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| - Came here for the $145 live seafood dinner combo, the main draw being the live octopus (as I'm sure it is for many diners here)!
So let's cut to the chase: I feel it tasted like nothing. Just squiggly bits of tentacles, more chewy and tough than the typical cooked octopus, and a bit slimy. Seriously, boiled chicken has more pronounced flavour. The only flavours I really got were from the spicy(ish)-sweet sauce that comes from a plastic squeezie bottle or sesame-salt dipping sauce - both of which I liked, by the way, but the octopus itself had no taste in itself.
Other live/("odori"-style, if you're familiar with the Japanese type live kind of seafood) seafood you'll receive as part of the set:
- Abalone: My favourite of the set, it's got a toothsome quality kind of like a very thick-cut geoduck...but not as tasty as geoduck, IMHO...
- Sea cucumber: It looks so slimy on the plate, but it's actually quite sturdy and tough.
- Sea pineapple/sea squirt: Very slimy, squishy, briney and ... ammonia-y. Um, I'm not doing a very good job of selling this one.
- Sea... ... Slug?: Uh, I don't even know what this was. Chopped up, it looked like bits of chitterlings (cooked/fried pork intestines). It tasted like...um...um...I can't even remember.
- The head of the octopus, whose body you just ate raw!
- One whole flounder: Wrap it up in your choice of leaf (lettuce, large shiso/perilla, or ssukgat/chrysanthemum leaves), stick some sauce on it with optional raw garlic slices and jalapeno, and eat it. Since it's filleted immediately before it's served to you, don't expect Japanese-styled sashimi, which has been given time to develop flavour. This one is more fishy, and has firmer textured flesh.
Other things you'll get in the set:
- A spicy fish soup made with the flounder head/bones
- A tempura set of about 4-5 shrimp and a few vegetables
It's exactly a bad deal, but I feel like this was more of an "experience" type of meal than one where I had really enjoyed the flavours. I'm glad I tried it, but all in all I'd say it was all relatively bland.
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