Beijing Boyce

As noted here, I did not attend the opening of Nobu Beijing, but that didn’t stop me from imagining it. A short diary…

5:11

Ate a fish taco: It felt as though the essence of the Pacific Ocean exploded in my mouth (minus the radiation from Japan, of course).

5:14

Ate a second fish taco: This time I felt a bit more Atlantic. Multi-ocean flavor explosions. Brilliant.

5:19

Met a half-dozen women I know from my pilates class. I kiss each on both cheeks, which equals twelve cheeks in less than 30 seconds. This party is already awesome / the event of the year / full of beautiful people, including me (it’s all relative, they say).

5:27

My third fish taco. These are a hit. It is as though someone took one hundred fish, extracted the most delicious one percent of each, and used those parts to construct the most epic taco of all time. Imagine a master Swiss watchmaker painstakingly handcrafting a fine timepiece from one hundred tiny parts. Except the watches are tacos and they are hard to keep on your wrists.

5:42

I run into Lee Mack and Blake Stone-Banks from City Weekend. They double-kiss me. Cheeky buggers. They tell me they just made a deal to extend their track suit line to include an outfit called The Nobu with pockets that perfectly fit a fish taco.

5:56

That fourth fish taco was so delicious that I’d eat it again even if that meant every panda in China exploded and left a crater the size of Wuhan. That’s how utterly incredibly inexplicably delicious it was.

6:03

Matsuhisa Nobuyuki is less than two meters away. I want to tell him that I changed the name of my pet goldfish from Finding Nemo to Finding Nobu in honor of a certain you-know-who but I lack the nerve. So I just stand there and breathe deep and I tell you — the man emits a special odor. It wafts cuisine. He is the master taco-maker. And he smells like it.

6:10

Mmm fish taco. These are so good it seems like the kitchen team is trying to give us multiple orgasms in our mouths. A guy near me excitedly says, “They should call it The Nobukkake.”

6:11

Spilled some of that last fish taco on my burgundy cashmere smoking jacket. I will never wash it again.

6:12

I still can’t believe it: I SMELLED NOBU!

6:15

Jackie Chan glances my way and I say, “You lookin’ at me?” He giggles at my Robert DeNiro joke. I ask where DeNiro is and, after faking a few Raging Bull-like punches to my chest and giving me a double kiss, he says, “Probably at The Den. You know him and half-price pizza.” We both sigh.

6:22

No fights yet. Interesting…

6:31

I’ve double-kissed over 120 women so far. Exotic given most of them hail from countries where it isn’t even the custom. I break out my third Chapstick.

6:42

I spot executive chef Oyvind Naesheim. I approach and say, “Hey, we’re Facebook friends!” He ignores me and returns to a heated argument about puffer fish.

6:46

Oops, just got an SMS. Only 45 minutes left for happy hour at Flamme. Gotta run and get some of those RMB25 Vespers…