00:08 John Daub: Alright, we're back at the Kure Taisho Machi Market here in Kochi Prefecture. What is this? Katsuo, katsuo, katsuo! That's a lot of katsuo! Amazing! We got some water from the sea this morning. Katsuo. Did you get some from the sea today? Yeah, I caught some yesterday morning. He bought it this morning at the fish market so it all came really quickly here. I'm cutting it now. You're cutting it now? Oh my gosh, wow, okay let's go. Alright, follow him. We're gonna cut it now! Amazing!

00:52 John Daub: This is Shinri from Mongolia. Wow, from Mongolia. Nice to meet you. First, the head. Heart. That's the heart? Yeah. Wow, that's the heart! There's the guts. This is harambo. Harambo. You can grill it and eat it. Harambo steak. Oh, that'll make a great steak. It goes pretty quickly.

01:51 John Daub: This is not maguro. This is bonito fish. It kind of looks like a little baby maguro but it's not. It's a totally different kind of fish. We call it katsuo in Japanese. And in Kochi prefecture here, they're so famous because they make it and they cook it in this grass fire. And you're gonna see that seared, I guess is the word. I'm gonna see what we're cutting right now that just came from the ocean not so long ago. We're going to cook this and eat it right away. This is why I kind of had to make another live stream out of this one. But once again, we call this dish tataki. And it's starting from a very fresh ingredient just caught and bought at the market. You can eat this as is. Wow, so you could eat this as is. So you don't have to grill this fish. It's so fresh that, again, like, as it is, you could eat it.

02:59 John Daub: Why did you throw that away? Because it's a bone. Oh, the bone. Oh, there's bone inside. How's the signal, everybody? Just let me know. Don't put crying marks. All right, follow them to the back. Walk into the fish market right now. Okay, this is the tataki place. A little bit of salt there. All right, so you salt it and then you rub it in a little bit. Wow. There's a special tool for tataki. So there you go. So they just cut it up and now, as you can see, this is the grass that they use. He's got a lighter and he's going to light it. Kind of moved outside to see if I can get a little bit of a better signal. Oh, he's got it. It's got it lit there. Thank you, boss.

05:23 John Daub: Looks like food. Yeah, right in the flames. Wow. I don't think you should do it. I think it's better if the master does it because I think I would mess this up. This is rice stalks. So these from the rice that after they've been harvested, you can reuse these. So it's kind of just everything is used with the rice after the kernels are harvested off of it. They use it here to make fires and the taste of the stalks from the dried rice that gets into the bonito fish. Wow, it is sizzling on there. It smells really good.

07:03 Staff: [inaudible]

07:59 John Daub: Wow, it's so hot here. It's not very expensive actually. Bonito, a fish that's quite abundant. So they cook it just that quickly so it retains the charred side but inside retains the outstanding. And they cut off half of the charred part of it. I guess you really want to have just a little bit of that charred taste. I like it that it's warm on the outside, it's hot on the outside. But this is really fresh. Sometimes it's been in the freezer and they do it and it's still cold in the middle. But hot on the outside. But this one comes fresh from the sea just this morning. Yeah, if the fish gets older the taste and also the color. The color of it goes away. So it really needs to be something that is cooked super fresh. It's done. A little bit of garnish there. Wasabi. A little bit of wasabi.

09:22 John Daub: How is the radio? It's a bit lagged. If you go inside, there's no wifi right? There's a remote but it's a bit weak. Oh. Sometimes the HD version will upload to YouTube so sometimes there's a little bit of improvement in the playback. So I'm in a different area. Maybe the wifi will get a little bit stronger in this area. So I have somebody checking the wifi here, the connection here. I do apologize it wasn't super clear. Welcome to the world of mobile live streaming in the countryside of Japan.

10:31 John Daub: Oh. This sauce. Tataki sauce. All right. Some people say, is the radio okay now? It seems like the radio is a little bit better. So this is what the tataki looks like. It doesn't do it justice. I got to bring it out a little bit more to the sunlight. But what we were saying before for those who couldn't see what you while I was talking. The freshness of it is very important. It was caught this morning. And then cooked right now. So this all happened within the course of like 12 hours. And as the bonito fish, if two or three days pass, the color goes away. And so does the flavor. So you want to eat this super fresh. And fish should always be fresh like this. I think when I was growing up as a kid, we didn't eat a lot of fish because it had fish smell to it. When a fish smells like fish or it has that fishy smell, then it's too late. So a lot of the fish markets, they have a fishy smell to it outside of Japan, usually because they're not clean. And they didn't clean up properly. And the bacteria built up and it creates that fishy smell or it's just not fresh fish. Here it's always fresh or else no one will buy it.

11:42 John Daub: This is the salt from the sea. This is the salt. Wow. So there's two ways to eat this. You have the tare. This is a special tare just for tataki. What is this tare? Soy sauce and yuzu. Yuzu and a little bit of taste. It has soy sauce and yuzu, which is the citrus fruit here, which is a pretty good combination. It's a Kochi taste. Itadakimasu. I like salt.

