A JAPANESE sushi entrepreneur paid a record $3.1 million for a giant tuna on Saturday as Tokyo’s new fish market, which replaced the world-famous Tsukiji late last year, held its first pre-dawn New Year’s auction. Bidding stopped at a whopping 333.6 million yen for the enormous 278-kg (612-pound) fish — an endangered species — that was caught off Japan’s northern coast. Self-styled “Tuna King” Kiyoshi Kimura paid the top price, which doubled the previous record of 155 million yen also paid by him in 2013. “It’s the best tuna. I was able to buy a delicious, super fresh tuna,” the sushi restaurant chain owner proudly told reporters.

Tsukiji, the world’s biggest fish market, moved in October to Toyosu, a former gas plant a bit further east. Opened in 1935, Tsukiji was best known for its pre-dawn daily auctions of tuna, caught from all corners of the world, for use by everyone from Michelin-star sushi chefs to ordinary grocery stores. Wholesalers and sushi tycoons have been known to pay eye-watering prices for the biggest and best fish, especially at the first auction of the new year. Despite the relocation, the auction ritual remained intact: before dawn, buyers in rubber boots were inspecting the quality of the giant fresh and frozen tunas by examining the neatly cut tail end with flashlights and rubbing slices between their fingers. At 5:10am, handbells rang to signal the auction was underway and the air filled with the sound of auctioneers yelling prices at buyers, who raised fingers to indicate interest.

Later in the day sushi chefs sliced up the giant fish with special knives resembling Japanese swords at Kimura’s main restaurant just outside Tsukiji, where demolition work is under way. Hundreds of sushi lovers queued for a taste. Japan consumes a large portion of the global bluefin catch, a highly prized sushi ingredient known as “kuro maguro” (black tuna) and dubbed the “black diamond” by sushi connoisseurs because of its scarcity. A single piece of “otoro”, or the fish’s fatty underbelly, can cost dozens of dollars at high-end Tokyo restaurants.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2019