00:00:02 John Daub: Hey, are we on live? Hey everybody, I'm now doing the first live stream from the United States in a little bit less than a year. The last time I streamed here was during the New York meetup, which I'll be doing on January 3rd, so I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of our New York viewers. This is a director's premiere, a premiere which we tried to do once, didn't go so well on YouTube live, so we're going to do it our way, on Only in Japan Go. I've set up the computer right here, I'm going to watch the episode with you and take some of your questions at the end, and I think it's going to be pretty cool because I can see your feedback at the same time. Instead of premiere typing, I'm going to do it live like this. I think it's a little bit better for all of us.

00:00:47 John Daub: I'm now using a wide angle lens on the iPhone XS, so it might look a little bit distorted. Looks okay to me. Hey, I see everybody's starting to come online. I think the notification went out. Without further ado, let's start this. Okay, so we're going to start this video. This one has been, and you can see it on the Only in Japan main channel right here. On the thumbnail, I kind of photoshopped it. Hey, Joseph, thank you. It's a 10. I kind of photoshopped the thumbnail, and I wanted the maguro to be the highlight of it, and I put me and Mike Chen in the background, black and white, and I thought that the color of the maguro, the redness, the pinkness of it would be more reflected by tuning out the background a little bit. So that's why the thumbnail is. Sort of artistic. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I just thought it was something that I wanted to do with the thumbnail. The collaboration with Mike Chen.

00:01:39 John Daub: One thing I have to tell you about this before we get too deep into it is that Mike Chen's video on Strictly Dumpling will be released on Tuesday. And I had to do it now because I'm going to be so busy over the next several days. I don't know when I can actually release it and coordinate with him. We weren't able to do that, so I just released it. And I contacted him before I released it and was very thankful that Mike said, go ahead, just release it. So that's what we did. His will be coming out on Tuesday and we'll be able to see that collaboration. It's going to be pretty cool. Oh, Mexican. Thank you. Oh, you retracted the message. It's too bad, but I appreciate that very much. I do appreciate everybody who's donating with Super Chats. Thank you so much for that.

00:02:30 John Daub: Okay, here we go. This is the Tokyo Maguro Sushi Quest, the A5 Wagyu Steak of the Sea. This is sort of funny because when I was filming this video, I didn't think of Wagyu being the Steak of the Sea. It was just something that Mike had said. And started saying, you know what? That's not wrong. Mike is pretty close to hitting a nail on the head. I never thought of maguro being like Wagyu, but I think you can kind of tie those two together.

00:03:16 John Daub: So let's get to it. The opening, of course, starts my friend Peter von Gomm's Only in Japan chant, which I love to imitate. Welcome to Tsukiji. Yeah, I know. The fish market has moved a couple of kilometers down. Some notes on this. I filmed this about three weeks after Mike Chen and I had filmed the original episode because it just got too dark too quickly. I came back, and then at that time, it was a little bit more than that. About over a month after. Because we filmed this way back in October, I think. And we're only starting to release it. I'm only releasing it now because I wanted to coordinate with him. But I filmed this like end of November? And it was cold. And I'm wearing, I rolled up my sleeves to try to match the way I was looking in the video. You can see my hair is longer here and you can see that I'm rolling it up. Maybe it's a little bit darker too. I think people that are really looking at it will be able to tell that I'm actually on a totally different day. So I hope when I explain it, you're like, oh yeah, your hair is longer. I think that's going to be kind of a cool thing to look back at.

00:04:45 John Daub: There's no more maguro auction. Wait, what? The market and tuna auction isn't in Tsukiji anymore. See, Tsukiji is in central Tokyo. It has an outer market where I am now. And an inner market where the fish was auctioned and sold. That closed on October 6th, 2018. The business moved to Toyosu three kilometers or 1.8 miles down the road. You may think this changes everything with sushi in the city, but Tsukiji outer market. All right. A lot of people still don't know that Tsukiji's inner market where the tuna auction has closed. And what I heard was a lot of tourists are coming with guidebooks, like actual printed guidebooks without the information. They get up there like what? It's closed. Where is it? And they don't know. The tuna auction has a little observation booth at the new market. And apparently that's not open until January. This is what I was told. I read on the website. And this is what I was told by other friends that went there. So as soon as it's open, I'm going to try to get in there and get an inside look of the tuna auction for the channel. But I think some other YouTubers have already done that. I'll have my own way to do it, which might be pretty thorough. I usually get in there pretty good. But apart from that, Tsukiji's outer market is still very much in business. And I want to thank everyone for the super chats. I'm going to go back and answer those questions. I really do appreciate it.

00:06:07 John Daub: The outer market is still very much in business. Tsukiji is still very much alive. And you still get some of the best sushi in Japan here. Look, all of the high-end sushi places in Shinjuku, in Ikebukuro, in all around Tokyo would go to Tsukiji, meaning they would have to travel to go get the fish anyway. So now the Tsukiji outer market, they still have to travel now what, three kilometers instead of 300 meters. But they still get that fresh fish, just like everywhere else. And it's still one of the top places to go because it's got that reputation, it's got that brand, the Tsukiji brand. And in fact even in the new market in Toyosu, the market where the restaurants is is called the Oedo Tsukiji Market. So they still kept that Tsukiji brand and added Oedo. Some of you might be familiar with the Oedo Onsen (large public bath) which is located not too far away on another man-made island in that area. So I thought that was interesting information. The tuna auction will be held but it'll be a lot more organized which is a very very good thing because it was just like a disaster every time I went to go and see the auction.

