“We’ve been banned so many times around Tokyo” Yamita Furuya laughed as he puffed on his cigarette. “That’s when I realized we are nomads!”
When entering into the bubble of vibrant energy that encapsulates food truck Tacos Tres Hermanos, you’re immediately bathed in lively music, engaging conversations, and comforting smells. Suddenly, Tokyo’s urban white noise dissolves into the background and tacos are placed in front of you with a Modelo and a Coke.
Yamita’s food truck has gained a staggering amount of press for its authentic, Ecatepec-style tacos and will be opening its premier brick-and-mortar location on April 26th. Tacos 3 Hermanos uses ingredients imported from Mexico, tortillas are made from scratch, and their salsas has Mexican natives reminiscing about their childhood. As he set down his utensils and took his gloves off to talk, however, Yamita’s thoughts were on something much different. “When people write about me, they write that I experienced a midlife crisis, that I went to Mexico, that I started learning to make Mexican food and brought it back to Japan.” The reality, he says, was much different.
After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and ensuing tsunami, the upheavel of Yamita’s life caused him to reconsider his place in the world. He was a picture of success as an accomplished professional in Ginza, financially free, and touted many material indicators of his success. His surfacing reservations prompted a trip to Italy, to visit friends and experience a slower pace of life. “My friends said to me, ‘Where is your life?'”
Yamita realized that despite the income he earned and the status he held, he was succeeding, but he didn’t feel he was living. So, he turned to the online space to speak with people across the world. It was here that Mexico came into his field of vision. It had a culture he knew next to nothing about and at the time, seemed completely out of his element. This, he thought, was what he was looking for.
"I always like to say, 'no fear, only love.'"
Yamita landed in a cheap hotel, unaware to the nuances and risks of where he was staying, before making his way to Ecatepec. After entering a relationship and living with his then girlfriend’s family, Yamita began making meals to contribute to household chores. In doing so, he’d often go to the market, retrieve the necessary ingredients, and return to help prepare the day’s meals. Rattling off 3 languages during our interview, Yamita explained that it was these markets where he began to pick up Spanish from ground zero. He had no awareness of which parts of the city were dangerous. It was his enthusiasm and openness to change that seemed to guide him. When I asked if he began cooking in Mexico, he told me that learning the cuisine wasn’t at the root of his travels. Tacos came as the bi-product of a deepened appreciation for the culture that became an unshakeable part of his life.
Now, these tacos serve as a means to share what he learned with others. To Yamita, life is a celebration to be savored by the day, and tomorrow is seen as a new opportunity. His food, and the atmosphere he nurtures around his truck, is a warm invitation to look beyond the urge to conform and to explore the unique gifts inherent within each individual. When we talked, he described everyone as being born with something inside of them that was worth finding and deserved to be seen.
This exploration doesn’t come without a cost, however. Yamita explained that upon his return to Japan, he became aware of the clash that he often felt between Japan’s tendency to conform and the person he’d become. This, unfortunately, has caused him to become banned from several locations across Tokyo for the truck’s lively atmosphere. “A lot of people in Japan pretend. There is someone underneath the person they show to society.” It became a goal of his to encourage others to explore their own sense of uniqueness, how it could feel for them to live unapologetically as themselves, and experience a sense of fulfillment that comes with being proud of their unique strengths.
“When people eat at my restaurant, that’s what I want them to think about.” And for Yamita, that is a life worth wandering for.
Beautiful simple beautiful