By: Atty. Marlo T. Cristobal
(This is a reproduction of what l wrote sometime ago that l wish to share in the website of Banateros to give its viewers some information for their guidance in their trip in the future, or simply for their reading treat).
Our family decided to have a third crack for this year at Japan’s patent beauty and excitement, to have a close encounter of the third kind (pardon for the copycat of the phrase of the multi-awarded movie in the 70s of the same title) with the land of the rising Sun that now takes pride in its culinary exoticness and unbeatable toilet technology.
On our second day in Tokyo from arrival on December 22, Byron herded us, together with Byron’s friends from the Philippines, Dada and Yui, to where his friend Sacho, a resto-bar-karaoke tycoon in Tokyo, invited us to dinner at Kiranah Garden in Koto City, a big, sprawling ground where several canvass-roofed dining tables are separately set up. A few feet away lies a big swimming pool where right on the water itself are likewise bar tables set up beside sofa and chairs. One side of the Kiranah Garden stands a structure that houses a bar and a row of private rooms walled by clear glasses that render them see-through private rooms. Here private parties enliven the rooms with wild noise and music and grilling of meat and seafood. Aside from the meat supply of the place, we grilled in our room a lot of seafood we brought in from the Ueno wet market.
The place is basically a high-end resto-bar-ihaw-ihaw joint but its sprawling resort aura enchanted me no end that l was stirred up to dance which was made offbeat by the harsh chillines of the weather that night. I unleashed steps that looked more of a ritual dance of a red Indian about to engage in a tribal battle or a pitiable dance of an old man in dementia. What is worse, my wife caught my daring, shameless act that she video recorded it to gratify her amusement and reckless plot to show it in public, in violation of my privacy. As they say the rest is history, my dance became viral in ridicule.
On our third day, we went to visit the crowd drawer known as the Starbucks Reserve Roastery of Tokyo, whose size is simply overwhelming as this Starbucks roastery is housed in four-floor building in a big land area. This is where Starbucks myriad exotic coffee concoctions, that include coffee laced with alcohol, customers throng to take a sip of the elaborately processed coffee. Its customers take a long queue before they are allowed to get in any of the four floors to enjoy their coffee. We patiently queued up to take our turn to go in for more than an hour. Imagine that! I was wondering if we were not like adulating a false God.
We also have our local Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Tagaytay, that my family visited, too, some months ago. But this is just a mere speck of the version of the one here in Japan. Japan’s Starbucks Reserve is a world class in size and operation. Byron told me there is only one country that can challenge Japan’s: Italy.
If you have a discriminating tongue that has developed through the years a sharp taste for good coffee, the coffee beans from the Mountain Province or even Mcdo coffee, for that matter, cannot certainly be outmatched by Starbucks coffee in taste and flavor — yet they do not enjoy the long patronizing queue of Starbucks. What gives?
I can only surmise Starbucks’ magic lies in its novelty as a coffee, its aggressive marketing initiatives and its flair for style — never, never its coffee taste.
Note for instance this come-on catchphrase advertisement hanged above a hall of the Starbucks: “We are ready to share our love and passion for coffee.” In substance, this statement message really means in truth, in my own paraphrase, “We are ready to share our fad and fashion of our coffee.” As you watch the personnel do their job of catering coffee, their equipment and their coffee concoctions, you see all the flair brimming in everything. How can you beat that in these times when people take more pleasure in form, rather than in substance. I will let them be enticed by the flair and style of their coffee, l will take my Mcdo coffee in its authentic taste and aroma— in its substance.
Even if l have to take my tasty coffee in a small, dingy shanty!!!
(Note: Above was written on December 25, 2023)