00:07:09 John Daub: Market still serves some of the best sushi in Tokyo if not Japan. Behind me is my favorite sushi shop called Sushi Zanmai and I'm going to be having sushi with a guy who's been to Japan many times before but for some reason he's never had sushi his entire life. Despite being a chain shop, Sushi Zanmai does a great job with quality. I didn't want everybody knows who it is right because it's in the thumbnail but it's not the thumbnail it's the Oedo Tsukiji brand. I didn't when I filmed this I'm like maybe it'll be a surprise. Sometimes I forget in the thumbnail gives a lot of the information away and then when I film it I don't want to give the information away. So you already know who's in there but holiday for cost which is why it's popular with locals and tourists. The nigiri set is really amazing but today we ate a nigiri set for Mike's episode of Strictly Dumplings so that's what you're going to be seeing on Tuesday and let me tell you something I put a little picture of the nigiri set it's massive. The thing costs about thirty dollars which is actually really cheap for sushi but for the mid-range that's a lot of money for people to spend 30 35 dollars on sushi. Because you can get it at the like one dollar sushi you can eat a lot of that for half the price. That's why I like this chain and I'll get more in that as we move along.

00:08:25 John Daub: Let's move along about the maguro tuna with this guy. Welcome, you ready for some sushi? I've been waiting let's do it. Before we devour some amazing sushi all right. When I first made a maguro episode in Oma last year I got so many comments. Yeah it is Mikey yeah Mike Chen. I got so many comments from people that wanted me to focus more on the lack of maguro the lack of tuna now in the oceans because overfished. And I'm not somebody who ignores that. I didn't put it into the video I thought it would be important to know that there is a problem with the amount of maguro and maybe you shouldn't eat too much of it like all you can eat maguro or cheap maguro. I don't like cheap maguro because I think most of the maguro caught in Japan is more responsibly done and there'll be people who disagree with me and that's fine. I believe if they're line caught and not by nets by industrial plants if it's fishermen catching like five or six a year or you know they make their living off of this I'm not against five or six a year for a fisherman out in the middle of the Straits between Hokkaido fishing.

00:10:01 John Daub: But I wanted to add a little bit into that and I don't eat a lot of maguro I eat it on special occasions or like in this situation but I'd love it but there's so many other foods to eat but I thought that was important. Let's do an overview on the kuro maguro (bluefin tuna). And this is all from the first episode I did I went aboard a fishing vessel between Hokkaido I was in Oma, Aomori searching for Japan's most famous maguro. The tuna are auctioned back in Tokyo where they cost as much as a new car then driven back up to Aomori carved by a professional separating the three levels of meat. You've got to see this episode it's really good the way he talks about in the middle and the fatty and expensive otoro (fatty tuna belly) that's the CEO of a famous shop in Oma Aomori. Maguro the wagyu of the sea he's cutting it with a Rolex by the way which has led to dangerously low numbers of maguro in the seas but I still eat it on special occasions and in limited quantities and it's good to try when you're in Japan when you do make sure it's at a good place like this back at Tsukiji's outer market.

00:11:32 John Daub: Yeah that's that note that I wanted to add in there I wouldn't eat cheap maguro anyways I think if it's like too cheap I don't think it's responsibly caught and I would eat it but I try my best to support local businesses and I try to do the right thing it's really hard to do the right thing all the time you can't do it so this is something that I know about I think I was educated by a lot of other viewers leaving comments in the last video and something that I wanted to put in this video. I'm happy new year everybody by the way. Market the maguro is being prepared for our early dinner we've ordered a maguro set with different styles and cuts that's like a million dollars you know like a hundred thousand dollars for one maguro. The CEO of this chain is very famous. The three cuts are first akami (lean tuna), chutoro (medium fatty tuna) and otoro for the price of the sushi that you're getting you can see the guys preparing it in front of you this is one of the criteria of pretty decent sushi if they're in the back and you can't see the preparing it I don't know it's okay sushi but he's doing it right in front of him you can see him taking the wasabi he really puts a lot of effort into it.

00:12:30 John Daub: This is the same thing that you get from the high-end sushi places and this is why I'm not against high-end sushi and I think it is good but to pay a thousand percent more for a piece of sushi when you can get it for four dollars and a piece of a really good otoro. That's why I love this chain and this is why I took Mike Chen to Sushi Zanmai because I think he had never had sushi before and if you're going to be trying high-end sushi you don't start off with the best you start off with something in the middle so you get a taste of what it's like to be high-end sushi it's going to be a little different you're not going to be trying like and I think if Mike continues to eat sushi which I hope he does he never had it before maybe he goes to a high-end maguro sushi place to try the best but if you're going to compare it this is where you want to go because this is what real sushi is I think with a chef who's preparing it in front of you that puts a lot of effort and care into the way he makes it. You can see that by me filming this too. This shop takes out the blowtorch for number four aburitoro (seared fatty tuna). Aburitoro the final one is prepared a little differently. A negitoro (minced tuna with green onion) yeah do you know what this is negitoro green onion and some ginger on the side to garnish it and there you are this is negitoro it's all right.

00:13:48 John Daub: And now it starts um literally he's never had sushi before in his entire life and this made it so much more interesting to me. Now I'm going to tell you how this collaboration was started okay maybe I will so um I got a message from Mike um about a few weeks before we filmed this and he that he was in Japan and he wanted to meet up and I thought that was great I love the fact that we got in touch like this and I met him in Shibuya such a nice guy um we talked for like a couple of hours actually and we were discussing about things that he could film when he comes to Japan and um I gave him some ideas like Ameyoko (open-air market) and how about Kitty Hello Kitty Sanrio and the Pokemon Center and he went out and he filmed them and I thought that was really great because these are episodes that I was thinking of doing and I don't think that there's a monopoly on ideas I like to share ideas with other creators maybe not YouTubers here in Japan so much because a lot of people are doing the same thing um here in Tokyo but um YouTubers from the outside that are coming to visit Japan I think that's a great way to get some ideas also with Joe um Joe is the biggest YouTuber in the Arab world he likes to say I like to share ideas with Joe and with Mike and if this can help you as the viewer learn more about Japan that's sort of what my goal is so um for me this collaboration is pretty cool to do.

