Eating On The Edge

Puffer fish is a Japanese delicacy with a deadly reputation — Chef Masato sawahara dissects the culinary culture of fugu, and Zara Zhuang lives to tell the tale

- Zara Zhuang

RARELY DOES ONE start an interview worrying about not being able to survive it. While speaking to Japanese fugu chef Masato Sawahara through an interpreter, platters of tessa, or thinly sliced puffer fish sashimi, with all the accoutrements, arrive on the table. Already a little uneasy about being served fish that, ill-prepared, can land 30 to 50 people in hospital every year and has claimed more than a few lives in Japan, I’m not comforted by 43-year-old Sawahara playfully mock-retching on the side just as the first bite is taken.

But Sawahara knows what he’s doing. The 24-year fugu master helms Osaka Tora Fugu no Kai, his network of five members-only restaurants in Tokyo and Osaka, which began operations out of his Osaka residence in 2010. He transplanted the upscale dining experience to Singapore for a nine course private dinner for 100 guests at the Forest Restaurant in Equarius Hotel at Resorts World Sentosa last year, for no reason other than to share the culture of fugu with a new audience. “To me, what I do is one-half business and one-half a hobby, a dream,” Sawahara says. “In Japan it’s business — I have to earn an income — but overseas, that’s where I’d gladly spend to introduce fugu to foreigners.”