00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Nihonbashi (日本橋，central Tokyo district) here in Tokyo. This is the Coredo (コレド，shopping complex) Takarachō Terrace store and in front of me is a Wagyu burger. Look at this thing. Just the bag looks like it came from a department store, right? This is not your normal fast food bag. I'll talk about the cost and how good this burger must be in this live stream here.

00:00:28 John Daub: So I got the set. I'm going to break it down for you. I got an oolong tea because you could get a beer as well. It is Tokyo. Here's the burger, here's the french fries, and here I am. Alright, welcome. I'm pretty excited about this.

00:00:50 John Daub: This live stream is brought to you by the last episode I just uploaded on YouTube. It was on the main channel. It was a snow-aged Wagyu episode. The snow-aged Wagyu beef. Absolutely amazing. It was really mind-blowing to me when I heard the concept of it and I wanted to learn more so I went to Niigata Prefecture and I ate it. In fact, it's on the main channel. I'll show you a preview after I eat this burger.

00:01:25 John Daub: Wow. Alright, here's a straw. Never mind that. Let's just open up this burger here. This literally is an unboxing. This is crazy. Alright, here we go. 3, 2, 1. What? Oh, it's wrapped. Of course it's Japan after all. I've never heard of this chain. I don't even know if it is a chain. I just know they have a shop here. Nihonbashi. And that is, if you're in the area, come and say hi. I'll be here for about 30 minutes or so.

00:02:00 John Daub: Alright, I gotta set this right here. Let's open it up. Oh my gosh. It feels like Christmas. Oh, whoops. It's pretty windy here. Almost lost my expensive Wagyu bag. Sorry to man over there. Alright, let's get back into this here.

00:02:20 John Daub: Alright, well there's a lot of bun. That's my first reaction. Like, where's the beef, man? What do you think? Whoa. That is a gourmet looking burger. Looks like some kind of mashed up mushrooms in there. Of course you can see the bacon. It's smashed into the bun on the top here. Nothing wrong with that.

00:02:45 John Daub: Let's go a little wide here. Looks like there's some sauce. Again, aged bacon. I'm not sure that bacon is a usual color. The bread feels good and they brand it with Wagyu on the top. On the front there. Wagyu means Japanese beef. Wa-gyu. It's that simple. But the roll is quite large.

00:03:10 John Daub: Alright, the burger cost 1,300 yen. I think it was 1,700 yen with the set. So what is that? Like $13 or something with the set. So it's not too bad. I don't want anything to fly away here. Where's the burger? I don't know. You're gonna have to... You guys are gonna have to be the judge if that's a lot of... If this is worth it. Like, I can't see the beef. That's my only issue. Presentation. I don't know. Maybe... We're gonna have to just try it and find out. It's the only way to know. Itadakimasu (いただきます，let's eat).

00:04:00 John Daub: That's good. That's pretty good. The first thing I noticed was not the meat, though. It was the bread. The quality of the bread is really good. Alright. You know why? Because I took a bite. Look at this. First bite. I got... Look how much beef I actually got into that bite. It's pretty weird. I got so little. I got mostly bread. So my first reaction was, boy, this bread's real good and that sauce is real nice, too. Kind of salty. That bacon. You saw I got a big piece of bacon. That was... I think it's a little bit smoked. So that's... That's no complaints with smoked bacon.

00:04:45 John Daub: Alright. Let's go into the beef on this side. Alright. Here we go. Okay. Okay. I see. I see. Alright. It's quite good. Now, the reason why Wagyu does not work... And the fries. I'm very critical of French fries, so they've gotta be good. Oh, they gave me some condiment here. Why would... Mustard? Is that normal? Is it a Japanese thing? No. Mustard with... This was inside with the French fries. Mustard. Is that... Slightly bizarre. No, it shouldn't be ketchup? Is there any ketchup? No. No ketchup. Slightly odd. Let me check the bag. Maybe the bag has some... No. No ketchup in that bag. Hmm. It's a little odd. I have to say.

