10 fun stories from Japan – A Miniseries: The Fish Story

by The Flamingo

Dear reader, you already know what big fans we are about all things Japan. The Flamingo wrote a 10 stories miniseries about funny/awkward/eccentric experiences that can only occur in Japan. I will share with you some more or less embarrassing moments that happened during the trips there, that always make top conversation topics.

9. The fish story

There will be more than one story about food in Japan, of course. This one happened in a sushi place in the Shinjuku train station.

My boyfriend stared at the menu, all written in kanji, with no translation in English whatsoever and no pictures, which is unusual for a restaurant in Tokyo. After deciphering some of the kanji, he picked a sushi and sashimi set for two.

Like in most of the Japanese restaurants, in this place we sat around a table with the chef on the other side. He prepared the plate with all kinds of yummy slices of fish.

At the end though, he put his hand in a an aquarium full of grey 10 cm long fish and pulled one out. Alive! My eyes popped out of their sockets and whispered to my boyfriend: “I hope that is not for us…”. But as it happens, it was…the chef skewered the damn fish right in front of my eyes and put it on the plate under our noses followed of course by the usual “tadaima” (enjoy your meal)!

I cannot explain how I felt seeing the poor skewered fish twitching on my plate. Luckily my husband reacted fast enough, took the fish out and gave it quickly back to the chef, then picked me up from where I melted on the floor.

This is not a funny story, it was one awful experience. We found out afterwards that we chose the sushi menu for locals, which specifically stated “not for tourists”.

So we learned that the Japanese like their fish as fresh as it gets…

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash