Eating in Shimonoseki
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Two fugu fans
The Japanese poet Yosa Buson (1716-1783) wrote a famous senryū about forbidden love and the forbidden fish:
I cannot see her tonight.
I have to give her up.
So I will eat fugu.
Over two centuries later, the American poet Homer Simpson also imparted a profound truth about fugu: it is wiser to wait until the master chef is done making out with Mrs. Krabappel in the parking lot, rather than pressuring the chef's untrained assistant to prepare your fugu, which will cause you to spend the next 24 hours waiting for your heart to explode.
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Even if you don't usually eat seafood, you may want to make an exception for Shimonoseki's most famous dish: fugu (ふぐ) (pronounced "fuku" locally). While the flesh and skin are often completely harmless, the internal organs of some species of pufferfish pack enough lethal toxins to paralyze every muscle in the human body. "Fugu" is a generic term that covers many types of pufferfish; Torafugu (Tiger puffer), arguably the most popular type, has extraordinarily poisonous livers, ovaries, and intestines that must be carefully removed before preparation.
In order to serve fugu, chefs must be specially licensed, which entails several years of apprenticeship and a rigorous exam that sees a 70% failure rate. These steps ensure that fugu fatalities at restaurants are virtually unheard of. The city maintains a list of restaurants licensed to serve it .
The most popular form is fugu sashimi, thinly sliced. But it can also be served as part of a salad (yubiki), a stew (fugu-chiri), fried with hot sake (fugu hire-zake), or deep fried (fugu-kara-age). Most restaurants serving the dish will be pricey, but set meals with a bit of fugu can be had near the Kanmon Wharf or Karato Pier for �1100 or so.
Some people are underwhelmed by the taste of fugu ? the flavor is more subtle than that of more oily fish like maguro (tuna), but it has a distinctive taste that keeps aficionados coming back for more than just thrills. A few diners report their lips, tongues, or even fingertips tingling while eating fugu (a condition referred to as shibireru), supposedly the result of chefs leaving trace amounts of the toxin on the fish. But given the legal ramifications of an even accidental poisoning, many dismiss the sensation as urban legend, all in the diners' imagination.
The other infamous local specialty is whale (鯨 kujira), which tastes like fishy steak and is served both raw and cooked. Shimonoseki has been the base for some of Japan's controversial whaling expeditions.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Shimonoseki
