Food for thought?

            And so I ate Fugu!!! Blah! No great shakes.  I was hoping for a waiver to sign, some tingles, or SOMETHING!  I might as well have just had something that said, “May contain nuts!” 

We had a set menu and had fugu in all shapes and ways.  We started with fugu skin in a green onion salad with a spicy puree.  Not bad but very chewy.  Then we had sashimi and THAT was really chewy.  But the fried fugu was delicious.  Anything fried is delicious to be fair :)

The shabushabu was also tasty and there was so much of it.  Cooked fugu is very good.  It’s softer and has a mild taste and not chewy at all.  I quite enjoyed it.  The cooked fugu skin is disgusting though.  I gave it a try twice but I’ve done my part.  At first it just has a slimy texture but then it coats your mouth and throat with the slime and you need some serious carbonation to cut it.  Ugh! Not for me.  Then they made porridge out of the left over fish stock with rice, soy sauce, salt, and egg.  It was good but not great.  We finished with tea and yuzu sorbet.  It was a lemon/lime sorbet and really helped get rid of the slime.

Overall, the experience was...okay.  Not great, not bad.  It was different and another thing to cross off my list.  The staff was AWESOME though.  They were so sweet and tried to speak English and so polite and patient.  I would go back just for that reason.  It’s a good thing tipping is not done here b/c I would have dropped $50 on them!  Cute!!!!

I also ate a whole fish.  I was at an izakaya (as per usual) and there were these small fish about the length of your middle finger.   It was fried and still had the head on.  My friend and I had never eaten it so we decided we would try it together.  It took a lot of fucking nerve b/c the gross eyeballs were still on it.  Of course this was caught on camera as one of our friends was shoving the teeny little head, eyeballs and all, in my mouth.  I bit it and chewed and felt the individual eyes crunch between my teeth. AAAGGGHHHH!!!! And the fish was a little dry to boot.  I finished the whole thing and then discovered my jerk friend ate everything EXCEPT the damn head! What a jerk! LOL!

That same friend and I also ate raw horse meat at an izakaya (surprise surprise!) just to try it.  Meh.  It was flavourless (of course) and just tasted like a really chewy piece of raw steak.  I think thinner slices would have been better OR if it were fried or grilled or at least seasoned with something.  Nope - raw horse meat is nothing great.  But at least I did it!

Before I came to Japan I never would have tried a fish head with eyes or raw horse meat.  Not to toot my own horn but I’m pretty proud of myself!  What’s next? Dog in Korea?