Subarashii!

BY ALEX DE VORE alex@sfreporter.com

At roughly a month into operations, new Japanese-centric lunch joint and mini-grocer Ozu has alreadymade an impression. The project of couple Jeff Ozawa and Jaimie Lewis, Ozu embraces the Japanese mindset of minimalism and high-quality dishes, both in its concise dining menu of bangers and in its hard-to-find grocery items such as imported rice, specialty rice cookers, condiments, teas and sauces. So quickly and passionately, in fact, did the people in my life who insist upon using the term “foodie” start espousing Ozawa and Lewis’ spot that I chose to ditch my “give ‘em a minute to get settled!” mentality and stop by.

Of course, had it been terrible, I’d probably have moved on and waited. I’m glad I did not. Ozu stands as a delightful addition to Santa Fe’s restaurant-scape—absolutely a business worth patronizing and watching.

The two met during their college years and, post-school, moved to LA for a long stint where they started the Goromando catering company and the Tenzo kitchen and lifestyle online shop (shoptenzo.com). Ozawa, mostly self-taught in the kitchen, had learned recipes from his Japanese father; Lewis, a whiz at business and design, also had skills such as furniture-making (which we’ll get to later).

Foodservice seemed the logical path.

“My dad grew up in Osaka, so he was always cooking the old stuff out of homesickness, and that’s how I got hooked,” Ozawa tells SFR. “As time went by, I got more inter-

Curated menu and supplies spell quick success for Midtown Japanese restaurant and mini-market Ozu

ested in the old recipes and eventually got to a point where I felt like I had to turn it into a business.”

Tenzo is still going strong online, whereas the catering company fell victim to the COVID lockdowns. Still, it spurred Ozawa and Lewis to finally move to Santa Fe in 2022. Last month, they took over the space on Lena Street that formerly housed The Bread Shop (which continues, thankfully, to serve up great bread and sandwiches right across the street from Ozu).

Ozawa’s menu is ultimately small, but innovative insofar as Santa Fe’s Japanese offerings go—a combination of Japanese items and JapaneseAmerican dishes that embrace the flavors with which Ozawa grew up.

That, frankly, was all I needed to know to get on board. And so, a companion and I visited one recent afternoon and went to town. Immediately, we zeroed in on the bento lunch dish, a well-sized box crammed with Japanese king salmon, a salad of yuzu carrots and beets and cucumber tsukemono (think preserved veggies) served with a bed of fluffy rice ($18). The salmon was lightly cooked, just beyond pan-seared, and free from heavy seasoning. Ozawa’s preparation resulted in tender, flavorful notes, and when eaten in the same bite with the tsukemo- no, the mouthfeel was both surprising and welcome—a bit of crunch from the veggies giving way to flaky salmon that practically melted in my mouth.

We also ordered the umeboshi onigiri (a rice ball filled with pickled plum; $4) pays homage to the tiny restaurants of Japan that focus on serving a few items well and pack in patrons tightly. Lewis built all the tables, as well as the counter from which customers can order and sit. You’ll find a few small tables outside, too, if the weather permits.

Ozu, Ozawa says, benefited from plenty of help from chefs and home cooks along the way, but his obsession—sourcing the best ingredients and/or items you simply won’t find in Santa Fe, while finding a balance between popular foods and his own tastes—is all his own. Ideally, he says, Ozu could grow down the road. Even now, Ozawa and Lewis can tackle small catering jobs and one-off dinners. For the time being, though—and let me remind you we’re just a month in—they’re happy to keep it simple.

“I’m lucky to have someone who is so multi-talented,” Ozawa says of Lewis. “Also, I have the general impression that what we’re doing might be a little niche...I’m not a traditional restaurant person, but I don’t want it to turn into some huge, bustling restaurant. It’s more about recapturing that feeling of being in some smaller restaurant in Japan, or being at home and having that cozy feeling.” and blue crab sunomono temaki hand roll (with actual crab, not the imitation stuff; $7) and found yet more reasons to frequent Ozu. The contrast of the tart plum complemented the salty-sweet crab and its firmer texture well and, in both cases, the proportions of each item was generous. Admittedly, this was a bit too much food for two, but Ozu’s menu is well-suited for sharing. Its interior, for example, is intimately small. Ozawa says the concept

