Braised Comfort and Sips of Miso Soup – Kimura

“How do you survive?”

A common question, as I poke my fork at lightly salted Easy Mac most days at work. Currently, I’m re-living high school, a time of contentment with simple things like oranges and microwaved tuna casserole. I stretched out my checks earned as a tour guide, and I hope to do the same now.

But living a little hardly hurts.

I live a street-and-a-half away from work. A convenience for both the lackadaisical and eager as I leave thirty minutes before office hours start, slipping on pants with a speed not pressured. I count chain restaurants at each stoplight. Not many, but I find few little enclaves I plan to visit again.

Modest at its antiquated outset, Kimura’s offerings of Japan and satisfaction restored my spirits during one of my more stressful weeks these first months at the job. It’s tiny, yet accommodating to commiserating coworkers and childhood friends meeting up, if just for once within the past ten years. There’s a bar to the left as you open the door, though seating to the right against well-shaded windows grants a mellow reprieve.

I arrived around noon, seeking reunion with miso soup I forgot the taste of as barbecued pork, pasta, and Nutella sandwiches were swallowed in weeks prior. I looked to the waitress, pointing to a tall, frosted bottle. “It’s vodka!” she joked. I laughed in my usual awkwardness, asked for water, and she giggled, pouring me a glass. It wasn’t vodka, but it was invigorating.

Recently, my Asian dining has been limited to pho. Which is wholesome and widely accessible here, though I craved pork, which is hard to find at good quality. I’m always one to request tofu, or the vegetarian pad thai. It’s really more of a texture thing, my aversion to most meats. But oddly, I don’t mind pork. Cue the Chashu Don.

Like the establishment, the dish wields a humility that goes a long way. Along with the soup and calming neutrality of cucumber sunomono, you get a bowl graced with braised beige and sprinkles of green onion. I’ve always preferred steamed over brown rice, so I spent my hour quite fulfilled, taking my time to slice through the meat with the same wide spoon I used to sift through my soup. I could never feign mastery of chopsticks, and I’m still too shy to request forks and knives when the setting brands them anomalous.

Here, you witness conversations familiarized by small-towny shows like Gilmore Girls. I haven’t dined here to the point of assessing the restaurant’s likenesses to Cheers, but Kimura’s no stranger to handfuls passing by. The girl who makes my coffee at the shop across Starbucks stopped to say “Hello.” A person in an office two floors below me smiled to ask, “Is it good?” as he opened a sturdy menu. I found myself looking around. At well-shaded windows, hues of glossy red, the uncrowded enthusiasm in those around, sipping their shoyu, chewing on bean sprouts.

It was a humid day. Gray, but unwilling to welcome rain. I walked to work with a cup of Easy Mac wedged between folders bent in my bag. But it’s not exactly the chicken soup that soothes. Chashu Don’s a close counterpart. Actually, it’s something more.