00:04 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Oita Prefecture on a cloudy day. That's the sea between Kyushu and Shikoku Islands. I'm on a roadside and this road snakes around Oita City. Behind me and above me is what you saw in the thumbnail. This is Seki-aji (Seki horse mackerel) and Seki-saba (Seki mackerel). The fish in the picture is called mackerel. Well, everybody says mackerel in English, but there are two kinds: chub mackerel and horse mackerel. The Seki brand is from this area. We're going to go in and try this for lunch. I've been told this place is quite famous. It's called Yoshida Kaikan and we're going to have some lunch. So I hope you're hungry. We're going to have some local fish. We're outside of Tokyo. This is awesome!

01:04 John Daub: I love whenever I get a chance to get outside of Tokyo, especially to a completely different place. We're not in Osaka or Kyoto. We're in Oita and it's pretty cool. There's a mountain that goes up right against the bank and the road curls around the side. So I'm pretty sure we're going to have some really great fish. Let's go inside. Here's the entrance. You can already see some pretty classy pictures of sashimi in a dish. The menu is all digital, so they're doing all right business-wise and hopefully that means the fish is good. They have beautiful tables overlooking the sea. I've staked out a table over here and we're going to order the Seki-aji teishoku (fixed meal). We have a pretty good seat. I always love the seats where you get to sit on the front floor. It's not as much fun—you gotta be used to seiza (kneeling) style.

02:18 John Daub: Did you see that? She brought out some really delicious food. I've gotten permission from the owner to film in here. Hey Faye, how you doing? How's everybody doing? Hey Cassie, nice to see you. See, everybody's tuning in. Why don't you write in where you're watching from? That's what I'm talking about. All right, check this out. We're gonna look at the menu together. I've already kind of ordered. You can see they put some green tea on the side—typical tea you can sip on and they'll keep refilling it. You don't have to order a drink at most Japanese restaurants. This is Seki-saba—saba's mackerel. This looks so good and I love the presentation. They put a little tree in there with some wasabi. Different kinds of mackerel, and over here they've put it into a don (rice bowl). This is the donmono, about twenty dollars. This one here is a whopping sixty dollars, but I think it's for more than one person. It comes with an awesome set.

03:56 John Daub: This one's a little bit smaller, personal size, about 23 dollars. You get all sorts of saba, miso soup, rice. Here's the teishoku—this is what I'm going to get. Hey Richard, get some fish to eat. Playback's not as much fun—thanks guys for joining me. This is the Seki-aji teishoku—aji is horse mackerel, about eighteen dollars, a little pricey. Then this is the Seki-saba teishoku—saba is a different kind, about 23 hundred yen or twenty-one dollars. Both look really good. I've been recommended this by the chef before I came in—I researched this place a little. This is the Yoshida—no, oh, so you can get this to go. It's a bento (boxed meal) in a little container. That's nice—I think you gotta bring it back. Oh man, this tempura teishoku looks too good. We're just gonna get the aji teishoku. Ah, there's a bell. Excuse me, I'd like a Seki-aji teishoku. Yes, one of these. Can I order this one? Yes, please. Thank you.

06:28 John Daub: Only one of you can take me to Oita in one day, which is possible. I took one of the first shinkansen out and returned around 6:30 pm. It was a long day, but you can travel from Tokyo to Osaka and back in a day and get a lot done. You can't do that with Oita. The flights from Tokyo take a couple, and the airport is a little far from Oita City. I think we rented a car and it took about 35-40 minutes—a beautiful drive on the highway along the coast. Now I'm actually with a bunch of people over there already eating. Let me show you—hold on. You see them above behind the ferns? That's them, hiding from us. It's not fun to eat alone, but nobody wanted to be on this live stream, so we're gonna try to change that. Over the next 36 hours I'm gonna convince more people to join me because it's not as much fun when you're alone.

07:31 John Daub: I'm here for 36 hours to film a main channel episode, but it doesn't make sense not to do a live stream and take you guys with me. That's why this series is fun—I can take you all around Japan to eat different foods, meet different people. We can maybe even go to an onsen (hot spring) later today. Oita is very close to neighboring Beppu, famous for onsens, but the entire prefecture is. It's part of the culture here. We could jump into an onsen—hopefully the towel doesn't fall off, the biggest nightmare with live streaming. After the lunch rush it's kind of empty on this side—kind of sad, but luckily we have 600 people watching. Welcome aboard. This is really good green tea. I'm gonna be filming with an iPhone and taking pictures for the main channel, so I hope you enjoy this lunch as much as I will. I actually brought my GH5 with me.

09:08 John Daub: Do you see the view? Oh wait, that's also famous in the background—lots of factories here. I noticed a lot of smoked stacks and tetsubin (iron kettles?) [?]. There's a lot of ships out there. Before this, I went to a place where they catch the fish. They were catching saba and the boats were coming in. They take nets and pluck them from the boat into a pool where the cooperative collects the fish and pays based on total weight—kind of fair. It's pretty cool to see them catch the fish in the channel and now come eat it. I kind of wish I'd eaten there, but this will be fine. This is a pretty good shop. They told me the wait time is about 10 minutes—not too much. Whenever you travel to Japan, I'm excited about this. Whenever you leave Tokyo, it's a chance to eat local food. This is the local food. When the food comes, I'll explain why Oita City is famous for its fish—what makes it better than fish from Tokyo or elsewhere. There's a geographical reason. I put a link in the description to this restaurant. You're probably gonna want to rent a car to come here.