00:15:17 John Daub: All right to get let's get back to this stuff uh tuna and they put a little bit of green onions in it it's pretty good i love it always better than good and it's always the first one i try i always do. This is so much fun to watch back that's like the steak of the sea this is where it starts. It's good i like it all minced up like that because you don't even have to chew it. It's just kind of this is he started right away going this is the steak of the sea and i'm like really like in my mind i guess it is and i started to think about this we didn't rehearse this we didn't practice this this is just in youtube um or before i started youtubing i had a friend who was a HK and i would do the show scripted and the director would tell me the way he wanted to do things and it seemed really unnatural and then when i started to do youtube um the first maybe 20 episodes of only in japan it was kind of tight i wasn't really used to speaking in a natural style and i think it just came from experience to be able to speak um openly without a script or preparing so then this style where we just put a camera and a mic and we get sushi and just say let's just talk about it i love that that's so cool because the ideas just come to you um as you're eating and i love this back and forth this is so much fun for both of us it's like i said it's like the a5 steak of the sea that's where this episode comes from.

00:16:51 John Daub: My next step is the blowtorch five steak of the sea is one that um i didn't know too much about it i don't as i said i don't eat a lot of maguro and when you think of maguro you think of the red akami if you go to a sushi shop um most like mid-range or low-range sushi shops there's just one it's just akami it's that red cheap it's cheaper but that doesn't make it inferior aburitoro is one that you have to be more experienced as a sushi eater to try it's cooked just enough to bring out the fats and you're going to see it it's just such an amazing piece the heat brings out the flavors and what i like to say activates the fat activate the fat hashtag my little trigger. You've been holding out on me i'm saving the good stuff for last all right mike he was somewhat upset that we didn't do this for his channel and i can see why but he asked he said to ask each sushi and then i said well okay we're going to make one for your channel and i want to make one for mine and so we ate the nigiri platter which is this picture here that you can see it's massive that's a lot including this anago (conger eel) which is huge on the platter and a lot of people who've been to japan and ate at sushi zanmai they eat this so they're going to eat this sushi i thought that'd be the best thing to share with mike um so then afterwards i said what can i do for the main channel let's just do maguro and focus on that and that's what we did.

00:18:35 John Daub: Um with youtube i think some of that touched my lips i felt like i was being kissed by a mermaid the references are awesome and i don't know how he does it he's someone that touched my lips and it felt like i was being kissed by a mermaid i don't know how where this stuff comes from but unscripted this is like boom it's just gold i'm like i'm in heaven oh gosh that's awesome this is too good. I think for a lot of people that's what makes this good they seem to blow torch it right yeah they torch so there's just a little bit grilled taste to it like what the blowtorch has done is it brought out the fats right bring out the fats the best bite of sushi i've ever had in my life granted this is like the only time i had sushi in my life but that was the best that was good.

00:19:30 John Daub: All right next up is the akami we're having so much fun this is way way too much fun and even when i was editing this and i edited this a lot while back. It was just so much fun. I was laughing when I was editing this just because of the back and forth that we did, and I cut out a lot of stuff too, by the way. But some of it was even funnier, but it was a little bit over the top. We had a lot of fun making this. Akami is next, and I'll talk about that at the end. Akami is the most common in sushi shops when they have maguro on the menu, but quality akami tastes much better than I'd convinced.

00:20:44 John Daub: So this here is chutoro, and you can see some of the fat in between the tuna. Let me talk about akami just for a second. Actually, sometimes videos are sponsored. This was not a sponsored video from this shop, okay? Just so you guys know. There are other chains that are pretty good too, but Sushi Zanmai, it is one of my favorite shops. It's probably the one I go to the most because it's everywhere. We paid for our bill. This was not paid for by them. I called them up and got access to film inside, and that's the extent of our relationship. Sushi Zanmai, it's a very nice chain. I think that they make the sushi responsibly and do a good job for the price that you pay. And once again, I like to support local businesses, but this chain is one that is good to go to, I think, because it's just easy to order.

00:21:44 John Daub: Now, akami is the most common in sushi places. Akami is, as I said, when you think of maguro, you probably think of akami because that's the most well-known maguro. And then if you're like maguro, tuna, akami, they just sort of go together because that red color is always in your mind when you think of it. For me, I always think of chutoro because that's my favorite cut. But akami can be done really, really well. Now, Sushi Zanmai cuts it real thick, and that's why I like it. Because when you put it in your mouth, there's no fat. So the more you chew it, the tastes don't get enhanced because there's no fat. It's lean. So you do get a really big tuna taste, not like tuna fish, but you have to eat a lot of maguro to really get that feeling and that taste. If akami is fresh, it tastes amazing. If it's not fresh, you can tell. It tastes, it's not bad, but you can taste the difference between a fresh cut of akami and not fresh. And that's why I like it.

00:22:44 John Daub: Akami, the most common one is the fresh cut of akami and akami that has been flash frozen and sitting around for a while. And most of the cheaper places, it's been, well, all of maguro is flash frozen after it's caught for transport and it does enhance the flavor, but the longer it sits, I think it deteriorates a little bit. The taste, this is my opinion, okay, as a sushi eater, I've eaten a lot. Um, but they cut it thick and it's fresh and it's not frozen. It has a good consistency in the mouth. You dip a little bit of sushi in the soy sauce. That's what I like to do. A lot of people are going to say, don't mix your wasabi in your soy sauce. I disagree. I eat it the way I want to eat it. It's like a hamburger in many ways. You can eat it any way you want. At high-end sushi places, this is the biggest difference between low and mid and high-end. At high-end sushi places, they will tell you, including Japanese who eat a lot of sushi, how to eat it. All right? You're paying a lot of money. You want to eat it right. At high-end sushi places, you wouldn't put this wasabi into the soy sauce. At kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi), which is cheaper, I always put the wasabi in the soy sauce because I love it. It's cheap sushi. You can eat it any way you want. It's like finger food. It's like a cheeseburger. You can eat it with tomatoes. You can eat it with lettuce. You can eat it any way that you want. You can pick up your sushi or you can eat with chopsticks. At high-end, it's different. So everybody who's telling me don't put the wasabi in the soy sauce can just keep that advice to themselves. Because it's up to you as the eater to eat it any way that you want. At Sushi Zanmai is in the middle. The sushi chef will, if you ask them, they'll advise you. But people are doing it both ways. Okay? There's no one way to eat sushi. They put wasabi underneath this cut. And you can also put more if you want. It's just up to you, the way you feel you want it to taste. And that's the way I've always eaten sushi. I've always seen it as a finger food. People who eat it regularly eat it. Don't go to high-end sushi places. People who eat sushi regularly eat it at this level or at kaitenzushi, which is cheaper. Just a little bit of information.

