Meg:
Before we left for our honeymoon, we decided to try to do something “dangerous” in each country we visited. Since we didn’t have enough time to climb Mount Fuji, we decided upon something equally perilous: eating blowfish. Frank was especially enthusiastic about trying it, while I was a little reticent. The notion of putting my life in the hands of some chef I’d never met didn’t strike me as especially wise.
My mind changed when we stumbled upon Tara Fugu. Even from the exterior, there is no mistaking their specialty: A string of lights shaped like blowfish adorns the entrance. Their menu features blowfish (or fugu in Japanese) almost exclusively. If we were going to eat some fugu, this was definitely the place to try it!
Frank:
Although I can speak enough Japanese to get a point across (especially when it comes to food), I have only gotten two Japanese symbols memorized. And unless I am reading about a boy named Kano they don’t really help me out much. Of course the menu was entirely in Japanese, so I just asked the chef to make us their specialty.
The danger of eating blowing lies in the preparation. If the toxic parts of the fish are not removed properly, the meat can become contaminated. It’s not actually a poison, it’s a neurotoxin that can lead to paralysis if ingested, and the victim, still aware, is asphyxiated. The worst part is that there is no known antidote.
With that in mind, I took my first bite of Fugu in sashimi style. It was very mild in flavor but still very good. Since Meg didn’t eat much I ended up eating the whole plate, which caused my tongue and lips to feel tingly and slightly numb (as there are always traces of the toxins throughout the whole fish). After the chef prepared fried fugu, he then brought out the Fugu fin sake. He told us it was on the house and of course we were very grateful. I know that the Japanese are known for their hospitality but what he did next really surprised us.
We had stopped at this restaurant on our way to the Tokyo Train station, so we had all our bags with us. The station was quite a ways away and meant making a few transfers on a subway to get there. However, the chef insisted on loading us into his car and driving us there himself. It would have been rude to decline, so we allowed him to take us while he was still wearing his chef jacket and apron.
