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Japanese Pork Ribs That Bring Balance To The Universe

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by Andrew Morrison | A couple of things caused me to take the above photograph in poor light after several drinks.

First, three nights ago I sat down at a new brewpub and excitedly tucked into a half-rack of pork ribs. Tuesday – both the waiter and the menu assured me – was rib night. Since I highly regard both Tuesdays and ribs, how stoked was I? Game on.

Unfortunately, the ribs that arrived were dry and face-smashingly over-seasoned. My poor beer was nothing against the ensuing thirst, like a caged nightingale whistling unheard at a Slayer concert. Imagine the Dead Sea Scrolls covered in a red-brown salt solution and baked for six days in an oven made of jerky. Now eat them. With your mouth. No lie, I seriously considered ordering a glass of milk to make the horribleness stop. Milk, I say, in a brewpub.

Granted, the place had only just opened and I fully understand that beer – not food – was their real specialty, but c’mon. Sinning against BBQ on a Tuesday is bad enough, but doing so in a brewpub? Well, that’s some inquisition-worthy shit right there. I’m not even remotely religious and I know this to be the case.

The second thing is that I had a crazy hunger-hankering during the one hour Restaurant Rumble break the following night. And what does one crave after watching dozens of men and women from the restaurant industry try to beat the living shit out of one another? Ramen, of course!

So I ran over to Gyoza Bar on West Pender before the title fights started, only to learn that they only do ramen at lunch. Crestfallen, like any sane person would, I tucked into meat-stuffed bao buns instead.

They do several DIY bao spreads at Gyoza Bar. The one I ordered included a pair of pillowy bao buns, sweet soy glazed meatballs, a side of spreadable wasabi chimichurri, cuke kimchi, lettuces, and some tsukemono-style vegetables. Tick-tock. Can’t wait.

Imagine my shock, awe, and inner dialogue doubt when the wooden board arrived and I saw a perfect, beautiful, beckoning half-rack of ribs dominating the presentation like an apology. Was I hallucinating? Only my family (and a couple of random strangers) knew of my bad rib experience from the night before. No one else knew. Were these ribs a weird telekinesis-delivered hybrid of guilt and longing, 3D printed in the flesh by some newfangled sorcery?

I asked my server for the menu again, and saw that – miracle of miracles – the board actually included the ribs. They weren’t an edible olive branch sent by an omnipotent brew god (I still would have eaten them either way), but rather a serendipitous twist, an innocent correction of an unrelated crime.

But why put a bone-in half-rack of ribs next to a couple of bao buns? It made about as much sense to me as putting a whole fish next to a couple of hot dog buns. You’re just not going to put one inside the other. But perhaps, I considered, it’s a gaijin thing. I don’t know. And who cares? The meatballs were juicy and delicious; the tsukemono cauliflorets had nice picklish tang; and the wasabi chimichurri gave me ideas. The ribs were just extra, like discovering a dry-aged porterhouse cooked medium rare in a bowl of hot buttered popcorn.

But were the ribs better than the brewpub’s? My own ribs would have been better, torn from my body and lit on fire. So yeah, they were significantly better — delicious, even, and I returned to the night’s violence a very satisfied man.

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