00:05:45 John Daub: Would you take off a point for that? Black straw. Very stylish. Real straw like the plastic ones which fall apart. Starbucks Japan oolong cha (烏龍茶，oolong tea), Chinese tea, very good. A lot of people say that it makes you thin so forget the diet coke and drink the oolong tea which is a little bit more flavorful.

00:06:20 John Daub: Alright just so far it's been a pretty bizarre meal. Alright I'm gonna just have to... I'm using what they give me which is mustard. Maybe these fries were meant to be eaten with mustard. I don't know. Maybe not. It's different. You go with what you get, right? This is the way the chef wanted us to eat it. Fry is a little cold but it is winter and I am outside so I forgive them for that. Not too salty but they are salty but not too salty.

00:07:00 John Daub: I don't know I've always preferred the thinner fries to the thick cut ones. I don't know why. I think it's just they get a little crunchier. I like my french fries slightly crunchy. I like McDonald's french fries because you always get that like a couple of crunchy ones that have been burned a little bit. I don't know why I like that but those are the best because you could dip them in the ketchup and you say look I have a match. Who did that as a kid right? You dip it the ketchup and you go? Oh, they look like matches. Mom look I'm eating a match. My mom never laughed at that that I remember.

00:08:00 John Daub: Alright back to the burger. Alright bread five stars absolutely, but that's not why you eat a burger. This time we're going right into the meat here. Look at that. Oh, I got to show you the gore pretty sounds here. Part two.

00:08:30 John Daub: Okay, hmm the reason why I don't like Wagyu beef burgers. Wagyu is not a beef that [works for] a burger and well it... Right. This is why American burgers are so darn good. You don't want to use too fatty meat. You don't want to use meat with a lot of oil in it, right? It does make a tender burger, but Wagyu is at its disadvantage.

00:09:00 John Daub: However, the biggest misconception that people have about Wagyu is that it is extremely marbled. That's not exactly true. It's true of A4 and A5 ranked beef. A3, A2 ranked beef [is perfect for burgers and it's cheaper]. Burger meat should not be expensive. It should be cheap. A burger should be a few bucks. I think you know, so $13 is quite a lot. I'm guessing that they're not using A5 beef. That'd be crazy. That's a waste of A5 beef. It's too oily.

00:09:45 John Daub: So you want the burger to have a meaty taste to it not an oily taste to it. You want a good more red more meaty [than fatty]. [Why do is a good mix? It is a really good mix and the oils in Wagyu beef are closer to olive oil than it is to the fat on regular beef in the West. Although they may [sell] Wagyu in the west but Wagyu again as I told you is translated as Japanese beef, Japan beef.]

00:10:45 John Daub: Alright break it down here this is the inside of the shop here check it out so yeah I can't actually film inside but I can take [in my smartphone and show you images of it]. The shop is very small here. I don't know if this is a chain or not. The menu and the pictures make it look incredible and it is a good burger. They could charge a lot more I think but I think people might be willing to pay 1,300 yen. There's a sign Wagyu burger. I mean it is a pretty good burger. I can't complain. It's a small little shop. They put it in a nice area. People got a lot more money in this neighborhood right?

00:11:45 John Daub: So if you're going to be eating a Wagyu burger and you're going to pay for it you're going to pay for it here you're not going to pay for it in your hometown or something. It's just a little bit too pricey. You want something special you come here right where I am today.

00:12:15 John Daub: There you go this is what the website looks like here of the burger so I found out about this place from the website. It's 1,380 yen. Um there's a 1,080 yen version of this burger and it says it's um hand size. I think this is hand size. No how small does your hand have to be to have a hand [size burger]? I should get that burger just to compare. It's 300 yen less. How much less beef is it? But if you come you can figure this out.

00:13:00 John Daub: Um it's about eight dollars I guess for one of those for hand size and for about 11 for regular size so I don't know is that too much? You guys let me know in the comments if you think that's a lot of money for a burger. These magical sounds in the background are a little bit disturbing to me.

00:13:30 John Daub: I don't have big hands and I would say that on the presidential debate it's okay it's not scientific that I know of. Fourth bite is quite good. Thank you for noticing. I did get a haircut. Good balance of bacon and beef there.