00:24:53 John Daub: It's more of a premium cut. Yeah. I love chutoro. That's when it hits. Five or six pieces. I'm glad we ate the akami first because you can taste what it tastes like without the fat. And then when you get that little bit of fat in there oh man no it's so good which piece is better than the last one. Mine had like a second level i took a bite in it i got the akami and then two seconds later it just yeah the fat hit i think a fat hit i was just as soon as we eat tuna yeah this is all right.

00:25:40 John Daub: So Mike goes he would just exclusively eat tuna this comes after we'd eaten the nigiri set which is just everything it's like a lot of stuff on a plate had ika (squid) it had all different kinds of flavors that he will describe in his video on Tuesday he says you know what i would just exclusively eat tuna maguro and that makes a lot of sense just a lot of people love it it's just that's the reason why there's less and less maguro in the waters and why i thought it was a little bit important to talk about that a little bit it's so good that people eat too much of it maybe and it's not the Japanese that are overfishing it um it's the worldwide demand that everyone is eating maguro about 20 years ago sushi was not that popular now everyone has maguro and everyone wants maguro and the demand for it is just like exploded um it's not Japan's population is shrinking so there's less sushi eaters in Japan than there were around the world so i just thought Mike loves it and he wants to eat so much of it and i think that's pretty cool and if you go to Japan that's the place to do it but don't eat too too much of it you know save some for others.

00:26:52 John Daub: I would i mean that's just that's my favorite fly in demand flying demand playmaker rights that's what i would do like you know in the morning when i had the fish auction i would be attached to one of those fish i love these references this this looks like a wagon right here i did when i was editing i said i totally have to bring this out with music so i changed the music a little bit to be more dramatic and i even i want to do a better gear than that so i'm going to try to move at least like the way i've seen it um it's a little bit more of a uh a more of a rounded but kind of like a Beethoven. I went on to class it up a little bit a little bit of classical music goes a long way i know the younger people um might not like it i love classical music because it brings out a mood when i watched cartoons um growing up um tom and jerry they always and bugs bunny always use classical music and you can use humor with it i thought that this would be a good touch nowadays we hear too much of.

00:27:47 John Daub: Actually this would be considered like the A5 Wagyu of tuna. I picked it up from Mike. Tuna has a limited amount of otoro which makes it pricier. Usually you don't have to eat a lot of otoro. One or two pieces is enough to take your taste buds to the stratosphere. It takes a few chews for the oils to come out. He's going mmm mmm mmm oishi (delicious). I probably would have tasted like about 8 bites before they hit me. That's right. I like otoro but I personally prefer chutoro.

00:28:23 John Daub: Alright I did that zoom there because I just didn't have another cut. My friend Alan was recording from the back. And he missed the focus because he wasn't used to working with the GH4. So I didn't have the back shot that I wanted to do for cuts. So yeah I think one person wrote in the comment that shot doesn't work. I'm like yeah I know it doesn't work but it's the best that I could do to try to make into that transition into this. You know when you're editing it's good to have more of that. You have multiple cameras so you have a cutaway shot. If it gets boring you can cut and you can add in the back shot for 5 seconds and cut back. And it keeps the flow of the video going. I was shooting in 4K and I exported into HD so I could do some of this. But I thought alright let's just zoom it in. And it worked better than the other shots that I had because it was out of focus so you gotta work with what you have.

00:29:11 John Daub: You can taste both the akami and the fat. Otoro is more fat than akami. But if you like fat i love fat then that's your thing i love fat. I told you the rules. Yeah that was great. You know what i think i might have like what was that first piece. He approaches sushi from the point of view of meat. This is why I love to do this episode with Mike. Because he approached it as someone who had never eaten sushi before. And he loves fat. You always see the fat in the Wagyu. The marbling. The way it it is tasty. Fat is tasty. But he's approaching this from the point of view of a meat lover. I love that. Because I've never approached sushi that way. In my way I think of vegetables I have fish and sushi. And I have meat. And I kind of don't I kind of in my mind it's separated. But he's putting the sushi with the same level as meat. And that's awesome. And his passion for fat is just like i'm i had to edit that a little bit because i'm just cracking up. You see focused on Mike because i'm just cracking up. I mean who goes just fat i love fat fat. You know nobody does that. But Mike does that. And that's pretty cool. I was digging it you know. That's the best way to describe it. You got to talk about the way you love it. And when you do YouTube it's that passion for whatever you're doing that comes out. And that's why he's so successful at what he does.

00:30:47 John Daub: Oh the negitoro. Yeah the seared. Oh yeah the aburi toro. Because fat has that little smokiness to it. And I think that's mixed with a fattiness. That's my sweet spot. That's my happy place. But if you're talking about completely untouched sushi the last piece the fattier the better for me the fattier the better. It's just smacking my lips right now. There are so many parts of the tuna the maguro that people don't know about. I think I ate at one course 11 course meal just maguro. The cheek the tail. This is an episode you should watch. There's so many parts of it. I don't know about the eyeball but we didn't eat raw. It was in a soup actually but still I mean that's an eyeball. I mean I know that's a big Japanese specialty is the eyeball. Yeah. So you had that? I did. How was that? Yeah. Gooey? I don't like to talk about it so much. Yeah I mean it was good. But it wasn't you know yeah. It was an eyeball. It has like kōgan (fish eyeball) which is supposed to be good for your skin. I'm trying to justify eating an eyeball. Alright I can't do eyeball.

