Blow fish, if you haven't already heard, is a super poisonous fish that few dare to try because it can kill you in under 15 minutes! I mean, it's the second most poisonous vertebrae on the planet, right behind the dreaded Golden Poison Frog. According to the Encyclopedia of Fishes, which I read almost every day, a single adult blow fish has enough poison in it to kill 30 adult humans!!! Holy crap! Because of this deadly fact, only trained and certified blow fish master chefs that pass a rigorous test and spend 4 years as a blow fish apprentice are allowed to handle and serve the stuff in Korea and Japan...
Now, I've been wanting to try Blow fish for like 10 years... I'm not sure why really... I guess I always thought they were cool and it's like a Darwin-survival-of-the-fittest-Russian-roulette-with-food type deal. I'm obsessed with sushi, and to me blow fish, or bok as the koreans call it, is like the world series of sushi... So, naturally, as with any obsession, the tendency is to always take it as far as you can...
As myself, my co-teacher and my friend walked up to the restaurant, I felt a strange mix of fear, excitement, awesomeness and exhilaration... The restaurant we went to was like my short lived Amish online dating website, I mean, there was no one in this god damn place, what the hell? This could either be very good or very bad... Either it's a super nice place that people only go to on super special occasions OR all the locals know that these people are god damn sadists who's only pleasure comes from watching people die a slow and poisonous death...
I guess tetrodotoxin (blow fish poison) poisoning is super terrible... According to a Japanese health agency, an overdose of tetrodotoxin paralyzes your involuntary muscles, leaving one unable to move or breathe... But still conscious... The poison paralyzes the muscles while the victim stays fully conscious, and eventually dies from asphyxiation. There is currently no antidote, and the standard medical approach is to try to support the respiratory and circulatory system until the effect of the poison wears off... Good times...
This was running through my mind as we were ushered into a private room and given a menu and a few beers, you know, for courage, and then they shut the door... I guess they put us in that little room so if we died no one else would see us...
We ordered the Full Bok Set, a fabulous meal for 2 or 3 which was both the most expensive thing on the menu (150,000 Won) and the most "luxurious and delicious" as the owner, who was also our waitress, described it... Like an Indian (the feather version, not the dot version) sucking and slurping every last piece of meat out of a crab leg, the Koreans use every piece of the blow fish for the meal... The first course consisted of sliced blow fish skin and super spicy blow fish intestines...
(Spicy marinated blow fish(left) and sliced skin (right))
Now, according to my bible, the Encyclopedia of Fishes, the skin is one of the most dangerous parts as it has the highest concentration of tetrodotoxin, the deadly shit that kills mutha fuckaz left and right... Strange and ominous thoughts were racing through my head at this point... (poison...blow fish... monkey... death... poison... sex with a horse... blow fish...death... adult diapers...)
(The first bite)
At first, no one wanted to eat... We all sat there for like 2 minutes staring at this nicely sliced piece of death... Then I stuck out my mighty chopsticks and grabbed a piece of skin... It had the texture and consistency of a super thick condom with a pine cone inside of it... Not that I've ever eaten one of those... I could feel little needles rubbing against the side of my mouth, and the excitement building in my mind to epic and dangerous levels...
It didn't really have the strongest taste in the world, but it was good. The plate of marinated spicy blow fish intestines was REALLY fucking spicy, every time I took a bite it made me cough...
On to the next course...
Blow fish sashimi and fried blow fish... This stuff was fucking AWESOME... It had a super fresh and epic taste and really made my taste buds dance and sing... The little green things in the left part of the picture, according to the owner, were supposed to keep us from dieing as they have some kind of counter-poison enzyme or something... Needless to say I ate liberal amounts... And the fried blow fish was awesome!!! Cooking blow fish meat does NOT kill the toxin (Which I found out AFTER the meal...)... But at the time I thought it did, so I ate 2 plates of the fried stuff thinking it was both extra delicious and epically safe... Oh foolish me...
Now...
During this part of the experience I started to feel a little "different" than(then?) I normally do... My arms and legs started to feel tight and tingly like little blow fish were swimming around inside my veins... It was great!... I asked my 2 other companions if they felt different and my co-teacher, who looked like she was stoned, told me she felt dizzy... And my other friend, a super giant New Zealander who had pounded like 4 beers already just nodded his head... Nice...
Next course...
(Blow fish soup)
Now this stuff was hella fucking spicy... I mean, I coughed like 3 times after each little spoonful... And the soup had huge chunks of blow fish body floating around in it (The white things in the picture above). It looked super sketchy and deadly, but was pretty good... At this point I started to wonder how much blow fish was TOO much... I mean, this stuff can indeed kill you... And I believe I had eaten the lions share of the meal as the other 2 scardy cats were eating like fucking super models... I did feel kind of out of it and light headed, but a good kind. Like when you rub your eyes for like 5 minutes and get a little light show, except I didn't have any visuals and my body felt like that instead of my eyes... So I guess it was nothing like that...
Side note:
I think this is funny and it makes me smile...
End side note:
At this point of the night with 2 whole blow fish consumed... We were all ready to go... We said anyankahaseo... Whatever the fuck that means... To the owner, she even gave us all hugs... Like to say, "Good luck, you bastards will probably be dead by morning! Mwahahahaha..."
But I was feeling OK... I even was feeling good enough for a picture with some random Korean dude...
Oh fuck, that's just a picture... Maybe I don't feel OK...
My friend and I said anyangkahaseo... Again, whatever the fuck that means... to my co-teacher and me and the zealander went to an Uzbekistani restaurant to sample some real beer, not like the god damn piss water they have here in Korea...
Now, All that I know about Uzbekistan I learned from Borat... In the movie he described them as rapists, assholes and sister-fuckers... I didn't see any of that at the restaurant but I'll have to go back another time to make double sure...
Fast forward through streets, Russian hookers on the corner, a waiter that looked like Jaws from the Bond films, 16% beers, friends, ducks, lollipops, Korean guys dancing together, non sequitur, curry, samosas, pterodactyls and a dancing bear...
And, there I was, stepping off the last subway train of the night... Completely twisted on Blow fish... Completely faded on Russian beer and completely tired from the work week... Because of this, or is it in spite? I decided to walk home from the subway station... The streets were angry that night my friends... Fear, panic, chills... They raced through my body like a million little blow fish all angrily bumping into each other... It was about a 30 minute walk... Instead of taking the bus... I mean at this point... Why the fuck not, right? Billy Idol would have done it.
(Night time in Korea)
Oh what a night...
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