Delicate and delicious fugu is worth the tingly death risk
CRAIG GIMA / CGIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
A flaming cup of sake with fugu fins.
CRAIG GIMA / CGIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Fugu, or blowfish, served as sashimi at Fugu Ichiro in Tokyo, is sliced so thin that it is practically see-through.
CRAIG GIMA / CGIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Fugu skin is served crunchy with ponzu sauce and seaweed.
TOKYO >> The last course of my fugu meal in Japan was a flaming cup of sake with fugu fins.
If you’re going to eat something that could kill you, you might as well get a little drunk.
Fugu, also known as pufferfish or blowfish, can be fatal if not prepared correctly.
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>> Check out the rest of Craig Gima’s encounters with “scary” food
The liver, ovaries, eyes and other organs of the fish contain tetrodotoxin, a poison that causes paralysis. It kills when the paralysis reaches the muscles that enable you to breathe.
So when my mouth began to get numb, I wondered whether it was because of the poison or the alcohol.
And really, should I be eating a potentially poisonous fish?
Fugu is widely available in Japan, where chefs have to be specially trained and licensed to cut the fish and carefully remove the deadly organs.
Dozens of restaurants specialize in fugu in Tokyo, and hundreds more throughout Japan. So lots of people eat it, and very few, really only a small number, die.
I suppose that’s part of the foodie thrill of the meal. You’ll probably be OK but there is that risk.
At Fugu Ichiro, a restaurant in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, no one spoke English, so I had to point at what I wanted on the menu.
I had to hope that nothing was lost in translation.
The first dish was the fugu skin, served with ponzu sauce and seaweed. It was tasty, the skin crunchy and chewy.
I also ordered sashimi, cut so thin it was translucent and you could see the plate below.
Raw fugu is delicate and was especially good in the ponzu sauce.
I also tried pan-fried fugu, which had a light taste, similar to other white-meat fish.
So far, so good.
I had heard that some people experience a tingling or numbness when eating fugu. But until the sake, that hadn’t happened to me.
More of a concern was the feeling of lightness in the wallet.
Fugu’s not cheap.
So, with my mouth getting numb and enough money left for taxi fare, it seemed like a good time to go back to the hotel to sleep.
And hopefully, wake up.
Web producer Craig Gima tries out new foods in a video and print series every other Wednesday. Dare him to try a really scary food: cgima@staradvertiser.com.
13 responses to “Delicate and delicious fugu is worth the tingly death risk”
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I get the same buzz when eating ciguatera laced seafood…
LMAO! Soo true!
Had fugu only once in my life. Of course it was after visiting a few bars and getting pretty well pasted. It was on my 2nd hitch in the Army in Kure, Japan back in the fall of 1948 where you begin to feel the change in the weather.
Really?
The risk of death is worth it to feed your face? In a restaurant, with other items on the menu?
If you’re going to tax smokers since they risk death, maybe there should be a tax on stupid people.
There are 7 billion people on the planet. Too bad they don’t force feed prisoners fugu that wasn’t cut properly to help reduce our tax burden.
Well it’s like people who experiment with drugs. It will give you a high, but also comes with the risk of death too.
The name of the restaurant is Fugu Ichiro, so I’m guessing there weren’t too many non-fugu items on the menu.
Oh, You are braver than me.!
Thanks, SA, for exercising editorial control over a writer that promotes the eating of a deadly fish. Way to go!
Self indulgent and one of those braggadocio “how cool I am” showoff articles. Yes, we tried the fugu (it was one dish out of many in a Japanese meal we had) and there’s really nothing special about it as a seafood. If you didn’t know it was fugu, you wouldn’t give it a second thought and it would rank low in terms of desirable, delicious seafood you can get in Japan.
No Thanks!
You eat to prove your rich and brave.
Hard to imagine anyone being dumb enough to take that kind of chance. No thanks Craig. Stay lucky dude.