[bootlegga]

Quote:

A deep-pocketed restaurateur shelled out nearly $750,000 for a tuna at Japan's Tsukiji fish market on Thursday, smashing the record price for a single bluefin.

The 269-kilogramme (592-pound) fish -- caught off the coast of Japan's northern Aomori prefecture -- stood at an eye-popping 56.49 million yen ($736,500) when the hammer came down in the first auction of the year.

The figure dwarfs the previous high of 32.49 million yen paid at last year's inaugural auction at Tsukiji, a huge working market that features on many Tokyo tourist itineraries.

Thursday's winning bidder was Kiyoshi Kimura, president of the company that runs the popular Sushi-Zanmai chain.

At around 210,000 yen per kilogramme, a single slice of sushi could cost as much as 5,000 yen, but the firm plans to sell it at a more regular price of up to 418 yen, local media reported.

"The flesh is coloured in magnificent red and the quality of fat is very good," Kimura said. "It is very delicious. The taste is unbeatable."

A Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner bought the previous year's record tuna, and Kimura added: "I wanted to win the best tuna so that Japanese customers, not overseas, can enjoy it."

Bluefin is usually the most expensive fish available at Tsukiji.

Emiko Misumi, a 44-year-old woman who tasted a slice, said: "This tuna is so fatty and very delicious."

"It was sweet even without sugar or sake. It was a very delicate sweet taste," said another female customer Noriko Nakai, 63.

Decades of overfishing have seen global tuna stocks crash, leading some Western nations to call for a ban on catching endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Japan consumes three-quarters of the global catch of bluefin, a highly prized sushi ingredient known in Japan as "kuro maguro" (black tuna) and dubbed by sushi connoisseurs the "black diamond" because of its scarcity.

"You know, good things like this are appreciated in the whole world," said 22-year-old male customer Hirotaka Higurashi when asked about the overfishing issue. "There is nothing we can do about it."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/single-tuna-fe ... 41043.html

[Tricks]

Welp, off to take up fishing...

[xerxes]

For that price that better be the best tasting thing in the history of ever.

[Lemmy]

A group of friends and I went diving down in Turks & Caicos 8 or 9 years ago. My Dutch buddy, Dykes, and a couple of the boys went out on a deep-sea fishing charter one day. Dykes hooked into a 100lb yellow-fin tuna. They get it back to the dock and take some photos and Dykes sells the fish to some kids, who literally haul this big tuna away on their Radio Flyer wagon. The charter had cost each of the boys $50 and when the kids offered Dykes $50 for the fish, he figured he'd broken even. Then the ship captain told him that the kids would be dragging that fish to the first restaurant on the strip and selling it for $5 a pound. I wouldn't want to perpetuate the stereotype that the Dutch are cheap but Dykes was back out on that boat 3 more times before the week was out, figuring he'd catch another and pay for his whole trip (and make up for his stupidity). Since he got skunked the other 3 times, he ended up down $150 and mad as hell.

[Batsy]

I get a can of Euroshopper tuna for my cat from my local Costcutter for a mere 59p.

I don't see why anybody should have to fork out three-quarters of a billion dollars.

[Lemmy]

Batsy wrote:

three-quarters of a billion dollars.

1,000,000,000 x 0.75 = ?

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Lemmy wrote:

Batsy wrote:

three-quarters of a billion dollars.

1,000,000,000 x 0.75 = ?

Well, your equation still works out to $750 million

[Robair]

I'm certainly not known as a tree hugging hippie, but harvesting endangered species for food is disgusting.

[Batsy]

Robair wrote:

I'm certainly not known as a tree hugging hippie, but harvesting endangered species for food is disgusting.

If we didn't eat we'd become an endangered species, too.

[jeff744]

Robair wrote:

I'm certainly not known as a tree hugging hippie, but harvesting endangered species for food is disgusting.

Too many people in too small an area, they live off food imports and the ocean, and I believe you have to catch fish like that with a line.