Rintaro

A stone courtyard separates Rintaro's entrance from Rintaro's dining room.
Tables reveal themselves as you approach and Rintaro comes into focus.

Who works here,
Who's been here for a while,
And who's in charge.

Everyone here seems comfortable.

They get along,
They move fluidly,
They came to play,
And you can feel it.

I worked with a group of people who loved food. 

Some loved it a little too much,
like when someone is a little too into scotch.

We had a lot of opinions on food and we discussed them all of the time. Someone could name a restaurant in the city and someone else would know who owns it, who works there, if the management is abusive, and what the food is like. 

Where you chose to eat said a lot about you;
where you recommended someone eat said even more. A bogus recommendation had the potential to define you, your taste, and your competence in the culinary field. 

“Who told you to go there?”
“I ate on their parklet once and they made me sit next to a pile of shit!” 

We all thought we had good taste.
We all wanted to be the person people came to when they needed a new spot. When you recommended a restaurant to someone at our restaurant, you had to bring the heat. 

Before visiting Rintaro, I was urged to go three times by three different coworkers. 
Since visiting, I have spread the word,
and I have gone again and again. 

It doesn’t take long to realize that Rintaro is cool. 
Real, effortless, not trying to be cool, cool. 
Two large windows allow warm light to spill into the restaurant's courtyard, blurring the line between indoors and out. There's an architectural term for this effect but I'm out of my element.

The interior of Rintaro is built entirely out of wood and glows a deep yellow. The cooks are focused, the servers are relaxed, and they have Asahi on draft. 

Rintaro’s place setting features a glazed ceramic share plate, a matching ceramic platform to rest a rolled damp towel, and a small piece of clay to lift the tips of your chopsticks off of the table. Everything about this feels unmistakably authentic to Rintaro and I’m not even sure I know what that means.

Something I am sure of: the food at Rintaro is outstanding. And everyone who's been feels the same way. The sashimi melts away, the yakitori is served with a cured egg yolk for added richness, and they occasionally offer a whole fish that is edible head to tail — a friend of ours said he would choose to eat the head of the fish at Rintaro again as his last meal. 

The closing moments of a meal at Rintaro feel like coming down from an acid trip. Your brain has been firing endorphins typically reserved for our most extraordinary experiences. Everything is so satisfying, so rich and refreshing and indulgent. You need a moment to take it all in. 

Eventually, it’s time to walk back out into reality. 
Rintaro is a block from the freeway and surrounded by warehouse spaces — a poetic contrast. Rintaro is a light in the darkness. Religions are built around places like this.