OZU 1708 Lena St. Ste. 101, ozusantafe.com

+ INTIMATE AND DELICIOUS; THINGS YOU WON’T FIND JUST ANYPLACE

- HOURS ARE LIMITED TO 11 AM-3 PM WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, BUT I REALLY WANTED ANOTHER ONIGIRI LAST SUNDAY

AFFORDABLE MEDIUM PRICEY EXTRAVAGANT

BY ANNABELLA FARMER @boeinbrief

Amid news like the town of Edgewood’s recent adoption of an ordinance restricting abortion, Chika Unigwe’s inflection of the necessity of bodily autonomy in her new work, The Middle Daughter, keenly resonates.

The Nigerian-born Igbo author, whose honors include the Nigeria Prize for Literature, which she won in 2012 for her novel On Black Sisters Street; and the SYLT Fellowship for African Writers, now lives in the US, teaching at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Georgia.

She crafts The Middle Daughter as a modern reimagining of the Greek Hades and Persephone myth, the story of three wealthy sisters in Nigeria whose family is torn apart by catastrophe. Unigwe tells the story through several voices: Udodi, the eldest sister who dies in a car crash while studying in the US, serves as the all-knowing (but perhaps not unbiased) voice of the chorus; Nani, the eponymous middle daughter, carries a narrative thread that reflects the story of Persephone’s rape and kidnapping at the hands of Hades; Ugo, the youngest sister, becomes an unwitting accomplice to her middle sister’s undoing, and does her best to right that wrong; and finally, Ephraim, the itinerant preacher who plays the role of Hades.

The sisters are born into fortunate circumstances, but their privilege quickly sours as adversity plagues their family. At the beginning of the story their father runs a printing press, their mother works as a midwife at a government hospital and they live on a luxurious estate in Enugu, Nigeria, the city where Unigwe herself was born.

Udodi’s death is the first in a series of family tragedies that unfold parallel to, and intertwined with, events of societal injustice and corruption so current Unigwe might be writing news stories instead of a novel. After their father’s death, the sisters’ mother opens a private maternity clinic, which makes her one of the wealthiest women in Enugu within the year. But Nani discovers that it isn’t a clinic at all, but a “baby factory”—a place where men are hired to impregnate women—often by rape—whose babies are then sold to rich families. In the novel, it’s unclear wheth er the so-called clinic is directly respon sible for the women’s impregnation or only for the sale of their babies, allowing the sisters’ mother an ethical gray area in which she can convince herself she has done them a service.

Unigwe portrays a deeply patriarchal society in which Nani feels powerless against her abductor, Ephraim, leading her to stay with him for seven years, during which time she bears three children. But unlike some versions of the Hades and Persephone myth, Nani never falls in love with Ephraim, never accepts him as her husband or the father of her children, and finds subtle ways to assert her autonomy and resistance.

The nuances of reproductive injustice and misogyny Unigwe renders in The Middle Daughter hit close to home, too. In a postRoe v. Wade America, most abortions are now banned in more than a dozen states, and the right to terminate pregnancy is threatened in many more. In Unigwe’s novel, Nani’s pregnancy by her rapist leads to a years long ordeal and the loss of the life she’d hoped for herself. Anti-abortion policies and social pressures mean that stories like hers could play out in the lives of anyone who can become pregnant, whether in the US, Nigeria or elsewhere.

Instead of being drawn into a cycle of captivity as Persephone was, Nani finds a path through the “underworld” with the help of other women in her life who believe her and see through Ephraim’s respectable facade, creating a matriarchal narrative within a patriarchal structure.

“There are some burdens one must never carry alone,” a neighbor tells Nani. “We are taught from when we are young girls being prepared for marriage never to share our problems…[but] I say that that is the problem we have as women: we do not talk enough about what we suffer.”

The Middle Daughter is tightly wound with emotion: rage, sadness and, at times, Nani’s hopelessness. But it isn’t a lasting hopelessness. The novel forces readers onward through the story, propelled by Nani’s grit—her refusal, even in total despair, to relinquish her power.