Fugu dinner

Guess I haven't elaborated on my fugu feast last Saturday.

Prior to Dad's arrival on Saturday, I biked all over Yonago to make reservations. Neither one of the two really nice places recommended by Satoshi and Mayumi took reservations for a full-course fugu dinner. One place (near the fire station) simply couldn't do it, the other (below 白木屋) could only do nabe (broth boiled fugu) and not sashimi. The place where I had sushi on Simona's birthday took the reservation for 2, for \8000 each.

We showed up at 8pm. The fugu sashimi was laid on a big plate, with thin strips of raw fugu skin. The sashimi was cut paper thin, literally. You make a roll with the fish and spring onion and dip it in this soy sauce/chili mixture. Raw fugu meat does not taste like fish at all--the texture more closely resembled octopus or squid. The flesh was spongy and a little bit chewy. The skin has a little bit more of crunch. The sashimi was interesting, but for \8000?

Next came the nabe pot. Actually, nabe is 鍋, which means pot, so nabe pot is kind superfluous. Basically, nabe is hot-pot, kind of like shabu-shabu, essentially make-it-yourself soup. A bowl of broth is set to boiling on a gas burner, with a big plate of various raw fugu parts and vegetables also set at the table. You cook and eat the fish at your own pace. You know how all cooked fish has that flaky texture? Not fugu. Strangely cooked fugu does not taste much different from sashimi (I'm pretty sure it is not because we didn't cook it thoroughly). The flesh holds together as a whole, and was chewier than you'd expect from boiled fish. Different parts of fugu (from flesh near vertebrae, near face, near tail--you can tell by just looking at the raw parts) have different texture, some chewy, some extremely fatty, some crunchy (more cartilage than flesh). It was really an adventure.

The deep-fried fugu tasted not unlike typical fried fish, however.

The one thing the left the strongest impression though was the 鰭の酒. Charred fugu tail fin was soaked in boiling-hot sake. The lady brought the cup, lights the sake on fire and closed the lid. This was to burn the flavor of the fin into the sake somehow. End result: not like sake at all. It tasted more like a peppery fish soup with just a hint of alcohol, mostly hinted by the burning feeling in your stomach. Never had anything like it.

Hmm mm good.