00:14:00 John Daub: Alright you can't compare this to McDonald's. This is completely different. This is way better in a different [way]. Not that McDonald's burgers are bad it's just better. It's got different flavor to it. I guess you can tell it's good beef. Juicy but it's not too juicy so I'm almost positive they're not using A3 A4 A5 Wagyu. There are lower [grades] and there's also C Wagyu. You guys know this. There's also B and C so you can get like a C grade Wagyu beef and it is super cheap. It's almost the same as normal regular beef and you still get Wagyu.

00:15:00 John Daub: So when you do get a Wagyu burger you can ask them what's the rank what's the BMS score if you want to get real technical. They might not even know but using Wagyu is a way to rack up the price but you're not sure what you're getting because as I showed you in the series Wagyu beef has all sorts of scales and the reputation of Wagyu is good and strong and that's really good for the brand of Wagyu but there are so many different grades that there's a cheaper grade and a more expensive grade and you have to know what you're getting.

00:15:45 John Daub: Which is why you should know that there is a 10 digit number to every Wagyu beef imported from Japan. Every Wagyu beef every restaurant that says that they have Japanese Wagyu beef should have a 10 digit number that you can search on the database that would allow you to trace exactly where that beef came from. It's on the front of the plastic wrap that's been frozen and sent to them by the importer and if they don't have that it's not [real]. They cannot charge that price and it is not real Wagyu beef. You can't validate it and there's thus no reason to pay a premium for beef that cannot be traced back to Japan through that database. Keep that in mind. I'm something of a Wagyu master based on experience not on university skills.

00:17:00 John Daub: But I just uploaded a video that you can see on the main channel. I think you should give it a watch. It's a um I also have one on Omi beef which is one of the top three beef brands as well as Yonezawa beef another one of the top three or four brands in Japan where I go into the processing plant and I watch them grading it. You can see them literally the masters the people who are meant scientifically to look at the beef and grade it. That's what we did in this series and this time I wanted to look at the aging process. There's wet aging there's dry aging and now there's snow aging which I thought was a very interesting take on all of it and that in itself is a brand.

00:18:00 John Daub: Uh this episode I think you're gonna really like because it's just a fun episode. Here's the beginning of it. I come out of this snow cellar you can see I'm holding up a massive ribeye roll. This has been aging for a month in a snow cellar and there's advantages to the snow aging. Thank you hello hi 821 for sharing the link and uh you know this is the inside of the cellar look at him cut that block of that Wagyu stick. Oh my gosh this was cooked just about 400 meters from here. You're gonna like that video. Check it out on the main channel. That's where my edited content is.

00:19:00 John Daub: You know, but I think Wagyu beef though, when you come to Japan, if you are a meat eater, it's one of the things that you definitely have to try, but you have to know your stuff if you're gonna pay money for it. I mean a lot of money. If you're gonna pay a hundred bucks for a meal, you should know a little bit about it. And learning the BMS scale, the different brands and regions of Wagyu in Japan, as well as the quality of it, as well as being able to search that 10-digit number. It is fun to be able to track the dinner because you have to understand, you know, and I think that non-meat eaters will respect this. You have to understand where your food comes from. And I think it is very really cool to eat meat if you understand that, because it is a sacrifice of an animal and you know, I'm talking about that. It doesn't come from the supermarket. So it actually comes from a farm and you have to learn about that. And then when you learn about it, you respect it more. And that's been my mission here.

00:21:00 John Daub: So when I eat this Wagyu burger, I don't know much about it. The thing with fast food is they don't give you that 10-digit number, but they still call it Wagyu. Wow! Okay, back to the burger. Look at that onion popping out. Oh, you're mine. Caramelized onions, baby. It's a premium burger. This will fill me up.

00:21:45 John Daub: The other big thing to know about Wagyu is that it's not just a type of burger. It's a level-headed burger. Wagyu is like... I'm looking around and make sure no one can hear this except for you guys. It fills you up actually. 80 to 120 grams is way more than enough of Wagyu. Usually it'll be a meal you'll get soup you'll get other things around it. You don't need to get a 200 gram Wagyu steak. More is less. Less is more something like that. Less is enough because it's a little bit oilier in a good way. It's a different kind of oil. It just really you can tell when you have it in your mouth and take smaller bites and you enjoy it more if you're just trying to fill yourself up on just purely Wagyu I wouldn't recommend that.

