Dining dangerously

I am staring at death on my plate. Or rather, death is staring up at me from my plate. A thin, white strip of sashimi puffer fish or Japanese fugu. Also called blow fish and puffer fish, it is one of the ugliest and most poisonous fish in the ocean alive; dead, it looks quite harmless but still dangerous as its toxin is known to kill people when the fish is prepared wrong.

The fugu poison, called tetrodoxin, is said to be more than a thousand times deadlier than cyanide and a milligram or two can kill an adult.

Quite possibly, this may be the last lunch I will have. Or the best gourmet adventure yet.

So I ask Traders Hotel’s Kitsho Japanese executive chef Masahiro Mizumoto, what color is the poison? “We cannot see it. The poison is in the blood, so we take out the liver, the brain, the intestines.”

How do you know it’s there? “Because we know which parts of the fish have the poison, so we take them out.”

Oh, what the hell! So I take a piece of fugu sashimi with my chopsticks, roll it up with some chopped spring onion and dip it in ponzu sauce, and put it in my mouth…

Chef Masahiro Mizumoto doesn’t just do fugu, of course. He also makes really wonderful sea urchin wrapped in nori. Two more must-orders are his seared scallops, which are flown from Hokkaido, with uni sauce; and the Japanese braised pork belly, which takes six to seven hours to cook. Photos by FERNAN NEBRES

Okay, that’s one off my bucket list.

The truth is, eating fugu is an experience more than anything else. It is playing with the fates and putting your life in the hands of the chef. If your mouth starts to feel numb within the hour of eating fugu, you’re gonna die. There is no known antidote to fugu poisoning. There is no middle ground, you don’t get just an upset stomach — bad fugu equals death. 

Think of eating fugu as skydiving on a plate. You will probably survive because you’re in expert hands, but there’s that small chance that you won’t. And if you like it, you will indulge yourself over and over again. Expensive, yes — oh, but the rush!

Chef Mizumoto says there are two kinds of fugu being served in Japan: wild and cultured. Wild fugu is more expensive and can go up to P35,000 per person in Japan.

Cooked three ways: The fugu hotpot with all its raw ingredients. Restaurant diners are required to order fugu several days in advance because the fish is flown from Japan. There should be about four people in the group to order one fish.

What Kitsho serves in Manila is cultured fugu and a five-course fugu meal costs from P4,000 to P5,000 per head. Mizumoto says the restaurant requires diners to order fugu several days in advance because the fish is flown from Japan and that there should be about four people in the group to order one fish, which is prepared three ways: sashimi, hotpot, and fried.

Mizumoto has been a chef for 27 years and has been a licensed fugu chef for more than 10. He trained in Fukuoka, Japan, which has some of the best wild and cultured fugu in the world. Japan regulates fugu preparation and consumption. Chefs are required to take courses, apprentice extensively and pass an exam (and not everyone does) before getting their license. It takes about five years or more before one can get a license. 

On the consumption side, the government prohibits restaurants in Japan from serving the liver of the puffer fish. But some restaurants — and patrons — ignore this law. In 1975, Japan’s leading kabuki actor Mitsugoro Bando VII, a known gourmet with a fondness for fugu, ate in a restaurant that served fugu liver. He ate four servings. He died of paralysis and convulsions that same night.

At Kitsho, I have no hesitation at all in eating fugu. Mizumoto has been doing this for so long. I watch him while he is cutting the fish in sashimi slices — so precise, so sure — and he is talking about his father, who is also a chef and runs a Japanese restaurant in Little Tokyo on Pasong Tamo. His dad, Mizumoto says, is now so Pinoy, having lived in Manila for more than 20 years. He also has an organic pig farm in Batangas and supplies restaurants and Rustan’s with organic pork (they feed the pigs “good bacteria,” something like Yakult).  

Mizumoto himself speaks Filipino quite well, having been here for a total of four years, split between a decade when he went back to Japan to work. He is well-known in the seafood markets of Baclaran, Macapagal and Cartimar, going to the palengke himself almost every morning.  

Simply yummy: The uni tempura has such wonderful texture and taste when you first bite into the crunchy tempura batter and then the uni bursts and melts in your mouth.

After preparing the sashimi, the chef joins our table. On the plate are fugu fillet, tail, skin and some gelatinous part found on the underside of the fish. To be honest about it, fugu sashimi doesn’t taste extraordinary. The fish has the texture of a yellowtail, and tastes a bit the same, too. Then Mizumoto’s assistant rolls in the hotpot and the chef begins cooking. The head is dipped in with some vegetables, the fats dripping off the fish skull, and he serves it in individual bowls. The soup is good, the flesh now has the texture of chicken. Then what remains of the fresh fish is fried, and again, we get a little of fillet and skin. 

Chef Mizumoto doesn’t just do fugu, of course. One of the best tempuras I have ever tasted was at Kitsho: sea urchin wrapped in nori. It has such wonderful texture and taste, when you first bite into the crunchy tempura batter and then the uni bursts and melts in your mouth. Another dish that I love is the grilled salmon with tartar sauce, the delicate taste of salmon and Japanese mayonnaise fighting for supremacy. Two more must-orders are the seared scallops, which are flown from Hokkaido, with uni sauce; and the Japanese braised pork belly, which takes six to seven hours to cook. The pork, quite literally, is as soft as marshmallow and that’s because the pigs Kitsho uses are raised in an organic farm.   

Turning Japanese: At Kitsho lovers of sushi and sashimi also get their fill.

So, yes, chef Mizumoto has quite revamped the offerings at Kitsho in the two years he has been there, turning Japanese cuisine on its head with some of his innovations. And he is the only one, or one of the very few licensed fugu chefs living in the country.

People say that right after taking your first bite of fugu your mouth will start feeling a little numb. This is just an old wives’ tale. After three courses of fugu and some of the best Japanese dishes I have ever had, my mouth didn’t feel a tinge of numbness. But my spirit was filled with a rush. Like I had just gone sky diving.

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Kitsho restaurant is located at Traders Hotel Manila, 2001 Roxas Boulevard, Manila. Call 523-7011.

E-mail the author at tanyalara@yahoo.com.