Why oh why do I have to like food that I cannot get where I am a lot of the time? I love certain foods here in England. French Fancies are great. So is the incredibly huge selection of creams in the dairy aisles at the supermarket. Who can deny the glorious joy of going to the "Chinese Chippy" for take out? And of course, you can ask for curry sauce at McDonalds.
But... I can never ever be satisfied. When I moved to Canada, I craved Mexican food. I craved corn tortillas, Rufles Verdes, Rancheritos and candy above all. Lolly pops in the shape of corn on the cob covered with chile are the most amazing thing you can possibly imagine, and quite possibly one of the strangest!
Here in England, I can crawl back to my original "No Mexican Food Available" space, and I feel comfortable. There's enough Indian food to fill the void as I pretend that chicken Vindaloo is Adobo and poppadoms=tostadas. I know I can survive, I have before so I know how this time.
Nobody could have prepared me for this incredible desire for Japanese Izakaya.
I had gone through sushi withdrawals when I lived in France. I know that you can buy salmon and get over your raw fish cravings quite quickly. Cucumber, cream cheese and fake crab were not too hard to find, even back then. Now you can find ingredients and tools to make your own sushi in most major supermarkets. Also, fast food restaurants like Wasabi are everywhere, expensive but it's there if you feel like you can't cope anymore.
But Izakaya is a different beast. Specially Vancouver Izakaya. I miss it. I feel like death without it. I feel like I cannot go on living like this anymore! Okay, yes, I can exaggerate sometimes. I am however incredibly surprised at these feelings. I can understand the kiddish craving for spicy candy and the natural corn tortilla cravings (Dear Old El Paso, corn/regular flour tortillas ARE NOT corn tortillas, thank you.) I can even understand the sushi craving as arguably all these foods were part of my growing up experience. Izakaya however, came at a much later date, when assumably my taste cravings were well formed and not very editable. I am not Japanese, my parents are not Japanese, why oh why do I have to miss thee so much?
Yes I can find Izakaya in London. No problem. But even after spending a whole week's salary on getting there and eating a tiny amount of food for a disgraceful price, I still do not feel the satisfaction I get from Vancouver Izakaya.
I give up. It cannot be replaced. There is no such thing as poppadoms=tostadas for Izakaya. I once tried cooking my very own rice bibimbap but because I have no background on this type of food and I did not grow up with the ingredients in my fridge and the smell of it from the kitchen after school, I cannot get it to taste the way it should. It ended up being a strange Chinese Mexican Fried Rice with a weird half raw egg. It would have made the chef at Guu cry.
I am sorry Guu. I will never every try again. I miss you and nothing can replace you. I can only now taste you in my dreams as I enjoy your food and a good laugh with Ewan McGregor, Gary Barlow and Richard Branson (he flew us all to your Gastown location, and even he, had to wait for over an hour).
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