Recently I went to what was quite possibly the most amusing restaurant I have encountered in Japan. Simply put, it had a “fishing” theme. While in Canada, this may mean some fishing trophies on the wall and an outdoors themed decor; here it meant actually fishing for your dinner inside the restaurant. I had a hard time imagining the logistics of it until I was sitting inside a wooden-fishing-boat-shaped seating area surrounded by tanks of fairly lethargic, over-fed fish. When we arrived, we were handed simple fishing rods and some little krill-type bait to get started.
It didn’t take long to see that the fish weren’t interested in the krill, so normal fishing tactics wouldn’t work. The best chance was to snag one with the hook alone. Although I didn’t end up getting anything myself, in our group we managed a couple fish and a couple lobster-looking creatures. The prize for catching something? A discount on the regular price of the fish and your choice of preparation.
One of the more interesting choices was lobster sashimi. The meat was laid out on the tail and the head was set on the serving plate as a garnish. Slightly disturbing was the fact that the eyes and legs were still twitching for a good 2 or 3 minutes after it arrived at the table. We decided to wait for the twitching to subside before eating it, as the idea of eating him while he was watching was a bit morbid! I must say, though, to its credit, it was delicious!
Altogether, dinner was a unique and entertaining encounter. Can’t wait for the next Japanese culinary adventure!
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