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Apollo Station Okubo SS Mystery
The auto-stop thing is pretty normal at older Jomo or Apollo stations when the vapor recovery nozzle gets fussy, especially on kei cars with small tanks. The pump senses backpressure and shuts off early, so you have to squeeze the handle halfway and go slow. The distracted attendant is a different story though. Okubo SS sits right by the Yamanote line tracks on Meiji-dori, and late at night that stretch gets a fair bit of foot traffic from the kabukicho side, so staff there tend to keep one eye on the forecourt rather than the customers. If you want a smoother fill late at night, the self-service Eneos on Shin-Okubo-dori a few blocks north is easier, you just do it yourself and nobody hovers.
apollo stations around there are mostly dealer-affiliated spots so the attendants arent always regular staff, sometimes it's just one guy covering the night shift alone. three shutoffs on a kei tank at low speed usually means the nozzle's flow rate is set too high for a small tank, not a meter fault, so the pump thinks it's full when it isnt. if the guy looked zoned out it might just be a 12 hour solo shift on a dead stretch of Meiji-dori, which honestly sounds brutal. next time try the pump closest to the office, those tend to be the newer units
wait, did you pay at the pump or inside? bc that station is one of the few left around there that still runs a proper full-service island at night, and the card reader on the standalone units has been flaky for months. if it kept pre-authing and dropping the hold each time the nozzle clicked off, you might have three pending charges sitting on your card right now. check your statement, thatd be my bigger worry than the vibe. the Okubo crew are fine, its just a cramped lot with the tracks right overhead so everyone there works fast and looks past you.
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Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.