00:23:00 John Daub: Richard writes in more is better. Pace yourself life's a marathon there's more where that came from. You don't need to eat 200 gram Wagyu steak it's expensive. 120 grams is my recommendation sirloin steak 120 tenderloin 100. Those work. Um for shabu-shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ，hot pot) maybe it's cut thin so it feels like it's more with the sauces and everything so I like shabu-shabu and sukiyaki (すき焼き，beef hot pot). Sukiyaki is so good oh my gosh sukiyaki is the way to go. That Yonezawa video was so good. I ate it as steak I ate it as sukiyaki I ate it as shabu-shabu in one video it was great.

00:24:00 John Daub: Alright back to the burger so now we're getting into the center of this thing here and now you can see this is nasty how many YouTubers will show you their bite marks. There's a lot of onions underneath there there's some sauce you can see the beef is medium medium well maybe medium because it's still pink a little bit which is good. This is very good that's my bite mark so you know how my eyesight is um incisors are they're made for ripping meat. Brandonia that's so good it's a very satisfying burger.

00:24:45 John Daub: They made me wait 30 minutes is that fast food? I had to wait 30 minutes 20 25 minutes which is why the bag looks like it comes from a department store. I bet you the bag cost a dollar to make just for the bag. I think I'm gonna take this bag home. I think I'm gonna use this bag again because if you get a gift from me and it says Wagyu on it you know it came from this live stream.

00:25:30 John Daub: Oh man shout out this stream is also brought to you by our Patreon community thank you all and this is this month's postcard it is a shot from a drone in Fujiyoshida of Mount Fuji it's a beautiful shot that road leads straight to Mount Fuji. You have two days left to get this card I will send it to you with a second card if you sign up now if you're a new sign up I'll send you two cards for your collection but you have two days left so after that this card gets retired and you can no longer get it limited.

00:26:30 John Daub: If you like Wagyu burgers hit that like button I might go get a second one I might who knows we're down to the nub. I like it when you know instead of having like pickles and onions that fall out or sauce or juice it's bacon that falls out of the burger that's a good sign.

00:27:15 John Daub: Maybe the one thing that I like I'm just realizing it now because sometimes when you eat food it doesn't hit you right away. The first or second bite is not enough. You really need to talk about the food after the experience is done, not just after the first bite or two. What I'm noticing is that the burger is not sloppy. The Wagyu is a much fattier cut of beef, marbling, but it's not soggy meat, right? That's kind of impressive. I don't know if it's the way that they prepared the bun or what, but there's no oils that are coming out of it, so you don't need to have a big napkin or an envelope that they give you with some of the messy burgers. That's a really good thing. My impression was that a Wagyu burger was going to be sloppy.

00:28:45 John Daub: So, how much is a Wagyu patty? Well, I've been to Hitachi and Yonezawa and Omi, and I've been to a lot of butcher shops that sell Wagyu beef patties. They're usually about $2 to $3 for one patty, just to put it in perspective, if you buy it from the butcher shop. I've seen them as much as 400 yen. They're not expensive. The thing is with Wagyu, as I told you, there's A4, A5, which is on the top, the pinnacle here. Those are very expensive pieces of meat. Just the name Wagyu does not mean it's all the same. Just keep that in mind. You have to ask, what's the rank of this Wagyu beef? Thus, you can justify it with the price. An educated consumer is our best customer. That's what all restaurants should say, right?

00:30:30 John Daub: So, when you go out and you have Kobe beef, ask them for that 10-digit tracking number and let them prove to you that it's real Kobe beef before you pay $200. Or if they say Wagyu beef, ask them, what's the rank and where does it come from? Because Wagyu is a brand in itself, and I know the association here wants to make sure that you're having a good experience, which is why they source the number. There's a 10-digit number to every single Wagyu patty. And they want the consumer to know that. That's why they do that. They want you to trust in the brand. They want you to believe in Wagyu. They want to be able to search back if there's any issues or problems with that beef. I think that's smart. No other country does this.

