A Night at Yess. Or, a Meal That Came So Close to Never Happening
The third dish from my evening at Yess — a grand little restaurant in downtown L.A. that reminded me so much of my time in Kyoto before realizing that I’d never been to Kyoto — changed my life. It was something called the “bloodline karaage.”
Chef Junya — don’t worry, he’s cool; you’ll get to meet him in a minute — sliced up the bloodline, the dark, bloody, iron-rich cut of tuna that Google will tell you to either dispose or turn into bait. He turned them into little fried nuggets that tasted like if haggis and oden had a crispy baby.
When I said it was life-changing, I didn’t mean it in the sinner-at-the-revival-tent sense. Most changes in life don’t feel very dramatic. Sometimes you come across an experience that doesn’t hurtle you into a new world so much as they complete the one you’re already in.
Here’s what happened.
One of my favorite people — chef Norberto Piattoni — called me last Thursday. He was in town for a job and had made a reservation at Yess for four people, but for one reason or another, they’d all stood him up. He was looking for a backup dinner date. I wasn’t insulted. Having lived in California for most of my adult life, I was well aware of our flakey reputation. People can get pretty shameless about skipping out on engagements, and weirdly, the flaking usually occurs in pairs or triplets, too, and next thing you know, you’re led to a big empty table by your pitiful self, frantically checking your phone to see if there’s anyone who could bail you out of your last-minute solitude.
I understood Norberto’s panic, but I couldn’t join him: I had a very, very late lunch, where I piled every crispy, spicy topping in my fridge atop several bowls of steaming white rice. It was very satisfying, and paralyzingly starchy. Plus, we were in the middle of a heat wave. Plus, I was broke. Plus, I was all dined out. Maybe it was the side effects of being a food photographer, or maybe L.A. is still recovering from the strike and the town still feels a little empty due to all the travel jobs and side hustle. But either way, in spite of Yess being on my list, who can get out of bed to try a new restaurant in a time like this?
I felt like Jackie Chan at the beginning of “Police Story,” chambering these rounds of alibis into my little state-issued revolver, cocking back the hammer, and aiming it at the double decker bus that is Norberto’s desire to avoid dining alone.
But here’s the thing about my good friend Norberto: his English is god-awful. I mean, he’d come a long way, but not long enough to grasp “paralyzingly starchy” or “I’ve been blue all summer for seemingly no reason.” Or maybe he just didn’t care. He told me dinner was on him, and that I could show up full and watch him eat if I wanted — but he fully expected me to be there in 90 minutes. Just like Inspector Chan from “Police Story,” the bus was stupefyingly close, but I missed.
OK. Fine. I took my rice-mandated nap, dragged myself there, and by the time the smoked toro showed up, my English must have also regressed — because one bite later, I also did not know what starchy blues meant anymore. All I could think about was how this cartoonishly skinny chef in front of me burned a bunch of hay underneath these cute slices of a freshly caught bluefin tuna, and by the time it made contact with my palate, I felt like I was simultaneously getting knocked out and cradled.
I didn’t even know what to say — I just instinctively pulled out my camera, like I was on assignment, and snapped whatever was in front of me. It had been a while since I photographed my food for personal reasons. Obviously Yess was a gorgeous place. Obviously the techniques were fascinating.
But I think the reason I pulled out my camera was perhaps more childish: I just wanted to make sure it happened.
Chef Junya had fascinating stories about his menu. It wasn’t the rehearsed bit you’d typically hear from a chef to make you feel better about spending your money. He’d talk about how he came upon the ingredients (he was as good a forager and deep sea fisherman as any purveyor out there).
But I couldn’t even bring myself to ask any follow-up questions — I just wanted to see if I could follow him into the kitchen with my camera. It was an odd request. He had no reason to say yes, but he did anyway.
Norberto vouched for me, “he’s a professional photographer,” he said to Junya. Perhaps that’s legally true. But in that moment, I didn’t feel very professional. In that moment, I just wanted to get close to the smoke, and the fire, and the faces, and the fact that I was so close — so stupefyingly close — to missing everything.
Pete Lee is a director/photographer based in Los Angeles. See more of his work at ohpetelee.com and @ohpetelee.
