Would You Pay $5K For Fugu?
Well, even if you would, good luck getting a local sushi restaurant to serve it to you. Jacob Katel at the New Times made a few phone calls to sushi spots in the area to see if a) they served it and b) if they didn't serve, if they could procure it for him somehow. Given that you can die from eating this fish if it's prepared by someone who doesn't know what he's doing, that's a bit scary. The responses were pretty amusing:
Sushi Rock Cafe - (305) 305-532-2133Heh. Check out the rest of the responses here. You don't have to fly all the way to Japan to get fugu though — a flight to New York is much cheaper. Morimoto has it available in sashimi form during the winter months. It's not on the regular menu at Restaurant Nippon, but they do have a license to serve it and you can get it if you ask for it.
- Oh nah bro, that's really hard to serve that I don't know bro. It's really dangerous. I know they do that in Japan, but you gotta have a license for that here.Matsuri Japanese Restaurant - (305) 663-1615
- Whats a bluefish
By the way, in case you aren't familiar with the details of tetrodotoxin, the poisonous stuff inside the pufferfish, here's what Wikipedia says about what that stuff can do to you:
The symptoms from ingesting a lethal dose of tetrodotoxin may include dizziness, exhaustion, headache, nausea, or difficulty breathing. For 50% to 80% of the victims, death follows within four to 24 hours. The victim remains fully conscious throughout most of the ordeal, but cannot speak or move due to paralysis, and soon also cannot breathe and subsequently asphyxiates. If the victim survives the first 24 hours, he or she usually recovers completely.It's supposed to be an awful way to go. Yeah, no thanks. We're not big fans of tempting fate.
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Fugu [Wikipedia]
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Matsuri Japanese Restaurant [MenuPages]
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