12:38 Staff: You can get this at the Kochi store in Tokyo.

12:43 John Daub: Oh, really? That taste is a little new. This taste is better. I'm glad you said that. I said that this is a Kochi store in Tokyo that I go to a lot, but I told them this one's better. I'm going to eat the tare with a little bit of yuzu. Mmm. It tastes like yuzu. It's good. The citrus fruit is okay.

13:21 Shinri: I think it's better to have a little more yakiniku for foreigners.

13:29 John Daub: I think so. It's Japanese style. If you grill it a little more, it'll taste like ham. Oh, really? It'll taste more like fish. But it won't taste like fish, right? It won't taste like fish. This is good for people who like fish. She said a lot of foreigners who come to eat it, they want it cooked a little bit more, so it's more like, I don't know, like ham. It turns into like a ham, and I don't know, that's kind of a strange consistency. The way you eat it changes, right? It's not very soft. It's hard. I can eat it. It's good. Hahaha, good. This is the tare that locals around here eat.

14:35 Staff: They sell it to people outside of Tokyo. If you sell it to people outside of Tokyo, it'll take 2 or 3 days. Is the tare in Tosa, Kochi, and Shimanto different?

14:45 Staff: It's a little different, but in Kochi, especially here and Shimizu, especially here and Susaki, this area, in Kochi prefecture, people eat katsuo very much. There are many people who love katsuo. Instead, as I said earlier, 90% of people eat katsuo. 80% to 90% of people eat katsuo with sashimi. They eat tataki, but usually, delicious katsuo is not tataki, but sashimi. They eat it in between. Everyone loves tataki, but 80% of people eat it with sashimi. That's how much they eat it in Kochi. Even in Kochi prefecture, this area is the most popular. That's why people eat katsuo. No katsuo, no life. That's right. This is awesome. People eat katsuo, and they get money from katsuo. They really take care of katsuo.

16:00 John Daub: The signal is back. It was a little bit easy, so the katsuo painting was blown away. Oh, the one you're looking at now? It's clean now. Oh, it's clean. The customers are looking at it. They're saying, it's clean now. But I don't think they could see it. Let's turn it up again. Sorry about that. I apologize. The signal was pretty bad in certain areas. It's part of what I have to deal with mobile live streaming. I try to get the best signal. Actually, I gauged it beforehand, and looked like it was going to be okay, but there's just some places that the signal is not healthy.

16:36 Staff: But there's wasabi here. Wasabi is used here. It's different as it is, right? Oh, in the sauce. I like yuzu pepper.

16:46 John Daub: Yuzu pepper? I love it. I made an episode on this last summer. I went to the factory. Umajima. Yes, it's a different place. It's a place with mountains. It was really good. Yuzu is amazing. It's really sour. There's a lot of seeds. Do you keep making katsuo here? Yes, I do. Since when? 30 years? Has it been 30 years? Oh, 30 years he's been making tataki and katsuo here. Only tataki? Well, there's also fish, too. There's a fish store, and there are other fish, but 60% are katsuo. It's katsuo. We have more than half katsuo. It's actually a fish store. The other half is a katsuo store.

18:18 John Daub: Has this market changed? Has it changed? Yes, it has. In the past, the fishmonger's wife would sell the fish with 30 people. It's quiet now. Yes, it's quiet. Everyone is old now, and they all retired. There are no young people anymore. Where are the young people? The young people are mostly at the fishmonger's wife's cafe. But the Kure Taisho Machi Market still has a lot of good stuff left here. And the katsuo is second to none. This is really good. It's delicious. Thank you. You're welcome.

19:25 John Daub: Can anyone make this experience? If you make a reservation, it's okay. Okay. I'm learning this too. So if you want to try to make katsuo in the fire yourself, actually you can just call and reserve with the tourist office who's helping me with this. And I think you can just come here and make your own tataki in the fire. This is interesting. If you don't eat it... Do you serve this to foreigners? Are there many Japanese foreigners? When you go to Japan, there are many foreigners, and there are many Americans and Australians. So sometimes you go to foreign countries to eat tataki. There are many foreigners. Some people can eat it, some can't. But you can eat it often, right? I love it. I think he said like foreign people sometimes you're not sure if you like raw fish or not. But I think if you've had it once, this will probably become one of your favorite dishes. Just because of that char-grilled taste. This taste is really good. It's savory. And when you eat it, think of Kochi prefecture. It's a natural place. If you drink Japanese sake, you'll understand. It's not in the countryside of Tokyo. It's a good place. You can get it right there and eat it right away. Our happiness is food. You're probably healthy in this city. Well, I worked hard to eat a lot of delicious food. That's our biggest reason for rejoicing. Here, we drink sake. Oh, but not that much without the driving crew. I'm filming with lots of friends. Oh, thank you so much. Wow, that was nice.

