#TBT [ThrowBackThursday] week 18 of 2015. This week, something I remember from my visit to Japan, 1 of the 52 countries I visited prior to 2015.
Eating Fugu in Tokyo
Together with my son (then 10 years) I had a list of things we wanted to eat in Tokyo of which Fugu and whale were the most exotic. We asked our hotel for a good place to eat fresh sea food including Fugu and whale (yes I know…..). The taxi brought us to the place of the restaurant, but we didn’t see it at first. As with many restaurants in Tokyo you have to go inside, go to floor X and you find it in the building.
JAPAN – The best itinerary for 2 weeks in Japan: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Kobe
We however opened one door at the street level and kind of walked into the kitchen/storage of fresh fish. Pretty cool to see. We were welcomed by the chef who did not speak a word of English but we had a list of what we wanted to eat in Japanese. Fugu: check! Fresh raw lobster: check! Some other fish he recommended: check! Then, the whale, he looked very strange at us, and made it clear he didn’t have a fresh whale in his store but they could prepare it from the fridge. That was OK as I did not expect a live one anyway.
Yes, a wrong prepared Fugu can be lethal. The chefs preparing it in Japan are under strict control and had several years of training to prepare a Fugu. The Fugu has more than enough tetrodotoxin poison to paralyze a human. When it is cleaned in a correct way it’s safe to eat but Fugu is expensive! We spend probably about 400 USD on it (alltogether about 800 USD) and we got it served in various dishes. After we accepted the fresh Fugu presented to us it took them at least an hour to clean it. We got sashimi, milt, fried and baked Fugu meat and a stew of the remaining (above photo). It does have great taste plus the dangerous part made the dinner a great thrill for my son who was then only 10 years old.
The other dishes we tried where whale soup, a raw lobster cut at the table, and some fish I totally forget the name off. We had a great dinner and a great time! Something I will never forget.
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