Saturday, September 03, 2005

Whale restaurant

My last meal in Japan was at the Tokuya (House of Virtue) whale restaurant. This is the logo of the place which is proudly displayed everywhere even on the giant neon sign above the highway on the way to the airport.

Even the chopstick rest is whale-shaped.

A array of little whale treats, we chose: deep-fried whale heart salad, whale breast sashimi, whale tongue sashimi, whale tongue bacon, etc. We also had a whale hotpot with udon noodles. That was quite nice and probable the only tasty thing. Whale is very tough and otherwise tasteless. The blubber and skin were just very fatty.

You can read more about our whale experience on my sister's blog.

2 comments:

Ziz said...

Yikes...I never would've thought a restaurant would be entirely themed around whale. Is that common?? Sounds like it was less than stellar. :S

David said...

Osaka has a population of 8 million and is Japan's 2nd largest city. We found two specialist whale restaurants on the internet but I'm sure other places might sell it as part of their menu.

My sister once saw it for sale in the supermarket. Initially she thought it was extremely red tuna sashimi but when she read the label, she realised it was whale. However, that's quite rare and seasonal.