I have always love eating the exotic and culturally significant food, if it is not endangered. This is a rare chance for me to enjoy a local Japanese pufferfish meal, and a full course where we get to wine and dine on everything pufferfish! from the wine to the testicles! (Gross? Absolutely not!)
Thanks to our Japanese friend, Mio and her hubby, who brought us to a nice restaurant and educated us on the great delicacy.
You cannot get pufferfish anywhere, considering that it is a poisonous fish, and if you taint the meat with its venom, it is a certain death sentence for you.
The chef must be a licensed pufferfish handler, and I heard that the license is not easy to get. Not only you must be knowledgeable about the pufferfish, you must possess experience in your knife skills in order to operate on the fish at a fast speed.
First, we have to sip some good wine to keep us toasty and warm...
Sake that has some dried pufferfish in it for a full flavoured pufferfish taste.
You have to light a match to burn the alcohol for the full taste.....
The sashimi. Thin slices of the fresh meat.... fresh and yummy!
Heh heh. I know some of you guys probably get grossed out. This is the pufferfish testicle!
It tastes very creamy and smooth... Delicious.
As we all know, we asians eat anything and everything....
Here comes the main course!
Large chunks of pufferfish!
You have to cook it in the paper pot, along with the mushrooms and tofu...
A paper pot. I love the Japanese's zen ideals of using the bare minimum....
When we have finished with the main course of meat, the waitress came with a bowl of rice.... Nope, not to serve you plain rice after you have finished the meat... BUT...
Scoop the rice into the leftover soup from the pufferfish paperpot, along with an egg...
Ta-da! You get a nice, flavourful, delicious porridge!
The restaurant keeps the pufferfish fresh and alive in a tank at their premises!
Thanks to our two Japanese hosts for organising the dinner for us!
BTW, we saw this traditional candy store at the Ikebukuro metro station. It looks like the Singaporean "muahchi" so we bought a small box to try. It is a lot more expensive though.
Looks like a very traditional fare!
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