Kodoku no gurume (Japanese Food Drama) Season 4 Ep 4 Watch

This episode makes me want Japan meat right now. The way he does it.

I don't eat beef (because cows are cute) & seldom eat meat (pigs are cute too & so are chickens that I read are abused by sadistic slaughterhouse workers & I don't like the taste of meat), but this episode just plain makes me Crazy for it!!!!

How does he eat without messing up his mouth every time?? It's amazing. Is it even possible he can eat so neatly without film cuts? Not a smear, his lips ain't even oily. Hmm... But he did eat it or at least chew it. ARHGghh.... Mou!! Eii! (Enough!). The more I think, the more I don't want to think.

With the previous episode & this one, the show is warming up again, just like Season 3.  Lighthearted,  comedic & with lovelier food than episode 1.  (Episode 1 was disappointing).

When he first sits, he starts taking off his jacket which I find rather sexy, the way he takes off the other side (closer to the woman).  [Reminds me of Lee Min Ho shyly taking his jacket down his shoulder as a favor for a friend's friend who wanted him to do a spray can ad in Personal Taste.] 

I love his movements. Even though he is very tall & large-framed, he is very graceful. Look at the way he holds the glass of Oolong tea & sets it down gently with his long fingers. 

Goro-san, in his immaculately well-pressed & starched white shirt, doesn't even look at the pretty girl. (where do they find such pretty girls??).   I have been noticing that he never looks at pretty girls in the show. **

But he looks at the meat like this:

The meat:

While it's on the grill, he wafts the smell to him with his hands & says, "This smell is dangerous.". He says "dangerous" in English & smiles as in the 2nd pic.

He first ate this. He says "Tonsoku". Pig's feet.  It's the first time I've seen him using his hands & spitting out the bones into a bowl.

Sucking it. I wonder if maybe that's why they got a man for the show? Eh, no. They had to get a man because the manga character is a man. I don't know... is that feet meat really that good?

After those slabs of meat, he's still as usual, able to order more. Where does he put all that food?

Here comes the soup that I love!!!! Lemme have it!!!!! Such torment watching him slurp it off his spoon....ARGGHHHHHH....!!  Damn him.  I bet the broth is from pork or beef bones. Should be very very nice & flavorful. (It's odd that he looks thin but he actually eats so much? Does he really?).

I love the egg in there. Here's where he has added his 2nd bowl of rice into it. The 1st bowl was eaten plain with his meat. It may seem very plain, but Japanese rice is really fabulous like that on its own. Really. Back when I was in a grill shop in Japan (I didn't know it was a grill shop), I was given only 3 little strips of chicken neck fillets to grill, a bowl of rice & just a small plate of very few pickles. Yet it was the best meal I ever had. A tad expensive though (something like $15).

After that 1st bowl, he then called for another bowl of rice when this soup arrived. And he got the idea of putting the rice into the soup (as I was also thinking of doing).

While the young girl flirts with the 2 machos, Goro-san is completely oblivious. Because he's in heaven.

             It's that good. I've never seen him do this before. Scrapes everything & keeps scraping.

 

Next episode #5:   Also making me nuts!!  I love the rice. There's Tempura!

I've started wondering whether the shops request the film crew to go there to help them publicize their food. I know all the shop staff & customers are hired to be in the show.  Obviously, everything has been prepared beforehand.

By the way, he never loosens his tie. Even on a hot summer day. No sweat either.  In this episode, he dabs his face with his handkerchief but there actually isn't any perspiration. Pretty amazing. This episode is the latest & it's hot summer weather that's causing heatstroke in elderly Japanese folks at this time. 

I love the background music. Keep whistling it.

** In Ep 2, he does look at a pretty woman behind a glass window, but that's because he just happened to notice her looking at him while he was considering the men's wear display.  In return, he just bows politely & quickly walks away.  Her reflection: she looks like a stewardess for Japan Airlines... so pretty...

EAT @ JEM Review

Thurs 24 July about 6.15pm.

Plenty of seats even though it was dinner time. Now I know why.

Young woman cashier was attentive & waiting even while I stood outside the place talking to Bro about what to order. When I walked up to order, turned out she's a foreigner (Indonesian?).  She asked about my Laksa specifics in off-sounding Hokkien/Chinese but still understandable (slim noodles? Sea hum?).

But I didn't like her the moment I found out she's a foreigner.  She didn't look clean either.

She busied with something, and only when she put the bowl in front of me (with noodles and some bean sprouts) on the glass counter top, then I realized she had been preparing it. Odd.

So she doubles up as cashier & food preparer?  Shouldn't the man who is doing the cooking do it?

After that, she said $4.30, took my money & gave me the change in my hand. Rather ... polite but... This is the oddest and most unprofessional EAT outlet I've been to. 

I went to stand where the man was doing the cooking.  I didn't see how he did it, but when he put it in front of me & I took it in both hands, I was surprised the bowl wasn't hot.

When I started eating it, the soup wasn't hot either. What the heck did he do?

Other than that, it tasted Ok because I was hungry. Then I saw a strand of short hair curled around a white noodle.

Must belong to the man since the foreigner cashier has longer hair that's tied up in a ponytail and capped.  The man has a clean cut look, but his hair must have fallen in.

Was at first reluctant to order from this shop. But Bro & I walked round the place & didn't know what to eat. Since we have tried other EAT outlets elsewhere before & they were Ok, I thought this would also be Ok.

Bro didn't eat here (he ate at Yoshinoya that's just across).

This EAT at JEM looks a little dingy & unclean. I shouldn't have stepped in.  Luckily,  my sensitive stomach was Ok after that.

Avoid.  Other reviewers have complained about their service (I only know this just now when checking reviews after I have already eaten).


** After removing the short strand of hair... I still continued eating a little more but that was it.  A strand of hair won't kill, although it can be gross. It's straight hair so it's from the head, not down below.  I know some people would rather stop the moment they see a strand of hair, but ... that's a full bowl & as mentioned, I was hungry.  Although a strand of hair won't kill,  it does show that it's better not to eat here, not entirely clean. It's also not the first time I've come across a place that has hair in the food. Second time.

Some years back,  I found a rather big piece of green glass in my bowl of noodle soup at a hawker center. I complained to the women & they merely apologized.