ふぐを食べた! - I Ate Fugu!

First of all, I know the formatting and fonts are weird in this post, but it won't let me fix it for some reason, so I'm sorry about that...

Last week my friend Matt and I were in the pub in Kichijoji, and we thought it would be an excellent idea to get some drunken munch on the way out. Not in the mood for a kebab, ramen or gyoza, we headed up the street to a fugu restaurant.

For those of you who don't know what fugu is, it's a fish. But not just any fish; it's notorious for being fatally poisonous when not prepared properly, and known as Pufferfish in English. For a brief overview of the consequences of a chef incorrectly preparing it, I've taken this delightful extract from fugu's Wikipedia page: Fugu contains lethal amounts of the poison tetrodotoxin in the organs, especially the liver, the ovaries, and the skin. The poison, a sodium channel blocker, paralyzes the muscles while the victim stays fully conscious along with causing paralysis. The victim is unable to breathe, and eventually dies from asphyxiation. There is no known antidote.

Lovely.

Waiting for the fugu to arrive

After being seated at our table, we waited anxiously for our first course to come. Whilst generally the only people who die from eating fugu are untrained fishermen who catch and eat it without realising what is, and we knew that really we'd be fine as fugu chefs have to go through several years of tough training to be allowed to prepare it, we couldn't help but be a bit nervous, what with it having such a reputation. 

The first thing to arrive was a large plate of fugu sashimi (thin raw strips). I didn't take a photo of it as we'd already devoured most of it before I even thought to, but I did get a couple of photos of Matt and I  about to tentatively take our first bites.

It was really really delicious. I definitely recommend it! It's hard to describe the taste, though. The texture is like most fish, maybe a bit tougher, and the taste was light at first, but strong in the aftertaste (but not like mackerel). See how it's hard to describe? That's not helpful at all, is it. Moving on...

The second course was some more fugu meat (some of which was still twitching on the plate...), fugu skin (remember how apparently that has poison in it..?) and lots of vegetables and mushrooms to put into a hot pot which had been placed on a heater in the centre of the table, as well as other salad-y bits on the side. Along with that we got some different dipping sauces, and even deep-fried fugu!

Eating the skin made my lips tingle a little bit, which was a worry as I'd heard that that was one of the first effects of poisoning, but it turns out that apparently that's the intended effect. Yay. Everything was really delicious, and not as expensive as I'd heard. Matt and I split all of that, and it was under 2,000 yen each. I really do recommend it. If anyone's interested in going there, I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but if you leave from the Park Exit of Kichijoji Station and turn right, it's a couple of hundred metres up that street, on the left. You can't miss it; there's a huge tank of fugu swimming around on display outside. Even if you don't live near Kichijoji, there's bound to be somewhere selling fugu near to you. If you're reading this from the UK, sorry but fugu is completely banned in the EU!

Next time I eat something strange and delightful I'll be sure to write another blog post! The next one will be about my travels this Spring break, I'll hopefully get it done soon, but I'm very busy with revision at the moment; my big Leeds exam is in three weeks today!! D:

James