The Seafood Proxy Battle Between China And Japan

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“This guy's singing while grilling and blowtorching crab.”

>> Crab, yeah, that's one way to get our attention. >> Right. [MUSIC] This is the sport full. It's not for foodies.

It's for eaters, I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. [MUSIC] Quick note, we're getting to the show that we have a live taping coming up in Boston. My guest will be Irene Lee, co-founder of Maymae Doublings.

Matt Shearer, who you may know better as reporter Matt for Instagram and Tiktok. And Ian Coss, who put together that great series called Catch in the codfall that we featured. I mean, this is an all star lineup, okay?

May first, at WBUR, city space in Boston, get info in tickets at sportfull.com/live.

All right, let's get to it. This week, we're sharing the second of two shows that I recorded on a recent trip to Beijing in Tokyo.

“Last week, we explored how the restaurant scene in China has exploded over the last 40 years.”

Today, we're gonna look at the relationship between China and Japan. These two nations have a long history of conflict, but things are especially tense right now. And that's playing out in a lot of ways, including with seafood. But as I learned, when I was there, despite all this geopolitical strife, the situation on the ground in both countries is more complicated.

China and Japan have long been intertwined, culturally, economically, and geographically. In my few days in both Beijing and Tokyo, I try to get a better sense not just of how new policies are affecting people, but how people in both countries are adapting. We'll start off in Japan. It was one thing I wanted to do in Tokyo, so badly that I was willing to get up at 4 o'clock

in the morning to see it. It's the wholesale tuna auction, which happens at Toyosu Market early every morning. It's the largest fish market in the world. And a popular tourist destination for those willing to wake up so early. The market has observation windows overlooking the floor.

When I first got to the windows, the scene below kind of took my breath away, rose and

rose and rose of gigantic raw fish. Some of them is big as a canoe, all waitin' to be sold. The tails are cut off, so buyers can see a cross section of the meat, inspecting it for quality and fat content. The whole thing goes really fast, it probably sell in one fish every 10 seconds.

And they're all kind of hand motions going on during the auctions. My guide, Toshi Sakai, translates the auction year, who points to one biter after another to push prices higher, as he points around he calls "You, you, one more you!" The most surprising thing I learned on this tour is that this market sells tuna from all over the world.

I assume it was just all Japanese tuna being sold, but turns out tuna season is different in different places. In September and October the best tuna comes from New England, because the tuna have been chasing macroe up the East Coast all summer long and getting big from eating so much. Then as the water gets colder, they start to put on extra fat.

When fishermen catch a big tuna, they have a broker who calls all over the world to get the best price, which is often in Tokyo, because there's so many buyers there. So yes, the tuna then flies all the way from Boston to Tokyo, where it might get sold to a supplier who eventually sells the fish to a restaurant in New York. So you can go on to eat in the US and the server might say we just had this tuna flown

in from Tokyo and you'd be so impressed, but it turns out the fish was actually caught down the street. But still, the reason why restaurants like to say fish has been flown in from Japan is that it gives a lot of cashier, right? Japan is known around the world for its fish.

Which also makes its fish a perfect target for China to try to exert some leverage over Japan. I met up with someone to talk more about that.

“Can you just talk a little bit so I can get a little more?”

Sure, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. We are at Skiji Fish Market in Tokyo. You sound like someone who's done this before. Really? Does it?

A little bit. This is Karumi Mori. She's an independent journalist now, which is spending several years working for Bloomberg, covering Tokyo for an English-speaking audience. Karumi and I met up at Skiji Market in Tokyo.

It opened in 1935 and it used to be where the tuna auction happened until it moved a few years ago to Toyosu. But Skiji's little retail shops and stalls have remained. It's now a place where lots of tourists come for prepared foods, but it's also a place local as might come to grab lunch or something they can cook for dinner.

Before we actually went into the market, I asked Karumi to give me a little background on the situation between Japan and China. Of course, Japan and China, there's so much historical context to this relationship. I mean geographically, we're close. We also share a lot of the same culture, kind of roots.

You see those shared roots in food and culture. Ramen comes from Chinese noodles, gyoza comes from Chinese dumplings. Japan has multiple huge China towns, and China has tons of clothing stores featuring Japanese fashion.

But as I said, the countries have also found themselves at odds. In modern times, things really started to heat up in the 1890s during the Sino-Japanese war. When Japan won that war, they became the major power in the region. They occupied Korea and gained control over Taiwan. During their invasion of China, Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities, killing many

Chinese civilians, including in the Nigerian massacre. When Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, they agreed to give up Korea and Taiwan. But there have been international disputes about Taiwan's status since, which will become important later in this story.

