At Union Station, trains criss-cross below as commuters do their dash. Above, school is in session at a literal meat-and-greet at Blue Bovine, Union’s new trophy restaurant, with Japan’s knife-wielding lady butcher, a.k.a. the “Kimono Butcher.”
After hitting 40 cities in recent years — singing the glories of Kobe everywhere from Palm Beach to Dubai — Marika Watanabe, 30, made her first visit to Canada, primed for showtime. A rapt lunchtime party of 70 or so invitees was in attendance, while towards the back of the resto the white noise of the usual dining scene carried on.
Watanabe tucked up the sleeves of her kimono with a sash and wordlessly got to work. Cleaving. Trimming. Whacking. More surgical than savage. The art, the craft. Her target: a piece of meat flown in from Japan, which was “twice, maybe three times, the size” of beef in North America.
That observation was made by Stacey Weisberg, who played narrator to the “Kimono Butcher.” Weisberg is second-generation local butcher royalty in his own right. His dad, Allan, opened the Butcher Shoppe in Kensington Market in the 1980s before moving to Etobicoke; the family has roots dating back to New York’s Meatpacking District in the 1920s.
Weisberg was on hand to shed more light on Wagyu (sans kimono). He flipped through a few salient facts: Wagyu is a breed of cow and Kobe is a region of Japan that’s best known for Wagyu beef. There is a tight certification program for Kobe-certified Wagyu beef, “the best of the best of the best.” (With prices to match!) That’s due, in large part, to the “marbling” (or “frosting,” as it’s referred to in Japan), and where all the flavour in meat comes from. Wagyu cows, famously, are about twice the size of North American cattle and can reach up to 3,000 pounds.
A guest had additional questions: Is it true that the cows are massaged? That they are played music and doused with alcohol? Weisberg attempted to parse the Wagyu mythology.
Bottom line: “There’s some truth to it. Some of it less true.” Weisberg said he never saw Wagyu being massaged, per se, when in Japan, but “because (the cows) are so big, they become a lot less mobile and struggle to walk around. The care they’re given so that they are comfortable is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. But not a masseuse like we imagine.” (They are among the most stress-free creatures on the planet, let’s just say.)
Likewise: “From my experience, and anecdotally, I didn’t see them being given sake — or beer. But they were feeding on grapes.”
“What they eat,” Weisberg went on, “is what Japanese people eat: lots of rice and rice stock, lots of sweet potatoes.”
Sweet: the progress that the “Kimono Butcher” had been making while the Q&A was going on. No sweat broken! As she neared the end of her work and the event moved into mingle mode, I stole some time with her.
Watanabe confirmed that is the only butcher in her family. In fact, she said, her father is an architect, which caused me to joke that she is still in the family business. Working with space! Editing!
She agreed: “This is my architecture!”
She was in college in Tokyo when she had Japanese Wagyu for the first time. “I was shocked!” she remembers. It spurred an intense interest; she wanted to learn more about the cows and how they’re cared for. “When I touched the Wagyu beef with my knife for the first time,” Watanabe recalled, her world shifted.
Because she could speak some English, and she could also eventually cut and cook, she moved into a kind of ambassadorial role for Wagyu. Her job now includes studying various beef cuts and visiting different farms. But it hasn’t been without its challenges. A few years ago, she developed a big problem with her neck.
Because of all the bending?
“I had to quit,” Watanabe said. But she was not happy. “My heart was burning,” she explains about that time. After doing physiotherapy and embracing new regular exercises, she changed the way she stands.
She has four different ensembles, Watanabe confirmed. She rotates. The kimonos — which she dons to distinguish herself and as a token of pride as a female in the biz — are specially made for her.
Above all, Watanabe told me she respects the Wagyu. In her job, “you have to stay focused.” Embrace a kind of Zen.
Then she was off to take selfies, as elegant dishes of Kobe circulated around us. Kobe tartar. Kobe carpaccio. Torched Kobi. Kobe every which way. A whole whirlwind of Wagyu.
