Restaurant Kurobatei - Giant Tuna Head

 Restaurant Kurobatei is a semi-famous place on the southern end of the Miura peninsula. Famous because of Andrew Zimmern and their giant Bluefin tuna fishheads of course.  

However, I assure you they have many great items on their menu besides the fish heads.

Prior to coming to Japan I got to reading a blog by someone stationed here that was married to a Japanese girl. He blogged about going to a restaurant and eating a giant tuna head. The restaurant name I didn't take particular note of, though I suspect it was Kurobatei, and I cannot find his blog anymore. After he went to the restaurant, he was determined to cook a tuna fish head on his own, and documented his adventures on his blog. First, he had to find a tuna head. While that might seem easy in Japan, it isn't, especially for a foreigner. He was able to get one no problem with the help of his wife, so that step was easy. But then his oven was too small to fit the head in, so he tried his grill -  but grills are even smaller than a lot of ovens. Not to be deterred, he set out to modify the grill and make it bigger. After finding some scrap metal and a place on base willing to bend and cut it to his dimensions, he ended up with an extension to put on the grill so that the cover now sits an additional foot from the grill surface. It took him a total of three times to get it right, as one of the times the fish had not completely defrosted even after cooking it. Lesson - you have to fully defrost the fish head first.  But that is what initially caught my interest about tuna heads.

I'll show you where you can buy your own fish head (initially the most difficult part of the project - finding one, but in the end easy) and cook it up in a separate post.  I know there is a very strong demand for this kind of instruction.
Another thing that sparked my interest was seeing an Andrew Zimmern Bizarre Foods episode when he was in Tokyo eating his normal bizarre foods. But he took a side trip down to Misaki to do a segment on Kurobatei. You can see some photos here.

So one day a bunch of us set off into the unknown to try it for ourselves.

Dinner came with plenty of sashimi, some tuna "kalbi" ribs, a salad, and of course the tuna head, coming it at roughly 20 lbs reportedly.




Kurobatei has quite a few items to choose from if you'd like to try other "more traditional" parts of the fish. Check out their menu and use your browsers translator. But they are all focused around the tuna.

Chef Yamata will perform a ritual before he sets off to carve your tuna head. He'll do something special with his nut necklace and blow the conch shell and say something in Japanese. It's all a lot more mysterious when you don't understand the language.

Chef Yamata knows everything there is to know about this fish from head to tail fin and he seemed to be explaining the different parts of the fish head as he carved it.  Supposedly the expert has been at this for about 39 years.

The tuna was good but the meat in the head is very rich. The cheek meat is especially delicious, as is the area behind the eyeball. I don't recall anyone from our group eating the eyeball itself, but it is available to eat.

The fish head was very big and we ordered the largest available. It served our entire group of 12 or so people and we had leftovers.



If you'd like to visit Kurobatei, its probably best to have a Japanese friend/speaker call for reservations. If you'd like to eat a fish head while you're there you will definitely need to call since they require 3 days notice. I suppose so that he has enough time to buy it and thaw it. He says the cooking time is 5 hours.

Misaki was and remains a very large tuna port and market area.

From the restaurant website, the prices for the tuna head are:

• Huge - 15 servings  21,000 Yen  
• Medium -  7-10 servings 15,750 Yen
• Small - 5-7 servings 12,600 Yen

To get there you can drive (looks like there is parking along the water) or just take the Keikyu train down to the last stop of Misakiguchi. From there catch a cab for a 10 minute ride. The cab drivers know of the place so you can show them the website printout with the store info.


Location and contact info:

1-9-11 Misaki, Miura, Kanagawa Prefecture (also see the blog map for the location)
TEL :046-882-5637
Weekdays  11:00-15:00, 17:00- 21:00 Hours. 
Weekends and public holidays 11:00-21:00 Hours