00:32:01 John Daub: It's not easy especially when it's raw or if it's been baked the eyeball will just get white. And I see people pick it up with their fingers and just eat it. That's not i can't that's hard to do. But in a soup I tried it. Yeah. I'm sure that's good for you. All sorts of weird stuff is. Thanks so much Mike. Thanks for having me John. Thanks for showing me the ropes. I'm glad that you came here to Japan. What is it about Japan that you really like? What attracts you to this place? Well you know what it is it's like I feel like there's so much traditional culture here which is something I really appreciate because I love history.

00:32:40 John Daub: Alright I wanted to ask him this question to get a focus off of food for a moment. He really really likes Japanese food. And I really love Japan. And that makes me feel really good as someone who's lived there for so long. And he gets it right. I like that. Because a lot of people who visit Japan for the first time or even several times they don't quite get it. And he gets it. I guess it's maybe because he travels a lot. He has a lot of because his show is so international. He can compare all the different cuisines of the world. And that's one of the reasons why he has such an amazing passion for Japan. And he kind of gets why there's so much differences with the country not just in the food but in a lot of other stuff. And the more I talk to him the more I get the feeling like yeah he gets it. You know he would be an amazing YouTuber if he just focused on Japan. You know Strictly Japan. I'm just throwing it out there Mike if you're watching Strictly Japan just new channel maybe I don't know.

00:33:41 John Daub: This guy in the back do you see him? I don't know alright. He is the he's I think if you look at the comments and you read the comments in the video he's one of the most commented parts of this video. He's the PR guy for Sushi Zanmai. He's a super nice guy. And before we started I said yeah just be careful not to be in the video. And when I'm editing the video he's all over the video. And I just couldn't edit him out. And I can't really blur his face either because then alright all right, if I blur his face, the focus goes on that blur, all right, and off of Mike. If I leave him in, at least people are gonna be talking about it, right? And it only helps his company. So there's this guy growing out of Mike's shoulder that just continuously peeks in and looks at the sushi as though he himself wants to eat it, although he could probably eat it anytime he wants. But he's looking in and I'm editing the video. I'm like, what do I do with this guy? Do I leave him in here or do I edit him out? And I just started laughing. And I said, you know what? I'm just gonna leave him in there because it's just so much funny, so much more fun to see his reactions, the way he's kind of looking at the sushi. Like this guy wants to take a bite of Mike's sushi and Mike's not gonna let him take a bite of that sushi. That's his sushi. That's Mike's sushi. He's not gonna share. So it's just kind of funny. So I left that in there, right? And Simon writes in that he found that funny. Simon from Dublin and a lot of people are writing in that they find it funny in the live stream. I thought it was hilarious. So that's why you can see him peeking, right? Right here. That's fine. I think little thing dude is weird. Tasty. You got that right.

00:35:18 John Daub: It was kind of awkward. One of the reasons why he's looking in here is because we went overtime big time. And I want to give just a thank you to him and to Sushi Zanmai because I said we would need just about an hour. We were there for closer to two because we were just having way too much fun. And I guess this is gonna be really good for Sushi Zanmai. So I can't see why they would be upset by this. And I can't do anything about it now. But it's pretty cool to see that we have a second star and he's gonna become infamous maybe from the peeking. I love the peeking. I think he's checking to see if we're done. The video shoot or how much further we have to go. But I guess he wasn't thinking that, you know, potentially hundreds of thousands of people might be watching this video. So kind of funny. I don't think you're gonna see him in Mike's video because Mike's video, we did Mike's video first because I wanted to make sure we get time for what he was doing because he's visiting Japan. He's our guest. Guests always go first. So we put the camera up and he did his thing. And then ours was last. And I know we were really trying to fit in a lot in a little bit amount of time.

00:36:26 John Daub: All right, let's continue. And I love people who promote like their own culture, historical places and events and clothing and food. I love that. And I feel like Japan does that. Probably one of the best countries that promotes their culture so well. And plus the food is amazing. The Japanese people are like just food innovators. Every time you come back, there's like, somebody created a melon. They just, you know, took them 40 years. Somebody made a grape that tastes like ice cream. I don't know. They're just really good at creating all sorts of fantastic food stuff. So you never get bored in Japan eating. Japan is a gastronomical amusement park when it comes to sushi. It's a must for every visitor.

00:37:10 John Daub: This is the back shot I was talking to that was out of focus. This one. This one was taken by GoPro. This one I kind of put in at the end so you can kind of see a little bit of it. But I didn't want to get anybody, the customer's faces. And earlier on, there were faces in there and I just didn't want to do any blurring at all. So this is one last shot of us just talking and having fun. I have a feeling maguro, aka the A5 Wagyu of the sea, may be back on Mike's plate again someday. Because as we've discovered, the best maguro sushi is only in Japan.

00:37:47 John Daub: I love to end on the musical notes. I just love to end on musical notes. And there's some sort of real satisfaction of when you can put music together with video and especially food and you make it an art. And it's not just about the food anymore. It's about a feeling that you get by watching the food or watching a story. That's why the music is so important. And to put in a version of Beethoven that's royalty free from YouTube creators, thank you very much for that. It was really a lot of fun for me to edit this video. And I want to give Mike Chen from Strictly Dumpling, he might not need it, but everybody is working hard on their YouTube channels. But Mike's YouTube channel is Strictly Dumpling, an amazing channel because he's so consistent with his content. Unlike me, where I do it just about twice a month, he's like boom, boom, boom, boom, really hammering out videos. And I have a lot of respect for YouTube creators that can do that. I wish I could. But I kind of do it differently than other people. But Jim writes in, it's great to see both of you had so much fun. We had so much fun. And I think when we're doing this, I hope you also get the feeling like you guys are with us when you do this. That's what I like with the Only in Japan Go. I can see you. You guys, you're with me when I do this. And when I made that video, I'm thinking about like all of you out there. It's sort of fun like that.