00:32:15 John Daub: So, if you know about this 10-digit number and the database, there's no way you'll ever get a bad piece of Wagyu. You'll understand what you're eating. And to me, that's ultimate. If you know where your food is sourced from, you're a very smart consumer. If you don't know where your food comes from and you get sick, whose fault is that? I don't know. The government? I don't know. I just think that if there's a possibility that we can learn more about it, then it's good to do that.

00:33:15 John Daub: In Japan, they don't put the names on there. They could. I don't know. Do they? I know that when I was filming an episode on Omi beef, which is coming out soon, I talked with Ishii-san, who's the founder of the Omi Wagyu Beef. And he told me that his wife named the Wagyu beef, and they all had names. And that's one thing. But he has a special love or care for them, but he realizes they're going to be dinner. But I don't think there's names on the certificates. They're just numbers. That'd be weird. But Bobby was just kidding. I wasn't. The cow's name was Bob. No, I'm just kidding.

00:34:30 John Daub: Alright. Final part of this burger. We still got some Wagyu branding on here. Very good. The fries? Not so great. You know, the fries were so good when they cooked it in lard back in the 1970s. As a kid, I remember those days. In the early 80s. It was pretty nasty, too. I remember them. They'd have to get blocks of lard out of the back. You'd see them changing the lard. This is so unhealthy. But yet, it was so good. Mmm.

00:35:30 John Daub: So, Wagyu Burger. There's the entrance. We're in a Coredo (コレド，shopping complex) at Takarachō Terrace. 4.3 out of 5. This feels like a 4.3 out of 5. That's pretty good. 4.3 out of 5. It's good balance. Sometimes you can go too much with the meat. Sometimes you go too much with the bun. It'd be a 5 if maybe the meat was a little bit longer. Yeah, maybe 4.1. Yeah, 4. So, we're just going to round down. 4 out of 5.

00:36:45 John Daub: Lard comes from pigs. Okay, well, Bobby, I'm no expert on lard. Lard has not been a part of my diet for decades. If you say so. I do need an In-N-Out burger. We don't have that here. In-N-Out will never be coming to Japan. I thought that they might during the Olympics because Carl's Jr. and a bunch of other chains came here, but they never did.

00:37:45 John Daub: We're going to make a swing through Southern California, but it didn't come to fruition because of the pandemic. We were planning to go visit our friends down in... friends in California and Utah and Arizona and swing through the Southwest, maybe even go up to the Northwest. Didn't work and then Leo came. There you go. Our In-N-Out burger dissolved.

00:38:45 John Daub: If In-N-Out ever expanded, would that ruin it or would that be good? I don't know. Should they? Like, they really did a good job with their branding. It's a cardboard box, which is recyclable. They put a sticker on here. It's well placed and yeah, it's very good. Back in the 70s and 80s, we didn't really care so much about... You try to leave the area, like wipe the table down, you try to leave it cleaner than you found it. That's a Japanese thing for real. Check out the World Cup. Japanese cleaning the stadiums.

00:40:00 John Daub: But, you know, the more we get into the next generation, the older generation doesn't understand this maybe, but the presentation and the way it looks is quite important these days. It's not just a burger. A burger is a burger. A bag is a bag. I understand that, you know, if you're a little bit older, but this generation, you know, the millennials and the... It's very important. Actually, we're in the Zoomers, is it called? Zoomer generation. The way things look is important and I think that people want... It's more than just food. It's an experience. I kind of enjoy it. So... It's good.

00:41:45 John Daub: Even though it probably at $2 went into the packaging. Burger. Gen Z's over. We're in the Zoomer. I don't know. We pay more for the packaging and the presentation now than we need to, but again, that's all part of the experience of eating out or else why would we ever leave the house? I would pay a little bit more to eat out and I think you should. Every now and then. You don't need a Wagyu burger. And again, Wagyu is... I asked this like, is Wagyu good? Is Wagyu healthy? Can you eat this every day? And the answer is from the chef, he goes, no. He didn't even think about it. He sells Wagyu beef, but he just says no.

