Poison... poison... tasty fish

I don't think I've ever eaten out as many times as we did this weekend, but to our credit we generally got out of our comfort zone a little and tried some new places. One of these in particular was lovely and we'd definitely consider making it a new stomping ground. The other was perhaps the most traumatic dining experience I've ever been through; I think I can fairly safely say that I'm happy to tick fugu (blowfish) off my list and never eat it again.

Ever.

She's got her eatin' shoes on

What was supposed to be a couple of drinks on Friday night turned into dinner out, then we headed out to the pub and stumbled across a few familiar faces while we were there. Neither of us had a particular problem with being out past our bedtime - we've been so wholesome lately that it didn't hurt to shake the rust off a little. We had a wander around the shops on Saturday and then made a snap decision to head to a fugu restaurant for dinner. Un(?)fortunately it was booked out, so we had to content ourselves with making a booking for Sunday night and went off in search of quieter pastures. Wandering up and down the back alleys, we found a hole in the wall called the "Vege Bar" and decided that sounded like a bit of alright. The food, while not something I'd choose normally, was fantastic and Lisa seemed to be right at home (hippie headband and all). We sipped red wine, nibbled on tapas and tried to look far posher than we are. As expected it was predominantly vegetables, fresh cream and garlic; the highlight had to be the pumpkin gnocchi. This was quite literal - gnocchi served in a half roast pumpkin "bowl" which could be eaten down to the skin. The cherry blossom ice cream was hardly necessary - Lisa was already in love. I can definitely see us going back there again, particularly if we're feeling a bit meaty.

Swedish: amusing tourists since 1648

After a long lie-in Sunday, we headed out to Ikea to fantasise about naughty things like beds and lamps and towel rails, then sat down in the food hall to flick through the catalogue. The main idea was to make sure we didn't go too hungry if the fugu was an unmitigated disaster. Should the fishy stuff prove to be inedible, at least we'd have meatballs and Daim cake bringing up the flank. We stopped by the food market to pick up some "groceries", if you can use that word for hot dogs and meatballs. A sense of dread was starting to grip us by this stage - the closer we got to the fugu restaurant, the more urgent the feeling of impending doom.

If you close your eyes, it's like a bony chicken nugget

We got to the restaurant just past seven, passing by some confused looking blowfish on the way to our table. The place smelled kind of strange - a slightly sickly fish smell that we had trouble getting out of our coats at the end of the night. Having said that, our fears were at first misplaced; the sashimi wasn't too bad and the fried and grilled dishes were alright as well. When raw, fugu is chewy and mild and seems to hold its flavour a lot longer than other fish - it's kind of like sashimi flavoured gum, as unpleasant as that sounds.

Fire fixes everything

Cooked, it's very meaty and chicken-like, but even the bigger pieces were quite bony and needed to be nibbled carefully. I won't say it was great, but the feeling of fear had left my stomach and once they had cleared away the griddle, I wondered if I had made more of a big deal of it than I needed to. I kind of assumed the bill was going to come out at this point, but another waitress showed up, ominously plonked down a wicker basket with wax paper and stock inside it and turned on the heating element. "Hot pot?" I wondered. Like calling Chucky a 'doll', the words didn't do justice to the horror once it actually arrived.

Oh sweet Mother of God

The plate hit the table and almost instantaneously the child at a nearby table erupted into deranged screaming that continued for the rest of the evening, which is kind of what I wanted to do as well. One of the pieces was twitching and beating like a heart, which gave the entire situation a lovely Temple of Doom feel. Short of experiencing Hell itself, I imagine this sheer abuse of all five of my senses is about as close as I'm going to get at this stage. With shaking hands, we plopped each piece into the bubbling liquid and hoped the evil would boil away.

More holy water please

Each piece came out thankfully dead and cooked, but still with alien spines jutting out in every direction. And the holes! Holes and valves and knuckles of cartilage - we wondered how much we would have to eat before it looked like we had made a good attempt at it. We struggled through, spacing each piece out with cabbage and mushrooms and finally, finally, we had made a convincing job of it. With a shaking hand, I pushed the bell button and asked to have everything cleared away. The girl looked confused, motioning to a the jug of stock she had in her hand. "You have another course," she said. I could almost feel the blood draining from my face; the screaming continued from both child and inner child. Had it been more of the same I probably wouldn't have survived the attempt, but thankfully the last part was just a rice porridge made with the leftover stock. Thoroughly sick of the taste and smell of everything, we chugged through the last of it and were delivered the small mercy of some gloriously fuguless ice cream. All we could really do by this point was laugh.

Traumatised

I've always considered fugu one of those "must do" pillars of the Japanese experience; one of the first questions people ask you about your time here. From that point of view I'm glad I weathered the stress and poison to survive the experience and cross it off my to-do list. All that's left now is climbing Fuji before I declare that I've "done" Japan. If that pillar's as hard to knock down as this one though, I better grab myself some Lemnas bread and prepare for a summer on Mount Doom.