened aubergine dish) that seemed to be a decent size. We didn't wait too long to have cutlery and soup delivered to the table. I'm not sure "delivered" is the right verb here, it was placed on our table without eye contact or words spoken. There is a school of service where you are invisible to the customer, placing things there as they need them without bothering them. This requires an understanding of how you may be inserting yourself into the customers' evening which is fine - this was not like that. Here the items were delivered to us, placed in approximately the right place but not with a comment, just put there. Not particularly carefully, and not subtlely either - it was the worst of both schools of service. I am not usually bothered by this, it is a kind of service I often like - quick and direct. The soup was, however, not particularly hot and although I wasn't bothered enough to mention it, Paul did actually ask for it to be replaced. The yakitori, which was pleasant enough, was next but was just a skewer each, as we knew, and so was more of an appetiser than a side/starter.

Next was the gyudon itself, quite a bit later and served in large, stone(ish) bowls that gave the impression of a bibimbap and looked like neither a gyudon nor a bibimbap but was definitely beef with rice underneath it. Other than the beef, there was quite a lot more to go with it with veg and egg to go with the beef and the dish is described as "sliced fillet of beef with shitake mushrooms, carrot, onion & seasoned egg on rice". These extras are not things that I have seen before in Japan or outside Japan so it was an interesting idea. In the end, it reminded me of a chicken katsudon (which has a chicken cutlet and soft egg fried and sort of scrambled with it to give a sweet combination) but with beef and some other veg too. The other food was off-putting and the chunky meat was absolutely not what was expected. It felt like all of the different ingredients were working against each other and the bowl as a whole seemed to lack flavour while, at the same time, being full of flavours drowning each other out. I remember describing Peruvian food as full of flavours being piled on – as if they were bored and just said: "oh put this in too" but that is done with some aim to get to an end goal. Here, it felt careless and lazy and like a concoction of leftovers without something that binds them together. Some of the best food around is made of leftovers but it needs something to make them work. After having almost finished, the nasu dengaku was brought out and this ended up being more appropriate than we had imagined when ordering as the sauce was so sweet! I rather liked it in the small doses but Paul scraped the sauce off after the first mouthful. I am a bit of an aubergine fan so I did enjoy it subjectively but it wasn't a particularly good nasu dengaku objectively. It had the sweetness of a dessert^[4] and I am not usually a fan of Asian desserts. We did get given the dessert menu afterwards too, which was a nicely presented set of wooden boards, that I felt was quietly impressive.

Dozo Sushi is a strange restaurant and although I was not expecting much, I was not expecting that. It is so popular and that is something that I did not really understand from what I saw. The menu was reasonable but not cheap like a number of other restaurants – and so not cheap enough to be a proper USP. In essence, this felt like Chinese food dressed up to have a Japanese look which was not what we were after. The decor was appropriate enough but it did, after eating the food, feel less like a Japanese restaurant and more like a Japanese chain restaurant in China. That does not mean it would not appeal to lots of people and I guess that explains the queues and general popularity of Dozo Sushi - I can only assume that it has been to the taste of a guidebook writer that has added it to their list.
After finishing up, we had been there for an hour but less than the 90 minutes we had been allotted and we wondered whether we should stay longer to use the time^[5] we had been given even though we had nothing left to order. We didn't. Also, rather tellingly I did not utter the words "gochisousama" (see link for explanation ) upon leaving for two reasons – a) the food was merely OK; b) I just don't think anyone would have understood…

I am not sure that I would go back to Dozo Sushi at all. The gyudon we have had has been fairly mixed in quality but this was definitively the worst and furthest away from expectation. Unlike at other restaurants where the gyudon has not been great, there has been a certain je ne sais quoi that makes me think that the gyudon is not a fair way to judge the overall restaurant (most notably at Machiya) but here, the gyudon really feels like it pointed to the approach here and it felt like Japanese food cosplay to some degree. Not what I am particularly after and I would not recommend to anyone else, really.

Cost of gyudon: £9.80


Dozo Sushi
32 Old Compton St, Soho, W1D 4TP

^{1. In spite of this location, there was actually something about it that made me think it might not be that good, and had altered my expectations accordingly. It was probably the fact that I had not heard of it.↩}

^{2. "Asian" for those schooled in the American ways.↩}

^{3. This isn't a simplistic position, most of London's Indian restaurants seem to actually be Bengali - and they were the same country for much of the past.↩}

^{4. This did not stop us from getting some actual dessert, in the form of ice cream, afterwards from Amorino. ↩}

^{5. This discussion reminded me of a piece of research that I had read about in Freakonomics (http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/) where parents at a kindergarten would come later than they used to once fines were introduced to (ostensibly) discourage lateness. It was then seen as a price for lateness rather than unacceptable behaviour and treated, as large companies around the world do when they don't like laws, as an operating cost rather than a deterrent.↩}

ロン丼牛ドン / London Gyudon 08: Kurumaya

Finding places that do gyudon is getting harder and harder to do now but there are still a few around. Google Maps seems to have recently started pushing me restaurant information through the android app which is actually quite useful. I think it has worked out which places would be of interest to me and put this restaurant in my feed a while back. Kurumaya is a mini-chain of two restaurants around the city area and we chose to go to the Barbican branch as it was said to be more intimate.

Upon entering, the restaurant was surprisingly empty and felt like the kind of place that was going to shut for the day in half an hour. In fact, it felt odd enough for me to check that it was indeed open. That is usually a terrible sign for an eatery but I am a little more aware of the economics of dining in the area - it may be more of a lunch spot and so could still be very good and popular^[1] yet still empty. I think we were the only people in the seating area of about 20 - at least the service would be good. As mentioned in the Tokyo Diner comments (link), non-Japanese staff (or at least those that look non-japanese) can put people off and the staff here were not apparently Japanese - two things now that would put off the wary. Again, I don't subscribe to that view but worth mentioning.

Obviously, we ordered a gyudon each but the sides were open to change and we went for a salmon and avocado "california roll" and a spinach salad as the supplementary parts. The sides came first so we had them before the mains partly because they were so good, we did not want to wait. The rolls were quite well balanced and delicate while the spinach was simple but with the magic of sesame dressing - what more could you want? More dressing, I guess. The gyudon itself, that was quite a dark colour and not what I would expect from a gyudon. A lot of the taste can be seen from the photograph in all honesty. It is glossy and thicker than I would like with a bit too much sweetness. The beef was thick and "good" and accompanied with a salad that seemed quite out of place. As now seems to be more common at this part of the project, the bowl of food was acceptable but it was not like the gyudon I expected. The rice was also flavoured by the meat but also the salad and other bits that went with it. This wasn't something that I particularly cared for but it tasted quite nice - although not quite the kind of thing I would return for.

I have to say, I am not sure that I would recommend the restaurant from what I saw. The gyudon was not great and although the sides were nice, probably not enough to come back for when there are other, similar places that are easier to get to. I think it would be good for lunch based on a hunch more than anything else. I might try that hunch out.

Cost of gyudon: £12.50


Kurumaya
74-75 Long Ln,EC1A 9ET

^{1. This is a more common thing in the city, or "business districts" in general. I've often wondered what it must be like to come to London on the weekend and go to the city without knowing too much about it. London would be quire dead and you'd wonder what the fuss was about.↩}

ロン丼牛ドン / London Gyudon 07: Tokyo Diner

The West End welcomed us again as we headed to Tokyo Diner via an aborted visit to Japan Centre ^[1] I had been to Tokyo Diner before and was a fan of the simplicity of the food and menu - I am not sure it has ever changed. The restaurant has been going for a while and, strangely for Japanese restaurants in London, was not staffed by Japanese people but a mixture of nationalities although they did still use smatterings of Japanese in speech with the ritualised greetings and goodbyes. I think this is the kind of thing that makes some people doubt the quality and "authenticity" of the food without trying it which does annoy ^[2] me a little. Although it is difficult of things that don't annoy me a little.

Of course, we both ordered gyudon and the sides, this time, were tofu and broccoli. As we had both eaten here before, we were kind of aware of how the sides would be which meant fairly basic but solid. I enjoyed them both with their subtle, simple flavours.

The gyudon tasted quite different from each of those we had already eaten and it wasn't clear straight away as to whether it was good or not. Visually, it looked right as it wasn't too dark and the beef looked suitably stringy. It was, however, not quite right and the meat itself was a little flaky like tuna which made the whole dish feel a bit weird.

I like Tokyo Diner and the service and selection is very good overall. It is located really conveniently near Leicester Square on the edge of Chinatown so is a good place to meet. The gyudon wasn't what we wanted and the flakiness of the meat was just not the right texture for us but the restaurant as a whole is definitely a recommended "starter" Japanese place. It is odd because the sides were also not great (although they were good) so it is odd to recommend but this is based on much of the rest of the menu which is quite decent and is very easy to eat. The restaurant is very welcoming and the staff are helpful and friendly with an ambience that lets you linger.The menu is written in a charming way and there is a clear sign that tips^[3] are not expected nor accepted and if for nothing else, that is reason enough to support the restaurant.

Cost of gyudon: £9.30

Tokyo Diner

2 Newport Pl, London WC2H 7JP

<sup>1. The initial plan was to have gyudon from Japan Centre but a misunderstanding of what was in the menu meant a reallocation and a walk over to Tokyo Diner.↩
2. As does this idea that restaurants on holiday must be good if they have lots of “locals” in there. So does Burger King, why does that rationale not work for Burger King?↩
3. The dishes are arguably a little more expensive than they would otherwise be so the total amount paid is similar but is much more transparent. In Japan, it is not often that you pay service charges - the food itself includes that price.↩</sup>