So China and Japan never really made up.

The feelings are still pretty raw, as Karumi saw when people on social media responded to her reporting. I would get DMs from some Chinese users telling me, "I shouldn't be talking about China

“or I should be careful because of the wartime atrocities and you should be ashamed”

to be Japanese." And so, I mean, I've definitely first-hand have experienced a bit of the hostility. Of course, I have a lot of Chinese friends as well. But I think there is the backdrop of that, which leads into more of the modern tensions that we do feel.

Over the past few decades, China has become the regional power, and there's been an uneasy coexistence between the two countries. Their trading partners, including when it comes to seafood. In fact, until a few years ago, China was the biggest importer of Japanese fish.

But the seafood trade turned rocky in 2011.

That year there was a tsunami in earthquake in Fukushima, the killed 20,000 Japanese. It also caused a nuclear meltdown at a power plant there. It was a huge environmental disaster, radiation was released into the ground, and the water surrounded the power plant. The lasting impact is still not totally clear.

At the time, Kurumi was living in the U.S., but she visited Japan often.

“I definitely felt a sense of worry, so what I would travel back here, you know, I mean,”

we would still eat the food, but maybe there was, in the back of our heads, a bit of a concern. The Japanese government's official line is that water and food from the area are now safe. But there are some studies that show there has been contamination, it's just hard to say what the long term impact is. When Fukushima happened in 2011, China banned seafood imports from surround in prefectures,

so did many other countries.

Then, a couple years ago, Japan announced it would release treated radioactive wastewater

from the disaster into the Pacific Ocean. China responded by banning all seafood from Japan. Before that ban, China accounted for about 20% of Japanese seafood exports. After the ban, it dropped to effectively zero. And then, last year, it looked like the trade freeze was about to thaw.

China announced it was lifting the seafood ban, they would slowly start allowing more imports from Japan. That was short-lived, because in the fall, the new Japanese Prime Minister was asked a question. Right, so November 7th. Why?

This is a big date.

“That's how big of a deal it is that you know the date.”

Yes, Friday. It was a Friday. Okay. And the Prime Minister, her name is Prime Minister Takaiji, she was in the parliament and she was answering a question about a hypothetical invasion, a hypothetical action of China overtaking Taiwan.

And this question actually is raised to Prime Ministers over the years. And in the past, most Prime Ministers, like Ishiba, have kind of just said no comment. But Pakaiji did kind of answer it. She said, and I have my notes here, she said, "The mainland's use of force on Taiwan could constitute a "survival threatening situation for Japan" and to maybe the most of the world

doesn't kind of sound like Mosh, I mean it sounds kind of obvious that they might want to protect it. There's some sort of attack nearby. But China took that as a major, major threat, as something that, you know, Japan maybe doesn't recognize that it's one China.

And so to them, it triggered this huge reaction." Beijing was not happy. Even though Taiwan sees itself as its own nation, the Chinese government views Taiwan as part of China. So these comments by the Japanese Prime Minister really struck a nerve.

Just weeks later, China reinstated its ban on all seafood imports from Japan. Claiming it was because all of a sudden the water needed more monitoring after Fukushima, even though as far as contamination was concerned, nothing had changed. Most experts agree it was at thinly veiled response to Japan's comments about Taiwan, especially because, at the same time, Beijing warned Chinese tourists not to go to Japan because they

said it wasn't safe in part because of an increase in "bare attacks". Still, since that warning, Chinese tourism has dropped by nearly half. The Chinese government's decision to go after Japan's fishing industry was no worthy. While Tokyo is home to the world's largest fish market, Japan's fishing industry isn't actually that big of a part of the country's economy.

But fish has tremendous cultural significance. Japanese people eat a lot of fish, it's a huge part of their cuisine. And the quality of their fish is a point of national pride. So for China to say, "We don't need your stinking fish," proverbial shots fighter.

I have a friend, a family friend who operates in Toyosu Market.

They've been selling fish since 1964 and they've said, like, it impacts definitely the prices of our fish. And so if China's not buying, then maybe we need to lower the prices a bit because we have a surplus. But at the same time, they adjusted their business strategies.

So now they weren't looking to China so much as the main consumer. They were looking at other countries. And so now, it doesn't even matter what happens with China because we've done enough to offset some of this because he's like, "This could happen anytime."

