Kiyoshi Kimura proudly showing his record price bluefin tuna
This subject never stops amazing me.
In 2010, I blogged about a giant bluefin tuna caught off the coast of Japan and sold at a record price then, (https://quierosaber.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/giant-bluefin-tuna-caught-and-sold-in-japan/) but, that was one monster of a bluefin tuna.
This time a sleek bluefin that weighed only 222 kg fetched a winning bid of 155.4 million yen ($1.7 million) at the Tsukiji fish market’s first auction for the year.
Kiyoshi Kimura, the winning bidder and president of sushi restaurant chain Sushi-Zanmai, described the fish as “a little bit expensive”, compared to last year’s previous high of 56.49 million yen ($616,000), which he also won at the same auction market.
Kimura, however, had a benevolent motive for buying the fish.
“I wanted to meet expectations of my customers who said they wanted to eat Japan’s best tuna again this year,” Kimura told Jiji Press.
“With this good tuna, I hope to help cheer up Japan.”
Based on the price paid – around $7,630 per kilogram – a single slice of sushi from the monster fish would cost diners as much as $325.
Kimura told local media he planned to sell the fish for a huge loss, at a more realistic 398 yen ($4.34) per portion.
Japan consumes three-quarters of the global bluefin catch, 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.
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