00:43:30 John Daub: In Japan, people don't eat beef every day. This is something we did in America. There'd be meat for dinner for every meal. And Japan's not always like that. There's fish if you consider that to be meat, but I mean, it's a lot less here. And you can tell in the diet when you're eating, the longer you stay here, that meat is not a massive part of it. So you don't eat it every day. So that could be one reason why people are healthier. But I think that there's absolutely nothing wrong eating a burger once or twice a month, but not every day. He was a very honest chef.

00:44:45 John Daub: You know, if you do come to Tokyo, and whether or not you think snow-aged beef is overrated or not, you just think it's a brand, I think you have to try it. Akiyama-san has a... Actually, it was a chain. I think he's got five restaurants now. So it's quite successful. He opened up one at the... The new building right next to Tokyo Station in Nihonbashi. It's called the... Was it the Flame Tower? It's a brand new place. It's on the first floor on the backside. You got to go in and stop in and get a steak. That steak that I ate was 4,500 yen or about $37. But it's a steak. It's A5 Wagyu beef, snow aged for a month, that they say is more tender.

00:46:30 John Daub: And what makes it more tender? Remember from the snow aging? Is that a refrigerator... See, I love learning about this stuff. Refrigerator turns on and off, and the humidity and the temperature rises and fluctuates. In a yukimuro (雪室，snow cellar), the temperature is always 1 to 2 degrees Celsius. It doesn't change. That's just a little bit over freezing, so like 34 degrees Fahrenheit. It doesn't change. So that even temperature, and the humidity stays at around 90 to 95%, I believe, that doesn't change. And both those things play an impact on the beef, even in a plastic bag. The humidity doesn't go into the bag, but if the humidity changes, that impacts the beef on the inside, according to the data. And one month of even temperatures breaks the meat down in an even way, which leads to a better experience. They say it's scientifically proven. I just know that the steak tasted good.

00:48:30 John Daub: And the proof is in the potatoes. And I mean that, because the manager of the yukimuro, he gave me a bag of potatoes, and he said, you gotta take this home. Microwave them for like 2, 3 minutes, just the potato. Microwave for 2, 3 minutes, and then eat it, and you'll understand. And I ate it, and because the potatoes broke down in such an even way, not in a refrigerator, there's no vibrations, it, I can't believe it. Like, it was, it tasted like mashed potatoes in there, just that it had broken down so evenly inside. It was so good. I'm like looking for this yukimuro potatoes now, because they've been aging in a yukimuro. I can't believe like I'm buying into the marketing because it tasted good. I don't know if that translated into beef though, right? Does it translate into beef? I don't know. You're gonna have to make the call on that.

00:50:30 John Daub: But potatoes aren't wrapped up. They're aged as is. Meat isn't in a wrapper or bag, but there is a lot of, so is the miso too. But there's a ton of data on even temperature, even aging. Temperature fluctuates, impacts the meat adversely, impacts food adversely. They have yukimuro coffee, coffee aged in these snow cellars too, which has a more, I don't know, it's a different taste. It tastes more, because I think that the aging was like this. And the best of all is that they have no electricity bill, just the power. It's like 500 yen a month or something, he said. I discovered potato salad in a potato. This is so me.

00:52:00 John Daub: Gary Johnson's here. Hey, Gary. Do different cuts of A5 Wagyu beef have their own distinctive flavors? Yes. I saw a video, it had 11 million views, and I forget, was it Dancing Bacon, Thirsty Traveler? I can't remember who it was. They were comparing Matsusaka beef with Kobe beef, but they were two different cuts. You can't do that. They have to be both sirloin. They have to be both sirloin from the same cut, I think, if you're going to try to compare the brands.

00:53:00 John Daub: But he had like what looked like, was it like momo (もも，round), which is like the backside, and then he had what looked like a sirloin steak, and uchimomo (内もも，inside round) or something. I said, yeah, because the fat content is different. The marbling is different. Each cut of the beef is different. It has different flavors. It has different umami. I don't know. So, I really think if you're going to compare different brands, you have to compare the same cut of the different brands. And even then, I think that the taste difference is marginal at best, and you can't taste it.

