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My first experience with fugu.
By Andrew | August 21, 2007
I was watching Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods on the Travel channel a couple of days ago and he covered a fugu restaurant that I went to while I was there. Seeing that restaurant again brought back some memories of my first experience with fugu.
For context I should state that I was there on a business trip and even though I’d flown business class I still can’t sleep on planes. This, combined with a 12 hour flight, on which I got drunk in a futile attempt to sleep, followed by immediate jetlag upon arriving in Tokyo (something about losing an entire day crossing the international date line gets to you), followed by a meeting and late dinner that night with more drinking, followed by a complete lack of sleep due to jetlag, followed by an entire day of board meetings and meetings with divisions, all while wearing a suit left me a little less apprehensive than you might expect about trying something that could potentially kill me. My lack of apprehension was not due to a misplaced sense of bravado, or anything macho. No, gentile reader, I was not afraid to try something that could kill me (slowly, via suffocation(!)) because I was already dead.
An interesting thing to note is that while watching the Iron Chef in America it seems like an odd thing to have 6-7 courses prepared emphasizing the quality of a particular ingredient. This is not the case in Japan. The previous night’s dinner consisted of 8 courses showcasing a particular 300 dollar a pound mushroom. Tonight’s dinner was to consist of 8 courses featuring the star ingredient, fugu. Fugu sashimi, fugu soup, fugu salad, fried fugu, fugu compressed in little cakes with caviar, had they not run out of courses I’m sure that we would have seen a fugu foam soon enough, and perchance, a fugu torte.
Now, in my experience, and I’m sure everyone else’s, things which are called delicacies are usually called such only because that’s the only way we can get people to eat them. If a birds nest weren’t a “delicacy” in China, if underdeveloped duck eggs weren’t a “delicacy” in the Philippines, (if haggis weren’t a “delicacy” in Scotland?) nobody would eat it. Let me tell you this though, if you love sashimi, fugu is the absolute best food you will ever have. Just the right amount of sweetness, just the right amount of spring balanced with softness in the flesh, it¹s utterly amazing. And it has the side effect of making your mouth go numb.
The fact that the toxins left (by a skilled chef) on the fugu make your lips and cheeks tingle and go numb is somewhat central to the story at this point. Because, along with the 8 course menu centered around the stuff, another star of the evening made its appearance. Sochu. All you can drink. I can drink, uh, a lot. And I demonstrate it out in public way too much.
For those who don’t know (I didn’t), Sochu is distilled Japanese liquor typically made from grain. Its closest comparison is vodka. The taste is similar to sake. I had been drinking sake and beer earlier in the meal, so when the sochu was busted out (and I hadn’t heard of it before at this point), it was just one more liquor to add on top. The combination of ice over which the sochu is served and the numbness brought about by the neurotoxins I willingly consumed left the stuff going down like water.
Similar taste to sake, similar strength, right? Apparently not. I had one glass, then another. Then another. And then the board of a huge Japanese telecom and their top salesmen were chanting “IK’E IK’E IK’E” as I drank. And then another bottle was brought out since we killed the first one. At this point In was feeling pretty good. Things went well until I decided I had to go to the bathroom, and I stood up. To say the room started spinning was an understatement. I’m pretty sure the room had flipped itself upside down and I was attempting to walk on the ceiling. I made my way to the restroom which was down a narrow flight of stairs. When the toilet seat lifted itself to salute me as I walked in I lost it, cracking up for a good 5 minutes. When I had finished my business, another problem presented itself. By my right hand there was a console with approximately 20 buttons on it. It should be mentioned that a Japanese toilet is a sight to behold. The notorious Japanese technolust extends all the way to the plumbing and standard fixtures on toilets include bidets, seat warmers, buttock massagers, temperature controls for the water, dryers and toaster ovens. This was the one time in my life I can probably thank god for the fact that the unholy mess of a game Daikatana was released, because the one word I can recognize in Japanese, outside of the character for Japan itself is “Dai”, for big. I was presented with two buttons along the top. Figuring the button for big was probably next to the button for “small” I pushed it, half expecting the toilet to explode (or worse, squirt me in the face). Fortunately it flushed and the seat lowered itself to greet the next patron. In Japan, even the toilets are polite.
As I leave the restroom the Sochu has sunken deeper into my small intestine, further interfering with my already poisoned brain. I slowly stumbled upstairs and was confronted by two waitresses, both in dress kimonos, neither of them over 5 feet tall. It is only by their help and by the grace of god that I make it back to my table. I was surprised by their strength, probably acquired through long hours of carrying salarymen and drunken gaijin like myself.
It’s around this time that the dinner party is wrapping up and I’m invited out for the after drinking drinking. I graciously (with a shake of the head and quite possibly a guttural belch) bow out of the festivities with a view of going back to the hotel. The problem at this point is that I can’t possibly make it back to the hotel on my own, since I don’t speak Japanese, I don’t remember where my room is, in fact, I don’t remember where our hotel is or even how to pronounce it at this point. Also, I’m blind. Fortunately, another in our party, who is slightly more sober decides to go back to the hotel as well. The next 20 minutes are a montage, composed thusly: blurring bright Tokyo lights, the taxi driver practicing speaking in broken English, me apologizing profusely to my traveling companion, the lobby of the hotel, myself stumbling down the hall (is it getting longer as I’m walking?) using the wall for support on one side and my traveling companion on the other.
Four hours later I wake up, still completely dressed, tie not even loosened. I manage to stand up long enough to take my clothes off. At this point I would have gone to the bathroom but I’m pretty sure I was going to fall off the earth so I spent the next 3 hours clinging to the bed hoping that gravity would once again take hold. 2 hours after this I get my wakeup call. It’s once again time to get dressed and go out for another morning of meetings. I pick up the crumpled heap which once was a nicely pressed suit off the floor, which reeks of charcoal grills and sochu, put it on, and head downstairs to meet with my traveling companions. Fortunately, sparing my ego, none of them look like they’re in any better shape. I go the the pharmacy and get what I can only assume was aspirin, Advil or Tylenol and 5 bottles of water. These were distributed to the crowd, each of whom took about tablets of the unknown medication, possibly hoping that if it didn’t make them feel better, it would at least kill them.
I must say something about the Japanese: they can drink. We arrived at the next morning’s meetings and everyone on their side of the table was a fresh as a daisy. The reputation that Japan holds as a hospitable, polite, technology driven society that can drink you under the table is not undeserved.
Epilogue: About a year and a half after this trip I meet the traveling companion’s (from the taxi) wife. “Valerie, this is Andrew”…”Oh, so you’re the one!”
Yes, that is photograph from that night.
Topics: Food, Travel | No Comments »