00:39:16 John Daub: I want to go now and answer some of your questions. I'm going to go back. So we got a super chat in from Vaughn. What might Mike think of raw fish after this? And Matt G writes in, other than maguro, what is your favorite fish? All right. So Matt, my favorite fish. Wow. Salmon is so good in Japan too, but it's hard to know if it's been farmed or not. Maguro. That's really hard. I love tako, the octopus. That's not a fish though. I don't know. That's a hard one. Maybe I'll come back. I'll come back to that one. That's just so hard. It'll come back to me. Um, buri (yellowtail) is also really good buri. That's I don't even know what it is in English. Vaughn Mike. I don't know if he will eat sushi again. I think that's something you can ask him. But my vibe was that he just really wanted to try it because he comes to Japan so often. He loves Japan. Um, he wanted to share this experience with our viewers together. Uh, and he, I guess he thought that it would be great to do this as a collaboration his first time. And I have a lot of respect for that because, um, you know, I, gosh, at the end of it, I don't want to talk too much about it. I think that's something you can ask Mike in the comments on his video on Tuesday. He's going to be doing the other part of this on Tuesday. I had to release it today. I had to release a second video in December as well. Um, but I don't know. I really hope that he liked the sushi and that he will try it. I know he liked the aburitoro, which was partially cooked. Mmm. It's still raw though. It's still raw. So I think, um, yeah, I whatever. We'll see. Let's say if he comes back to Japan, we get a chance to do this again. Maybe we'll take him to a high-end sushi place. Maybe I haven't done a video on high-end sushi yet. I'm staying away from Jiro's because everybody knows. So that is I'm staying away from other places that people know about because I like to take you to a new place that you've never heard about or something that's off people's radars. And then that video will be able to help maybe a young budding sushi chef that had studied under a master. So maybe we'll do something like that. I like to promote young and family run shops if I can.

00:41:45 John Daub: Ryan writes in great video. Happy New Year, John. Thank you, Ryan. Mark Mansell writes in. Hey, John. I love to see you in Australia. Can I and I would love to go down under I think we're going to be doing it. Maybe at the end of 2019 when it's summer down there and I was we're thinking of creative places to celebrate Christmas and nothing beats the beach, right? So maybe we'll see you down there. I have great friends in Manly and in Perth all over the country. So I'd love to go back to Australia. I celebrated the Millennium there in 1999-2000. I worked on Bondi Beach selling shaved ice. Somewhat illegally, but yeah, I didn't make that much money. Sorry, Australia. Glenda writes in Happy New Year from Happy New Year only in Japan from Glenda from Las Vegas. Thank you, Glenda. Anil Rivera. Thank you, Anil. I'm always so happy to hear from you. What days will you be in New York? I'll be in New York on January 3rd. And I think we're going to do this in the evening like around 730 and we're staying near Times Square. So that might be most convenient for everybody. Especially those that are coming in on the bus and from Grand Central Station. So yeah, look on January 3rd around 730 p.m. Times Square and I'll have more information on that. But it'd be great to meet everybody in New York.

00:43:26 John Daub: Mix from Philippines. Thank you so much. Joseph Clark meant it for it to be $10. Thank you, Joseph. And we got one from Mexico and I don't see. I'm sorry. I missed that. We got one from Mexico, which was very significant. I want to say thank you. The message was retracted. So I can't see who sent it. And now Joseph. Yeah, I see the 10 there. All right. Thank you, Joseph. I always appreciate it guys. Eric Haller writes and thanks for the collaboration with Mike Chen. He is cool. He's very cool. Once again, like I was so happy to hear from him and to do this video together was like amazing because I like to collaborate with creators that have that aren't expert in their field. All right, because it brings something extra to what you're watching and not just any random YouTuber because they're in Japan. I want to bring you a collaboration with somebody who is an expert in the field and there's nobody who is more passionate about food in general than Mike Chen and it's like it was I said, I just had to do a collaboration together because it just works out that way and I did it in Only in Japan style. He'll do one in his style. So I think it'll be fun to work together like that. But he is a professional in his field, which is food. There's very few people who are more passionate than like for.

00:44:22 John Daub: Next time you're in Montreal get a fish poutine. I still can't pronounce it right. I was in Montreal two days ago and we had poutine which is french fries gravy and cheese curds, this famous food from Quebec and it was awesome. And I posted some pictures on Instagram. Thank you for that. I we want to go back to Montreal when it's warmer. Everyone said come in June. So yeah, my brother lives not too far away. So it's convenient to go to Canada to Montreal. And sorry for everyone in Toronto. We will next time we go to Montreal. We're gonna have to go to Toronto and maybe to Ottawa on the way because that's the capital of Canada and I'd love to show Kanae some more of North America because our neighbors up north in Canada are pretty cool too. We got to see we had an amazing time in Montreal despite the freezing weather. So thanks for everybody who came to the meetup. We had 17 people who came some of them came said hi and left and I was just happy that people showed up because the weather was not good. It was freezing rain. And we still had 17 people come. So I'm so thankful for that.

00:45:26 John Daub: I'm going to go in now and take a look at the live chat and see some of your questions. If you have any questions about this episode, I want to keep it basically on this. You should collaborate with the Endless Adventure couple. I don't know who that is. But I'm happy to you know, I'm really happy to collaborate with anybody who's coming to Japan and I have time to do it. I think my goal with the channel is to try to give more people as much information about Japan that is unique and different than a guidebook and something that will add value to your trip here and not put the focus too much on me but on the content. So that's sort of what we do. That's what I do. What's your opinion on the California sushi roll Joel? I'll eat it if it's there. But I don't know. I don't like it that much. I think avocado is weird on sushi for Japanese including Kanae we don't eat avocado on sushi just weird, but I think the color looks good. I guess we're going with color. It's healthy. So I can't see anything bad about it. It's just weird. All right, I wouldn't call it sushi. That's why we call it California roll. It's not really sushi and sushi. The maki roll most sushi is when I think of sushi. I think of on top of the rice. That's sushi. To me, but maki roll is still sushi, but it's just a different kind. I'll eat it. I mean, I'm not I'll eat it. It's on my English friendly list. Yes, I believe they have an English menu, especially in Tsukiji Honten and Asakusa. They have English menus so you can order it in as well as just be able to point to the sushi that you want as well because they have pictures. So it's a lot of tourists are there. So I think it's pretty English friendly. Thanks for asking that.

