I ate whale meat today. It tasted okay. Nothing special, really. It’s sort of like salmon sashimi when it’s raw, and sort of like beef when it’s cooked. Hayden Panettiere is crying now.

I’m actually staying at Sakura Hostel in Asakusa, Tokyo right now. I was in Hakone before this. I will be blogging more about things from Osaka and Hakone when I have the time.

It’s whale meat

The shop specializes in whale meat and set meals (定食) go for anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 yen. They contain very little whale meat relative to the rice serving. There are also sashimi sets with meat from various parts of the whale body and they cost more, going from about 2,000 to 4,000 yen.

Scientific whaling is delicious

The set I ordered (raw red whale meat on rice) cost 1,050 yen. There were actually bits of whale skin in the miso soup too. They tasted rather nice. That said, whale meat doesn’t taste nearly as exotic as I had imagined it to be. It’s certainly not worth the premium over regular beef/salmon.

This particular shop is located near the tourist trap Kaminarimon at Asakusa. There are some other izakaya around the area that serve whale meat, but this is the only specialized eatery I found.

I also dropped by Ghibli Museum in Mitaka and Kabuki-chou in Shinjuku today and took some pictures. Will talk about them in posts to follow. Someday.

P.S. I’ve been accepted by Stanford University via Early Action! It almost made up for the disappointment of not being able to get my hands on Maaya Sakamoto’s upcoming concert ticket.