Grocery Store Sashimi

An easy meal for us at home is rice, tofu, a small appetizer (tonight, shrimp gyoza) and sashimi.

In the US, I would never buy sashimi or sushi at a grocery store, even a Japanese one. You just don't know how long the fish sat around in the store freezer before it was packaged, whether it was handled properly by the folks who prepared it, etc.

But here in Japan, we regularly buy our sashimi from the local grocery store. They actually have a small "fish kitchen" at the store. There are only a few kinds of fish available at any given time and turnover is very quick. Firefly squid, a late spring cephalopod, made its debut recently. I can't wait to see what the summer brings.

The most amazing thing about grocery store sashimi is that it is easily better than 95% of the sashimi I've ever had in the US. $8 here gets you snapper and chuutoro of a quality that you would be hard pressed to find in the US, regardless of price.

Small PS -- The link above goes to the firefly squid museum here in Japan. At the hotaru ika museum, you can learn all about the wonders of this amazing, beautiful creature, then step into the restaurant and chow down on some tasty glowing squid.

mmm...tasty!