How Record Prize Tuna Is Marketed And Soldff

Source: Wall Street Journal

The Tokyo restaurant world was shocked this week when a 128kg Japanese bluefin tuna fetched 9.63 million yen ($153,000) - the highest price paid for a bluefin tuna in eight years.


Kyubey, a posh Ginza sushi place, sold single slivers of the prized bluefin for $32. Pic: Hotel New Otani.

Two restaurants with distinctly different styles bid jointly at Tokyo’s first fish auction of the year, splitting both the cost and the fish. To see what they got for their money, I sampled the tuna at both places during the three days it was available.

Half the trophy tuna went to Kyubey, a posh sushi bar in Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza district that serves 40 kinds of fish and counts Sony chief executive Howard Stringer and Steven Spielberg as clients. The service and the food is so personalized here that the chef asks whether you want your Post-It-size slice of abalone raw or steamed, brushed with soy sauce or salt. On my recent visit, a single sliver of the prized bluefin cost $US22 ($32). It also was offered as an item in the 10-piece, $US60 lunch set, which is what I ordered. The pinkish-brown chutoro, or medium-fatty tuna, I ate at the black-lacquer sushi counter was so smooth that the whole thing melted away in seconds, making me wish for a second piece.

The tuna’s other half went to Itamae Sushi, a Tokyo outpost of a casual, Hong-Kong restaurant chain that has been expanding recently. The restaurant, packed on a recent afternoon with blue-suited office workers wolfing down $11 lunch specials, had posters plastered all over the place to tout its achievement: “We bid successfully - for a whopping 9.6 million yen!”

Itamae Sushi didn't even pretend to be making money on the bluefin. It stuffed the fish into its voluminous tuna lunch set, which includes chutoro, chopped tuna, soy sauce-soaked tuna and tuna maki rolls - 10 pieces for $US32, offered to the first 20 customers of the day until the restaurant ran out on Wednesday.

On the day I visited, the lunch set sold out promptly. I managed to sample a piece of chutoro from the restaurant’s last remaining block of bluefin and found it tasted clean and smooth. It wasn’t as firmly pressed onto the rice as at Kyubey, though, and it flapped around when I picked it up.

How two such disparate establishments came to share one extremely expensive fish says as much about the no-holds-barred competition among Japan’s 32,000 sushi restaurants as about the Japanese passion for eating first foods of the season and of the year, which they believe are “auspicious,” bringing good luck.

Japan’s foodies have long been obsessed with everything from the first bamboo shoots in the spring to matsutake mushrooms in the fall. Food snobs spend a fortune for first-of-season foods that will plunge in price in a matter of days or weeks - and often taste better at the height of the season. Just this week, a 10-ounce box of the first crop of Japanese greenhouse cherries sold for $US380.

Miki Hizume, a 44-year-old Tokyo housewife, went straight to Itamae Sushi with her husband the day after the bluefin auction, which was the first of the year and an important occasion because it came so soon after the festive New Year’s celebrations. Ms Hizume said the bluefin sashimi was so fresh she could feel the smell rush up to her nose as she popped the first piece in her mouth. “I feel so lucky to be able to taste it,” she said.

High bidding for Japanese bluefin has set off media feeding frenzies in recent years. In 2001, a Tokyo restaurant paid a record $US219,755 for a 202-kilogram bluefin. That was an eye-popping $US1088 per kilogram - even more than the $US819 per kilogram paid earlier this month. Last year, a Hong Kong entrepreneur named Ricky Cheng plunked down $US66,035 for the most-expensive tuna at the year’s first auction, becoming the first foreigner ever to buy the top tuna. Mr. Cheng, best known for his ramen noodle restaurants and the budding Itamae Sushi chain, became an instant media star.

Yosuke Imada, Kyubey's second-generation owner, watched with unease as Mr. Cheng was referred to as “Sushi King” in the Japanese press, when it was establishments like Kyubey that regularly purchase top-quality fish. Traditionally, the 63-year-old Mr. Imada says, he has frowned upon buying at the first auction because the fish command a high premium that doesn't always match the quality. But this year, he couldn't sit still. “I said, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Why is Hong Kong getting it all?’ I had my pride.”

As they learned of each other’s interest in the first auction, Kyubey and Itamae Sushi decided to strike a deal to bid for the fish together and split the cost if they won. While the price was extra high this year because of bad weather and a poor catch, both restaurants say they would have gone even higher. One technicality: Kyubey secured the half of the fish that was facing up when it was caught, which is considered of higher quality than the side facing down.

So was it worth it? To my disappointment, both Kyubey’s Mr. Imada and Katsura Nakamura, head of Itamae Sushi’s Japanese operation, say their bluefin’s quality wasn't the best they’ve seen. At 128 kilograms, it wasn’t as fatty as bluefin in the preferred 200-kilogram category. The fish was caught on December 29, and while taste improves with several days' aging, the expiration date was approaching.

Mr. Imada says even selling at $22 a slice, the tuna won’t make Kyubey any money. His half of the fish will yield only about 3000 slices, and including labor costs, he says he won’t come out ahead. Still, he appreciates all the attention he got at a time when the economy is rapidly deteriorating and corporate entertainment is poised to take a big hit. “I’m going to do it again next year,” he says.

On my visit to Itamae Sushi, Mr. Nakamura offered me a slice of a different bluefin tuna, one that had been caught just two days earlier. He said even though its cost was a fifth of the first-of-the-year tuna, this one was of higher quality. Indeed, the fresher fish did have a brighter red color, and the fat burst in my mouth. “This drives me crazy,” Mr. Nakamura says, but adds it was a marketing effort that would be worth repeating next year.