00:47:34 John Daub: Yeah, definitely like this video. If you like these premieres when I get a chance to do it instead of chatting, I'll try to do it like this verbally and answer your questions. So let's do this for a couple more minutes. Are you interested in the foods Mike Chen eats in Japan. That's a good question. I don't know. I think there's a lot of hype behind the foods that we have in Japan and I'm not against it, but I don't think a hyped up food is what I would do for the main channel for me. The way I do my channel is different from and the way everybody does their channels different from everybody else. Mine is more story-driven. At least this is my hope for the channel. I come up with a story or an idea and I base that episode around the story and you know, a lot of people do vlogs. The Only in Japan main channel is not a vlog. It's a program. Anyway, people say I like your vlog and I just give it thumbs up because you know, it's just semantics really. It's on YouTube, but it's not a vlog. It's not about my opinions or about my life video blog. It's about a story is what I like to think of it. And this was a story about our experience eating maguro with someone who had never eaten maguro before. This is more vlog like but it wasn't really about me. It was more about the maguro. At least I hope so.

00:49:00 John Daub: Wish I was smart like you. What is that? I'm not that smart. Ask my wife. Hope you can help. I can see you during the Olympics. I will be in the 2020 Olympics. I will be live streaming and the bigger the Only in Japan Go channel can get the more power we can have as a community. The more access I'm going to have during the Olympics. So I'm going to be pretty cool. If we can get the more we can increase the subscribers of this channel, the more we'll have power wise in order to give you stories that are unique. And live which I would love to do. A Kyle ever writes in hello from Germany. It's 1:40 midnight. I know I want the reason why I did this episode now was so that people in Europe could see before they go to bed. It just seemed to be a sweet spot. I was going to do this later, but I did it as soon as I got home. Florencia is always so sweet. Chris Henson. Hey Chris boiled nuts is a southern American thing. My mom is Chris always has some really interesting things to say. Thanks Chris.

00:50:00 John Daub: So I should read it before we did a lot. 1010 to go for 250 likes. Thanks UFO Bob for pushing that. And by the way, UFO Bob bought Professor Fukuoka's book from Amazon. I really appreciate that as well. I saw the picture on Patreon. Thank you for that. Smash the like button. Thank you. Thanks for everybody who's promoting that buri and hamachi (young yellowtail) is Japanese amberjack. Yes. I love amberjack. It has a nice buttery texture. Great sashimi and nigiri. Yes. And a buri daikon is what? Kevin and I ate in the canned restaurant canned food restaurant video from last year. So buri daikon is really good as well. Yeah, your production is very professional. Listen from Christina Lynn reminds me of Travel channels highly polished when I started the channel. I don't want to talk too much about this, but when I started the channel, I wanted to do something that was like what I was doing in NHK, but better more informative more information more. Just more entertaining than NHK. And that's where my background comes from video editing and making stories like this. So I haven't really changed too much since I started in 2013, but I really appreciate that. You guys like the Only in Japan main channel like what you see a couple more.

00:51:13 John Daub: I watch Mike's channels. He has more than one Mike. This is from Linda. Mike has like several channels. His most famous one is one called Beyond Science. And I didn't watch it until I talked to him and it's kind of interesting. He really gets in-depth about things that are curious or things that are on people's mind. And I have a lot. I think that's pretty cool because I kind of approach life like this. I'm curious about everything and Mike is someone who I can talk to anybody. If you talk to Mike, you just talking for hours because he's so curious about everything. I love that when you talk to people and they have they just have so many things that they want to talk about and so many curiosities. Yeah, you start a conversation and it can go down a rabbit hole because he's curious about something and that's how you discover new things and new information and he uses his channel as a medium to share that. That's what YouTube was all about. So a lot of respect for what he's doing and he does like amazing amount of content. So the guy is really busy.

00:52:15 John Daub: Hi from Idaho. Hey, wow, Idaho. I'm in the US. This is pretty close to Japan right now. It's almost 10 in the morning in Japan. That's true. It's now at night. So I'm on for most of the viewers in the US. I'm now on your time. I would love to visit more of the United States. Hi from Guam. Kanae and I are thinking about going to Guam in March? So maybe you will see us there. I might do a meet up in Guam because we have an amazing following in Guam and the Philippines as well. These are two places that we really really really are high on our list Philippines and Guam our neighbors, you know, like I used to teach English. And I would ask people if the students that asked them says have you ever been to America and they'd say no that's them. Where have you been? They would say Hawaii and Guam and I'm just I didn't want to you know, make them feel bad by saying, you know, that's America. I was like, you know, that's really interesting. That's good. I love Hawaii Guam. And by the way, what country are they and then they would discover so the new America. So have you been to America and they go? Yes, you have to make people think it was their idea, right? That was funny though because in Japan to Japanese people speak Japanese in Guam and Hawaii. They don't a lot of people don't associate them with United States. It's pretty funny Guam is a territory but it's still the United States people have US passports. I believe I don't I've only met a dozen people from Guam and they're all viewers who watch the show and that I've met on the streets in Tokyo, which is awesome.

