Ideally, my last meal would be at Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny sushi bar below street level in Tokyo. It serves some of the finest quality sushi anywhere on the planet.
I’d be alone at the sushi bar. I think I’d prefer to die like an old lion – to crawl away into the bushes where no one can see me draw my last breath. But in this case, I’d crawl away to a seat in front of this beautiful hinoki wood sushi bar, where three-Michelin starred Jiro Ono would make me a 22- or 23-course omakase tasting menu.
I’d like to eat as one does at Jiro: quickly. The rice is always perfect, the seaweed the right consistency and not soggy and the fish at the carefully regulated, preferred temperatures that Jiro works so hard to ensure.
I’d exchange a few pleasantries with Jiro-San (having miraculously learned to speak Japanese prior to this last, great meal).
I would risk displeasing Jiro just this once. He feels rice drinks do not necessarily highlight his specially grown rice, of which he is very proud, so he would probably prefer that I drink his house blend of tea throughout the meal.
But, on this occasion, I’d order the most rare and expensive sakes he’d agree to sell me. In fact, I’d allow myself to get a little tipsy. Ideally, this being my last meal and all, I could convince the master to join me.
After the final course, usually Jiro’s incredibly precise tamago (omelette), preferably while I’m still chewing, you could step up behind me and – KGB style – shoot me in the back of the neck. As I sagged to the floor, in my last conscious seconds, I would know that this night, no one on Earth had eaten better than me. Pure pleasure.
- Anthony Bourdain is a celebrity chef, author and TV personality: anthonybourdain.net