12:10 John Daub: Whoa, check this out. This is pretty massive. I'm gonna show it to you—unbox it. Can I say this is an unboxing? It's an uncovering. All right, are you ready? Wow. Lens isn't wide enough. They always put the check here—it tells you what it is and the price at the counter. When they give the receipt in advance, you pay at the register by the entrance. Just a little advice. I like how they put the chopsticks right here. This is a teishoku—you don't have to share. Usually in Japanese cuisine you share food. I have no desire to share this except with you 700 people watching. What do you think this is? Rice. And? Miso soup, of course. Shuichi Takumi knew it. This is aji fry—horse mackerel fried on top of salad. In the back, very soft tofu. It's really healthy. It's awesome as sashimi.

14:33 John Daub: Mackerel isn't typically in people's top five fish—maguro (tuna) and salmon are. But mackerel? It's good, but a little oily. That's one of the reasons this area is famous for this fish. One reason I'm ordering this in Oita is the Bungo Channel strait between Shikoku and Kyushu. The current is very strong, so the fish swim really hard. There's lots of food, so they get quite fat. The aji and saba here have very good fat content. Seki-aji and Seki-saba are famous in Japan because of that current and plethora of food for the fish. If you're not a fish connoisseur, you might not know the difference, but people in Japan who eat it all the time can tell easily. And it's cheap. If you bought this in Tokyo, it'd be a lot more expensive.

16:34 John Daub: Before I eat, I gotta take a thumbnail. Portrait mode—this is the new iPhone. Oh my gosh, it's so heavy. It's hard to take the perfect picture for a thumbnail. YouTube told me if your thumbnail and title are good, more people watch. This one's for Instagram—you'll see it later. All right, let's eat. My job is done. Who's hungry? I'm gonna move this so you get a better idea. Try not to do all food videos because people want to see other things. Oishi! I'm not gonna fake it—let's keep it real. We're gonna start with saba sashimi. Take some wasabi in soy sauce. Oh man, a piece of fresh saba. That's too much—it's just enough. It's got a really springy consistency, different than maguro that melts. This has chewiness—not like ika (squid) that's slimy. You can tell there's a lot more fat. If saba has no fat, it doesn't have much taste and can taste cheap. This doesn't—it's really good.

21:21 John Daub: Let's try the miso soup next. This looks really good. Is there bad food in Japan? Not really. Three, two, one. That's a good shot. I'm starving. Michael Phelps is envious—he couldn't swim fast enough to catch these fish. The current is strong in the Bungo Channel. Rice and miso soup—an awesome combination. Big bite of rice mixed with miso soup. Aji fry—you can see inside. It's pretty good—crispy and oily. In America, almost 100% of fish was battered and deep-fried, like fish and chips. In Japan, we eat a lot of sashimi and different ways, adding dimensions to fish. I didn't really know what fish was until I came to Japan. Fish doesn't smell like fish here—it smells fresh. In America, it always smelled like fish. Also, I'm digging the music—just classical. Over to my right, I see the sea. This here is also aji—stewed in dashi (broth) with ginger, negi (green onions), and sesame. That's really good too.

26:07 John Daub: We got the rice and soup. I've already had rice—the way I do it is big piece mixed with miso soup for flavor. Whenever you come to Japan, take a big bite of rice and mix with miso soup. It's so good—gives every bite meaning. Now they have tartar sauce—dip the aji fry. It's not bad, but overpowers the aji taste. Gives it a new, richer dimension—creamy and salty. But aji on its own is still pretty good. This is so many steps up from Red Lobster. Huge tray of food just went by—next time I'll ask to check it out. Here's the stewed saba. Last thing before we go—this is chawanmushi (savory egg custard). It's steamed, kind of eggy. The price is about $20 for this whole thing. You have to see how soft it is—there's a spoon. Thanks Madison, good call. Machine saying arigato gozaimasu just broke the mood.

30:07 John Daub: I'm digging—keep digging, there's treasure underneath. Big bean, piece of saba, piece of aji, fish cake, shiitake mushroom, and shrimp. That's all the gold. I love that they put treasure in the bottom. It's so good. Guys, there's a reason you get out of Tokyo, leave the city, Kyoto, Osaka. Come to places like Oita in the countryside and find gems like this. Massive window to the sea. They give mats to sit on the floor—beautiful view, classical music melting away troubles. For $20, this is Oita City. They got Jetstar flights here for $50 from Tokyo. Kyushu is far—seven hours on shinkansen. Best way is Narita or Haneda to quick flight. Jetstar to Oita for 5,999 yen one way. Sola Seed is the airline I came on—basically ANA. Budget carriers like Jetstar, Sola Seed, Skymark—if you book in advance, ridiculously cheap. I booked Tokyo to Kagoshima for $35—shinkansen is $220-240 one way, takes 10 hours. Flights make sense for long hauls.

34:22 John Daub: Airlines like ANA and JAL have special prices for tourists—just show passport. I had to pay full 14,000 yen because I live here, but tourists get 7,000 yen. I don't think it's fair, but I got saba with shiso leaf. I love shiso—roll it up, dip in soy sauce. Shiso alone isn't flavorful, but wrapped it's so good. What a meal. I'm here next 36 hours, gonna do more live streams. If you have questions about Oita or requests, leave in comments—happy to answer. Tell me your Japan experiences, where you're from. Definitely click like—if we get 500, next stream. I'll see you again from Oita. Last view—not me chowing fried fish, but the sea. No, take that back—view of factories because Rugby World Cup is coming here in 2019. This is a venue, a steel town. Tribute to the Rugby World Cup—see you next time, maybe have an Oita day.