00:53:50 John Daub: Come to Vancouver. That was where Kanae his parents did their honeymoon in Vancouver. So that's the place. That we will definitely be going to because that's the place where they went. So we have a connection to go up to Vancouver. Let's see here. Any more questions on the episode. I'm going to do this for one more minute from Patagonia in Argentina. How cool is that? Hi from Jersey. Hey, that's where we that's where I am right now. I'm in New Jersey. Just not too far from New York and from Philadelphia. If you guys want to write in where you're watching from that's always interesting to see right in the country in the city. As history of this episode and for the meetup, we're going to be doing that on January 3rd in New York City. That's what we always ask what exit for the New York Turnpike. How much can Kanae eat as much as Mike? No, not many can Mike can eat. I think he had done he actually filmed another episode before we ate like 30 pieces of sushi. He done another eating episode like in the morning and afternoon. I think he just been to Chinatown. He made an episode in Chinatown. He just eats and it's amazing and he stays in such good shape. I cannot eat as much as I can eat a lot because I ate my entire poutine in Montreal. I'm going to keep mispronouncing that it's about an hour west of Philadelphia. Yeah, that's not too far away. I lived in Jersey. It's a lot of Jersey people come time it and yeah, let's see here. I have from Cali. He dropped a dump. He did. I haven't watched. I haven't watched it because I don't watch a lot of YouTube but I'll go back and check that out. Stockton, California. Hey John, you go to the instant ramen Museum. There might be an episode that next year. That's something that we might cover the instant ramen Museum.

00:55:48 John Daub: Adelaide, South Australia. Adelaide has good wine. I remember Mike is a black hole for food. There's no end to it. Hi from Cambodia. Another is the other. Oh, this is your question about the episode is the other Maguro episode in Only in Japan. Yes, it's on the main channel. The other Only in Japan Maguro episode. I got access from Aomori Prefecture to make that. Wow and New Zealand look at that. And so Aomori Prefecture gave me some extra access to like nobody can just go on to the sea. Catch maguro, but I got access to the fishing boat to try out a tour which kind of gave me that experience. It was like a weird like once in a lifetime type of thing to go out into the sea like this and catch maguro. We didn't catch any on my boat, but we saw others that were catching it. It was pretty cool to see where your food comes from from the sea there and that place Oma Aomori is famous for maguro because the currents of the Sea of Japan the Pacific Ocean are quite strong in the maguro. They are fighting to get in there. So that means usually they're very well fed by the time that they get there. So the meat I'm trying to remember what the fisherman told me but by the time they get there that they're quite well fed and the meat is just really good. He said it's like what is the difference between maguro caught like further down the line than here. I can't tell the difference but he says they're fatter. The fat content is higher and it's just better from Oma Aomori and I can't disagree because I'm not a big maguro eating person. As I said, I don't eat a lot of it. I kind of eat it because I know about the that the numbers are low. I just eat it on special occasions, but you can tell if you eat a lot of it the quality of it, but you can tell good quality and sushi is on my almost always. I've never really had bad fish there and the miso soup by the way is so good as well. It comes with a like a side of miso soup. Sushi Zanmai is really good UFO Bob's really promoting like I want to say thank you to everybody.

00:58:08 John Daub: I'm at the end of this trip next week. Kanae and I go back to Japan via Hong Kong. We're going to do the meet up on January 3rd at Times Square around 730 more information on that on Instagram and Facebook and in the YouTube if you guys want to get the notifications from the post you have to go back into the bell. Click the bell again and then I'll give you options and make sure you're getting the notifications for the stories that I post, because if you don't, you might miss a meetup, because I post a lot of information in the community tab, which you can only get if you subscribe to it and you specifically ask for it. It's weird. YouTube has this system. So that's that. Thank you so much for watching the episode. Like and share it. Leave a comment in the main channel episode, because that always brings more attention to that episode. I really want to promote the work that I do in the main channel episode, because it takes a lot of time to produce each one, and I put a lot of meat into each episode and through the editing. So thank you. Thank you, everybody, for the support. I see a lot of people from Patreon here. I will be posting some other pictures on Instagram from behind the scenes and things like this. So you might want to check out the Instagram. OnlyJapanTV is my username there. And yeah, we'll be doing more live streams from the United States.

00:59:26 John Daub: I'm using Sprint. Sprint has a collaboration, because the CEO of SoftBank in Japan is also a majority stakeholder in Sprint, which is a cell phone company in the United States that's not too popular. But I don't know. I like to think that they're doing well, because I have SoftBank. So I have all unlimited data on Sprint. The problem is that over the last week, there wasn't a lot of Sprint where I was, and it wasn't 4G either. So now I think as I get closer to New York City, there's more Sprint. So I'll be able to do more live streams with Kanae as we go shopping and show you a little bit of the U.S. Back to Japan-only subjects on January 6th and 7th, okay? I'm sorry for those that haven't been too happy, but I stream what I can stream and give you... I tried to spin it with the Japanese perspective, but we'll get back to Japan-only topics on January 6th and 7th. So don't worry. We're going back there. The Iceland onsen video was pretty cool. I watched that again, and Kanae and I were both cracking up. It was so funny to see us in Iceland, and we still can't believe we were there. It's like a surreal experience to look on the map and say we were there in Iceland, up on the tip of the world, even though we didn't see the northern lights, the aurora. Well, you know, it was still such an amazing experience. We've missed you, John. Judy, I've missed you, too. I've missed all of you. Sorry for not doing enough live streams. I just didn't have the bandwidth. I'll be posting the Montreal meetup video tomorrow, by the way. So you'll see that, and I might do it as a premiere, just so I can share that experience live with you and type. But I recorded it because we didn't have any live... I didn't have any 4G up in Montreal. So that'll be coming tomorrow.

01:01:18 John Daub: Thanks, guys, everybody. I'm going to go and eat. I hope you enjoyed this experience of talking about the maguro episode. For me, it was a lot of fun to not just work with Mike and to talk about all the things that we talked about off the camera, but also just to, you know, eat some sushi with him and just have fun. And I think that's what YouTube and these collaborations are for me. It's just like you meet somebody who's doing something with their channel and you just go out there and you have a lot of fun. And I think I hope that you could take that away as well. We didn't have any script or anything like that. We didn't know what we were doing. We were just eating and explaining sushi. So thanks, everybody, for the support. I see Nosh is here. I'll see you next time, probably tomorrow. And wherever you are in the world, leave a comment below and I'll see you. Kanae is downstairs, by the way, talking to my parents. That's where she is. You'll see her tomorrow. Bye, everybody.