Zhao says neither he nor the restaurant owner had any idea the fish was banned in Beijing.įive years later, the ban has not been lifted but fugu is more popular than ever in the capital city. A day after the review was published, local sanitation inspectors confiscated the fish and slapped the restaurant with an 8,000 yuan ($1,269) fine. Beijing-based food writer Zhao Ziyun wrote a review about a restaurant serving fugu. While some restaurants play hide-and-seek with government inspectors, some have placed it in broad daylight, in the hope that the puffer fish will pass official approval soon. But you will find that fugu is widely available in mid-end Chinese restaurants specializing in seafood. You cannot find it on any menu, and as far as the authorities are concerned, any restaurant serving this dangerous delicacy is breaching the regulations. However, determined diners can still enjoy this spring delicacy - at their own risk. It's not on any menu, and fugu or puffer fish is still technically outlawed for restaurants in China. And hopefully soon in New York.Delicately sliced and arranged like a crane for this sashimi platter, fugu is pretty as a picture.įor some diners, the risk and the myth around fugu-eating is precisely its charm. So rest assured, only in the worst-case scenarios is fugu anything other than a great delicacy with a thriving fanbase in Japan. I think that sensation was the original attraction to fugu. The poison doesn't stay in your system very long."Īdds Alexander: "There was a famous director or actor in the Noh theater who ended up dying from eating it because he allegedly loved that numbing sensation you get from it. Says Alexander's Japanese-born wife, Reika: "Even if you eat the poison, which is very rare, you realize you ate it, you get certain symptoms and you go to the hospital. But here's the thing: it was butchered properly. Myth #3: You're going to die if your fugu wasn't butchered properly Plus, there's no regulation because it's so uncommon." "The idea of having a licensed blowfish chef in America is ludicrous because it's not an American fish. "In Japan there's a type of blowfish that develops an internal poisonous bacteria in its environment and has mutated to develop immunity to this poison, which doesn't exist in the United States," says Jesse Alexander, who owns the restaurant.
FUGU RESTAURANTS PROFESSIONAL
Any American restaurant serving fugu will most certainly have bought it pre-sliced by a current licensed professional in Japan, so don't be fooled by imitators. Myth #2: You can kill and butcher fugu in the United Statesįalse. Now drizzle on some fine, housemade ponzu, grate a little fresh yuzu zest over it, garnish with chives and consider the fact that only three restaurants in the country serve this incredibly rare one-bite treat. Not what you were hoping to hear, but imagine the freshest, most tender perfect scallop lightly torched over an open flame so that it's barely charred on the outside and raw and succulent inside. It's the testicles, the most prized portion of the takifugu, or tiger blowfish, which fetches upwards of $250 per pound wholesale. Myth #1: The meat is the best part of the fuguįalse. Tiger blowfish “soft roe” or testicles, called shirako in Japan, are the most prized portion of the fish. I've addressed three myths after facing delicious death for an afternoon:Īn artful preparation of Japanese blowfish, belly meat and spine cartilage “noodles” Mastered the art of eating uni? Get ready to experience a new plane. licensed to serve the legendary, highly toxic fish and staffed with a fugu master, chef Abe Hiroki, who started working in his father's sushi restaurant at six years old. EN is one of only eight restaurants in the U.S. Among the unforgettable dishes to savor are the creamy scoops of housemade silken tofu, heavily marbled Kobe beef and, now, fugu sashimi and sperm sac, or shiroko, to be precise.
It appears there's more than one myth to dispel, so I recently visited West Village sushi paradise EN Brasserie. Except I didn't know what fugu was, so I just ran in and shot everyone with a machine gun." "There's this video game called Hitman, where in one mission you're assassinating Japanese crime bosses about to sit down for a fugu dinner, and one way to do it is to dress like a chef and tamper with the fugu so they all get poisoned and die. Or you could have nothing to go off, like my friend did. When it comes to blowfish sashimi, or fugu, all you may have to go off is the age-old Simpsons episode where Homer demands the fish, despite the chef's warning, then prepares to die.
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