fugu! (puffer fish)

so, yesterday W.Y. and his singaporean friends were in town, and we were looking for somewhere to eat. they havent yet tried izakaya food so i was intending to bring them to one of the many izakaya in namba, but somewhere along the way someone mentioned that the one thing they havent yet tried in japan but want to is fugu.

my first reaction was that i dont want to die eating fugu. frankly, i’d never intended to eat fugu while i’m in japan.. japan has lots of stuff and i’ve tried quite a few – like horse sashimi* – but there are things that i could do without – like whale milt (ie seminal fluid – gross), for example.

plus, for every person who tells you that fugu is perfectly safe to consume, there’ll be some article that informs you of the risks involved. people talk about feeling a tingling or numbing sensation as you eat the fish, which is a result of the remaining poison on the flesh.

however, we looked down one side street and saw an outlet belonging to this fugu chain, and decided to just go take a look:

we stood outside for the longest time, looking at the menu and trying to decide if we should eat fugu or not. and the more i stood there and the more they kept talking about “just try(ing) it once”, the more appealing the idea seemed till we finally went in.

took ages still to make a decision, until one of the staff informed us that due to their anniversary celebration, they’re offering a fugu special – an entire fish for 7980yen, rather than the usual 20000yen. they’ll also throw in other stuff for the fugu steamboat, like vegetables, salad, fried fugu AND a free picture for each of us.

of course, we’d initially thought that the 7980yen on the menu was the cost for 1 person, but upon learning that it was for the entire group, our decision was very quickly made.

so here’s the fish that they were going to serve us:

 

it was very much alive when they brought it out for us to pose and take a picture with, and to be honest it was quite amazing to see it up close. i’d always thought that puffer fish referred to those small fish that had spikes, but i suppose they’re 2 different species of puffer fish? i did feel a wee bit guilty that the fish was going to be my dinner, but quickly got over that.

dont have many pictures of the rest of our dinner, but the restaurant had a very cute table mat, seen here with the salmon salad.

our fish then appeared in this form:

some pieces were removed to make fugu karaage – fried fugu. the rest above were for the hotpot, and to be honest i dont think it wasnt that great at all. fugu is somewhat rubbery, and the meat doesnt really have much taste. plus, the thing about japanese hotpot – at least for some of them – is that the stock isnt as tasty as those you get back home. so the fish didnt gain much more flavour during the cooking process, and neither was the dipping sauce quite to our tastes – it was some slighly tangy, soysaucy concoction.

the fried fugu was the best part, while the most odd one was probably some part of the fish that was a bit like cartilage, but not quite so. it was to be dipped into ponzu sauce, and was chewy too. we didnt experience any numbing sensation either, so i’d have to say that our fugu experience was rather uneventful. but better that way, i suppose?

*: horse sashimi is eaten with a raw egg mixed in, and is actually a little sweet and quite nice. i wouldnt be able to finish an entire serving on my own, but one friend likes it very much, so i steal a bit from him every time he orders it. heh.