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Fishin’ for crawdads in Tokyo: A tale of friendship

Master Blaster Oct 18, 2017
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Sometimes men have trouble expressing fondness for one another, so they give each other mudbugs.

Recently around the office, our reporter Seiji Nakazawa has been unusually vocal about his desire for a particular seafood known as ise ebi, which is a type of spiny lobster found in the oceans around eastern Asia. In Japan, ise ebi is regarded as a luxurious delicacy dined on by the rich and famous…in other words, people who aren’t Seiji.

▼ This ise ebi curry cost about 10,000 yen (US$89)

Fellow writer PK Sanjun, on the other hand, has tried ise ebi a few times, much like many people with the means to do so at least once in their lives…or to put it another way, people who aren’t Seiji.

One day, Seiji was feeling extra curious and bombarded PK with questions such as “What did it taste like?” and “How much did it cost?” Finally, PK snapped and asked back, “What is it with you and ise ebi?”

Seiji replied wistfully that when he was young, he had seen people feasting on lobster in the Studio Ghibli film Laputa: Castle In The Sky. The anime food looked so succulent and luxurious, but much like everything else in that movie, it was part of a fantasy world that he would never know.

Seiji’s brutally adorable answer struck a chord with PK. He had already known about Seiji’s inexperience with food and that he had never eaten Dandan noodles or even KFC before joining this website. But never realizing his childhood dream of eating ise ebi really made PK feel for his coworker.

▼ Seiji was discovered by us as a school girl fresh off the bus from Osaka and naive in the ways of fast food and ramen.

PK quickly made up his mind that he would bring the luxury and joy of ise ebi to Seiji, but how? PK was hardly made of money either. He requested a budget from our boss, and after he was told where he could stick his ise ebi, PK was just about ready to give up.

Then it dawned on him: crayfish!

Aside from the fact that they live in fresh water rather than salt water, crayfish and ise ebi pretty much look exactly alike. Therefore, logic would dictate that they would taste alike too…right? He heard crayfish were popular in countries like France and China, so at the very least they must taste good, and who knows? Maybe they taste even better than ise ebi!

The best part of this plan was that crayfish could be caught for free. PK found a whole pond of them in Shakujii Park in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward which also allowed fishing in certain areas. Having picked up some bait on the way, PK was all set to bag himself a big ol’ bag of crawdaddies.

Although he doesn’t like to admit it, PK actually spent much of his youth – from first grade to high school – catching crayfish. However, it had been about 20 years since then so he was a little rusty. In addition, these yabbies were much more accustomed to humans and reluctant to take food placed directly in front of them.

Despite these problems PK was able to land three after two and a half hours. He looked at his catch and was surprised at how much they looked like ise ebi. The only difference was their size as an ise ebi can measure up to 30 centimeters (one foot), but PK’s were about a third of that.

Nevertheless, PK was ecstatic at his haul and was sure that Seiji was going to flip when he saw it. Of course, he couldn’t just give him a box of live animals, so he got ready to do some cooking.

First, PK kept them in tap water to flush the muddy pond water out of their systems. But once brown clouds stopped emanating from the crayfish he realized he knew nothing about cooking them. Luckily, our more worldly reporter Go Hatori had such experience and took over cooking duties.

First he doused the crustaceans in sake to remove any lingering mud flavor. And then, to avoid catching any parasites from the bottom-dwelling creatures, he boiled them for ten minutes.

Watching them change to a deep red color, PK was very excited by the end result. Aside from the size difference they looked just like ise ebi.

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A post shared by P.K.サンジュン (@p.k.sanjun)

“Seiji’s gonna flip when he sees this,” PK thought just as his fellow writer entered the office.

“What’s that box of muddy water doing on the balcony?”

“Seiji! Seiji! I cooked some crayfish for you!”

“What? Why?”

“Well, you know how you were always asking me about ise ebi? So, I cooked you crayfish.”

“No, those are gross. I want lobster.”

“Ugh, it’s basically the same thing. Come on, it took me a long time to catch and make it.”

*“*YOU cooked it yourself? Aren’t those things dangerous to eat?”

“Go helped and he has a ‘cooking license’ so it’s cool.”

“S’up.”

“Yeah, I keep hearing about Go’s ‘cooking license’ but has anyone actually ever seen it? Is there even such a thing as…”

“You know Seiji, you’re not really embracing the spirit of this whole thing. Now shush! Let’s go eat!”

Seiji reluctantly agreed and took a seat in front of the freshly cooked crawfish.

Sensing his inexperience, PK helped by peeling off the shell. It looked just like a little lobster, and Seiji took his first bite…

“So? How is it?”

“It doesn’t really taste like anything. It’s tender, but… Oh wait, there is an aftertaste of mud. I dunno, I guess I would have believed it was lobster if you hadn’t already told me what it was.”

“Yeah, we had to do that for legal reasons. You know…parasites.”

“Well anyway, it’s not very good.”

In the end, this experience did nothing to help rid Seiji of his longing for ise ebi. However, he could now say that he’s eaten crayfish, so overall it was a net positive. PK also gave the leftovers to his other co-workers who gave decent reviews with the worst of them saying it was “reasonably delicious.”

Of course, PK tried some himself and thought that it did taste like lobster – not anywhere close to ise ebi – but certainly a lower-end lobster you might find in a gas station or meal in an economy class seat of an airplane. More importantly, PK had savored the sweet taste of helping out a friend, and that is a delicacy worth all the parasite-ridden crawdads in Tokyo.