James Mielke
Google
OK so this is charming as heck. The proprietor — God’s Left Hand, aka The Master — is in his 80s, and still gets up to serve the most delicious プリン🍮 (pudding) every day. I’ve tried a couple of times to come here but either the line was too long thanks to Instagram, or or my schedule was too busy, or it was closed. Today I got lucky. A tremendous storm the night before dropped the temperature into the 70s, so it was cool in the middle of Japanese summer. A true miracle.
Miracle #2 is that the line was only around 5-10 minutes long instead of the usual hour-plus. I understand how Hekkerun works now: It’s basically a series of seatings, organized by the Master’s wife(?) who coordinates the outgoing and incoming.
The interior is tight but seats about 20 including the bar counter. The waiter takes everyone’s order, hands them off to God’s Left Hand who then makes the sandwiches etc., while his assistant serves everyone water.
I ordered a ham sandwich, while my wife and I both ordered purin and coffee sets for dessert. It takes a while to get your food and drinks, because it’s one man doing everything, but it’s not terrible. You get your food in waves, around 10-15 mins at a time, drinks first.
There’s no video but you can take photos of the Master at the prescribed time — basically when it’s pudding time — and that’s when the action happens. A twist here, a shimmy there, God’s Left Hand jukes and wiggles his way through the entire room’s pudding orders all at once and it’s exactly what you expect if you’ve come here from Instagram.
The pudding itself is the best my Japanese wife’s ever had. The caramelized sauce atop the pudding is smoky and just slightly bitter, as it should be, to offset the creamiest pudding you’ve ever had. It shouldn’t be smooth, like anindofu (almond pudding) and the slightly lumpy texture is luxurious in its mouthfeel.
It Is So Good. Worth the wait if you have to, and I felt sorry for the group after us since the Master ran out of purin servings during our 11:30-12:30 group. The moral of the story: Arrive early!