21:30 John Daub: So, I think this is why I like to leave Tokyo and to travel around Japan and why I'm really happy to be doing this trip. This is the first one in a very long time that I get to travel and this concept of driving from Kyoto to Kochi has been a lot of fun for me. I guess just to break loose and do something different. And I think if you're somebody who's been to Japan before and you're always looking for another adventure, here's my map here. I actually printed it out so you could see it. This is the course that I traveled. So I traveled from Kyoto. And yesterday I stayed in Iya in the center of Kochi, this really beautiful place. I live-streamed the Statue of the Peeing Boy about two hours ago, and then I traveled by car from here to here. So, I'm here right now in Nakatosa, and then, next by car, I'm going to here, and Nakatosa, I believe. Yeah, it's right about here. So, my final destination, I'm going to be there in about two hours. So there you go. That's my trip. And it's pretty cool. Again, like, I kind of wish I wasn't live streaming all of this, but I want you to feel like you're here with me. So this is why I'm doing it. But I'm probably going to rent a car and drive this way again in the future, too. I think it's just too much fun. And I like to sing in the car. I don't know about you, but I like to sing in the car. And that's maybe why my voice is raspy. Some people, you know, I call it singing. Some people might call it screaming. But I'm alone. There's nobody else there. It feels really good to sing tunes that only I know in the car. There's nobody there. It's just me.

23:25 John Daub: So next up, I'm going to be getting back into the car and driving to Shimanto City and staying in a hotel not too far away from there. It's another ryokan. And if I can, tonight, I might do a question and answer inside of the room. And you can talk about traveling in Japan. I think compared to about three months ago, it's really a different situation. Right now, Japan is still closed to foreign tourists. But domestically, travel has restarted. There are conditions here. Again, there's a plastic shield separating me and other customers that are here. It's empty right now. But I think that this is like the evolution of travel. We're seeing domestically Japan travel open up. If the numbers look pretty good, then I think travel from abroad is going to start to restart slowly. But all means that you need to have a vaccine passport. It's probably going to be something that is talked about. I can't not eat this. It's sitting right in front of me. Look at this. It's so good. Just look at the color. Look at the color on that. I think I prefer it with just a little bit of salt. Do you see the salt on there? Just a little bit of salt. And that's it. Oh, man. That's so good. I don't think I can eat dinner.

24:58 John Daub: Michael Sassano writes in here, I agree with you, John. Love being a part of your road trip and seeing more of Japan in areas far away from Tokyo. Far, far away from Tokyo. Thank you for doing this. You're very welcome. I think one of the reasons why I started in Kyoto, I say I think because I know. It's because if you're in the Kansai region, it's very easy to come to Shikoku. But from Tokyo, Shikoku can seem quite far. If you're coming from Tokyo, I would highly recommend getting a cheap flight. You can get them used to be able to get Jetstar for about $30. You can get a cheap flight from Jetstar for like $30 to $50. Sometimes it depends on the time of year and how early you book. But you could be in Kochi Airport. And it's very easy to get from Kochi Airport to the city and then travel around here. And that saves you like a day of traveling. You can go by Shinkansen, take the Shinkansen to Okayama Station, which is just about an hour past Osaka. And then you can change to a direct train, which comes straight to Kochi. I believe it used to be the Anpanman train. So it had a little bit of a color to it. That would bring you here. But it would take significantly longer than if you flew. Again, traveling by train is also an experience. Or you can just rent a car. And I think this is great because it's a good contrast between the train and flight, which I think you might have seen before. Driving here is preferred way because you don't have to worry about the traffic unless you're just driving here. That's awesome.

26:44 John Daub: This shop closes at 2, so I'm a little bit over time. But this is a great stop. This is a great stop. A lot of parking, by the way. Very easy parking. Free parking right, what is it, one minute walk from the market. You can't beat that. So all my luggage is in there. Get back in the car. And then I'm driving to the hotel. So I think I'll see you tonight. And then we'll do a powwow in the hotel. Talk about the trip and travel again into Japan. And then tomorrow, I'm going to be getting on a riverboat and eating unagi. And unagi is freshwater eel, right? So we're going to catch the unagi and eat it on the riverboat. I think that's the way. I think that's what I'm doing. So tomorrow, I don't know if I'm going to do it live stream. I might just film it and then upload it because it's better quality for you, right? But it doesn't feel the same if you're not there with me. But I'll try to make do with the best. If there's no signal, then I can't. It's better if I don't take the chance and I just film it and upload it as a video. But I do appreciate it. If you want the notifications, you can get that on Patreon, patreon.com slash only in Japan or on Discord, which is free, discord.gg slash only in Japan. Pretty cool notifications. Thank you, everybody. I'll see you. I'm back on the road. I'll see you. Tomorrow or tonight, another live stream from Kochi. It's a pretty cool little town. Thanks again, Michael. Get some ice cream.