About 3 decades ago (1989) a boy and his sea-faring father went out in a remote Japanese port town (Yawata? Shimizu? Nagoya) . It wasn't a town for sightseeing but an industrial one, and the purpose of the visit was to visit a doctor to get some medicine for the boy who suffered from mild sickness. On the way back both of them felt very hungry and it was a long walk back to the ship.
In the entire trip, they had eaten all meals only in McDonald's, for it was only there that they knew what to order and what to expect. This was not a town that was frequented by foreign tourists and all restaurants were local with all-Japanese menus.
They walked into some traditional eatery and just ordered a random bowl of noodle soup with some broken Japanese that the father could speak. It was a dark brown broth with a fragrance of burnt onion in soy sauce with seaweed, strange purple noodles and slices of tender beef. It was an unforgettable experience, a culinary adventure, probably the first time the boy experienced the distinct taste profile of a dish rich in umami.
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33 years later, in a 30 year old Japanese restaurant (Dahlia) in his own hometown (Chennai that is Madras), the boy rediscovered that dish that was hidden deep in his memory.
Niku Soba.
Among so many things that parents do for their children, from birth to adulthood, unique experiences and memories such as these are probably the most subtle but unforgettable gifts.
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