00:54:00 John Daub: Thus, in this yukimuro video, I tell everybody, the regional brands, it doesn't make such a huge difference because everybody in Japan is trying to do the same things to improve the beef. Between Kobe beef, and Yonezawa beef, I really can't taste too much of a difference that you'll notice unless you eat this every day or something. What you do notice is the way that they cook it, and the culture of each region can be different.

00:54:45 John Daub: And the sukiyaki in Yonezawa, I thought was out of sight. I've had Kobe beef before. I thought Yonezawa beef was much better in many different ways [you ate it]. Maybe Kobe beef is better as teppanyaki (鉄板焼き，iron plate grill), which is on a grill right in front of you. I thought Hitachi beef, was really good, especially with char grilled, with charcoal underneath. I thought barbecuing Hitachi beef was out of sight too. I thought the marbling was insane too with Hitachi beef. And that brand is growing. Hitachi is up in Ibaraki, which is just north of Tokyo, about an hour and a half.

00:56:00 John Daub: Hida beef was also some of the best. That's from Gifu Prefecture? Oh my gosh. That was also incredible, but again, it was like a tenderloin I ate, but every tenderloin is so good. Tenderloin, and within tenderloin, there's filet mignon, there's chateaubriand, there's different cuts within the tenderloin, which is crazy. So it's really good to understand the different cuts too. I'm still kind of learning that, but in terms of eating it, I'm a master, because I've had a lot.

00:57:00 John Daub: Alright, one more question. One more Wagyu-based question. I had the best time in Tokyo last week, right, Senkei? Oh, that's great. Last week was pretty chilly, right? It's starting to warm up a little bit. I'm so happy when I see people coming here. When I see visitors coming to Tokyo now, it's just so great. It's so much more positive, a feeling of positivity compared to a year ago. And more people are coming here. Everyone is speaking, I hear a lot of people speaking Chinese too, from Taiwan and from Hong Kong, and from Singapore. Although, you know, I haven't met anybody from mainland China, but I tried to stop and talk with people.

00:58:30 John Daub: Yeah, it is a little chilly today. There are heaters here. They do this some places in Tokyo. You see, they have these hat-looking things, which bring out heat, so this area is not too bad. But it is quite windy today. Yeah, quite windy.

00:59:15 John Daub: Yeah, Japan's economy is going to rely a lot more on tourism. One of the biggest issues with those that are flying here, the prices are high. I was thinking about going back home in May, back to the US. I can't do it, it's just too expensive. I would need to stay for like two or three weeks. I don't have that kind of time yet. Maybe Christmas, I don't know. But the flight for economy was the same price as premium economy for two people. And it was, I don't know, I was like, why is that? And there's just not enough flights. And one reason why there's not enough flights coming here is because there's not enough staff.

01:00:30 John Daub: I think, Fukuoka Airport, for an example, has only 40% of the, they laid off 40% of the staff, or they only have 40% of the staff. I forget what the data was, right now. So they just don't have enough people to increase the flights. I believe Narita and Haneda both have issues with not enough staff. So, until more flights start up, I think they're going to keep the prices high, which also makes up for the losses for the last two years, which I understand. But I think we're in an age, where things are just going to cost more. It feels like that. Especially for us, leaving Japan, because the yen is weak. It's at 1.36 to the dollar right now.

01:02:00 John Daub: We have a new Bank of Japan, a new fiscal head is coming into Japan, bank head, and Kuroda is leaving. And the new guy is a professor, and he seems to have a different policy, so we're going to see the impact. I don't think Kuroda actually cared about the yen depreciating. I think he cared more about inflation. He wanted to hit 2% inflation, and he didn't care about how weak the yen was. I think the new guy cares more about the markets. And that's maybe a better balance. Because if we leave Japan, we're a lot, like 40%, like 30% less money we make now here.

01:03:00 John Daub: Yeah, it went up again. It's 1.36