Is it worth risking your life with a meal? I didn’t reflect over it before I sat in the taxi on my way to Yamadaya Fugu in Tokyo. The barman at my hotel had just before I left the hotel told me that he would never eat fugu, or blowfish, and that people die from eating it. Many more than what is reported, he claimed. I thought he joked, but in the taxi it got obvious to me that he might not have. I did get some second thoughts on my way in the taxi, but somehow it was too late to pull out from the meal at this point and if I did I would look like a coward. Surely a restaurant that has been around for generations and that is specialized in fugu would be the safest place to try it. Then again, even Tiger Woods can make a triple bogey.
Fugu has a reputation of being expensive and very rare. For those readers who don’t know it, fugu contains tetrodotoxin in the organs, especially the liver and ovaries , although there is also farmed fugu that do not contain tetrodotoxin. There are some 70 different species of fugu of which only some 15 are edible. The most searched after is the Tiger Blowfish or torafugu and it is also the most poisonous.
The usual comment on fugu from food writers and foodies trying it for the first time is that it has a rather bland taste but interesting texture. Somehow this comment intrigued because why would such a revered fish and expensive be so overestimated? It didn’t make much sense.
My fugu meal at Yamadaya was a 14 course meal, 13 of which featured the fugu. Naturally they only used torafugu or Tiger Blowfish. There was a gelatin made from the fugu stock with fugu skin. There was cooked shredded meat and lightly heated meat in miso soup. There was a large plate of the classic chrysanthemum style sashimi of back center piece. I also had a steak from the back bone, male sperm sac in kelp stock, a soup of the heads and gills and deep fried jaw bone.
It is clear that there were some dishes that were less good than others in terms of execution, which is to say they could have easily been improved upon. But a couple of the dishes were nevertheless truly fantastic. But this isn’t really about reviewing Yamadaya as a restaurant but rather exploring fugu as a fish. It is true that the sashimi style back part was rather bland in taste and had a texture which was somewhat crunchy. I felt the portion of it was a little large and the slices in the end started to so to speak grow in the mouth. So for those who only eat fugu this way, I can understand the comments of its bland taste and “interesting” texture, but for me fugu is about so much more that just eating it sashimi style. The different flavors of the different parts and that were brought out with the different cooking techniques were simply astonishing. The skin offered remarkable pure fish flavors without any “fishy” taste so to speak. The aspic made from the bones was amazingly fragrant like one can only obtain in a chicken stock made from true pasture chickens of ancient breeds. The jaw bone and its meat were gelatinous and savory like cheeks from a tiny veal. Even the shredded meat was unique.
So yes, I can easily understand fugu’s revered status as one of the most celebrated and notorious dishes in Japanese cuisine. I cannot wait until my next opportunity to savor it. But it is not for those faint hearted who do not eat fish bones, fish heads, fish skins and sperm sacs. It is only for the true gourmets.
4 Comments
For years, I have been scratching my head back and forth over that one: should I take the risk or not of eating fugu? Each time the occasion occured, I could not find the necessary courage to do so. I am probably just over-reacting for nothing, but it is just a sort of psychological blocus I still haven’t managed to bypass. Your writing helps me to lower down my anxiety and gove that one a try.
Interesting post. I’ve had fugu once, and fell into the majority group: a good meal, and something worth experiencing but perhaps not more than once.
Bte, your site doesn’t work properly in firefox 3.0.17 . About 5 characters are “cut off” on the left side of the main column when viewing individual posts, making it very difficult
@G. Thanks, I will try to fix it. I have had problems recreating it but now I start to understand what the problem is.
It is interesting trying to wrap your mind around the concept of a fugu restaurant. The whole meal, or process is about understanding the whole fish i.e. the meal tells the story of the fish. for me, it is the same as yakitori, though perhaps a bit on a lesser level. Yakitori is more than grilled chicken on a stick but through a series of bites you start to understand everything that a chicken is and what its true potential is. Skin, ball joints, tendons, inner and outer thigh, the various offals, etc., each piece adds more depth to an understanding. Throw in the fact that ambitious yakitori-yas will source a specific breed, indeed a specific supplier to highlight, then truly, a story is being told.
The sum is much greater than just
“chicken grilled on a stick.”