“So China can impose a ban tomorrow and next week, a next year, and who knows?”

So Japanese fish sellers have adapted. And the numbers bear this out since China imposed its bans, Japanese seafood exports have actually increased.

I was still curious though to see if the folks at Skiji Market have felt any other

impacts from the latest tensions with China. Alright, we walk around the market and check it out, see what people are saying for sure. Crew me and I cross the street, we're now at Skiji Outer Market, which is sort of the outer perimeter of the old market. They're all these stalls, multiple blocks of stalls, selling all kinds of things. I see some gigantic, king crab legs.

The season for king crabs, I'm like, "Oh, look at that, so thick." Yeah, that's gigantic. These crab legs are easily two feet long. They're a stall selling why you and they grill to order. The scallops and shrimp on grills, little paper boats filled with slices of raw fatty tuna.

People running stands here were like, "What are the things that every tourist keeps asking us for?" Yeah, exactly. Wow, you and uni.

Okay, let's just sell those three things.

Exactly. The vendors here at Skiji rely on tourism for their livelihoods.

“So I want to know, have they seen any impact from the drop in Chinese tourism?”

Crew me suggest we ask the owners of a stall that's especially popular among Chinese tourists. There's this store called Omia, it's a meat shop and they do this really nice roast pork. I used to see like a hoard of Chinese tourists there. We arrive at the roast pork stall. Oh, that does look good.

There's a picture of a former sumo wrestler eating this roast pork. So this is Japanese Chashu. But this is the same type of pork that you would see, like, thin sliced over ramen. Oh, yeah, that's right. We do that as well, but we can also eat it in big chunks like this and like I said,

I like to eat it over a race at home with some scallions on top and drizzle that sauce all over. Grumi asked the person working at the shop if she noticed any changes in Chinese tourism here. She says most of her customers are locals because the stand also sells meats to cook at home. But she said that the whole field of Skiji market, she does think there are way less Chinese tourists recently since November. And has that affected her business?

She said she doesn't feel a big impact on the business. Like, there are fewer Chinese tourists. But maybe, you know, other tourists like the Americans are making up for it. And it's kind of funny because we keep talking about like the tensions between China and Japan. But you can see the cultures are so integrated and the people on the ground. It's like we love Chinese culture and Chinese food.

And obviously the Chinese people love coming here and enjoying the Japanese culture and the Japanese food.

“And so again, it is very geopolitical. What's happening?”

But in everyday terms, people kind of shrug off what's happening in a way. Grumi tells me that before the recent warning against Chinese tourists visiting Japan, she met some tourists from Shanghai and lying at this shop. And they were saying, you know, they love pork and... Chashu actually comes from China.

So, I mean, it's like a Japanese version, I guess. Japanese Chashu was related to Cantonese Charsu, similar type of roast pork. Another way that Chinese and Japanese cultures overlap. But that's one of the things you were saying is that as much as these two countries have had a lot of hostilities back and forth over decades,

there's also a lot of similarities with the cultures. Oh, for sure, right? I mean, if you look at the roots, of course, it's all, you know, very, very similar. And I think a lot of the food and we also have so many Chinese restaurants. There's a huge Chinese... While we're here, Karumi's going to buy some roast pork to cook at home.

But luckily for me... ...masking for like a little sliver for you to taste good. Oh, great, we got the tray, we got it all. But we got a little table, too. Oh, wow.

It's just the answer. Alright, time for a taste of the pork. Hmm. I like to put tons of sauce on it. It's so tender.

It's quite fatty, but I love it. But even the fact that it's cold, I mean, it's still so soft and tender. Imagine when you like re-glid it, grill it by yourself at home. Oh, so good.

Yes, this episode's about to fish, but Karumi offered me pork. What do you want me to do? We talked to a few other vendors at the market and they share similar sentiments.

even if they're coming from different places. And with China's ban on Japanese fish, the industry's been able to make up for any losses by selling more to other countries.

“I think the Japanese added two towards these Chinese policies,”

but summed up by one Japanese woman, I spoke with, who said, "We don't care. They care." But as I learned in China, the seafood import ban has had a much bigger impact. Just not in the way that Japanese woman may have thought. Coming up, I visit Asushi restaurant in Beijing to see and eat

surprising ways the ban has changed things. Stick around. Hope you're hungry 'cause it's time for some ads. Welcome back to this forkful, I'm Dan Pashman.

Last week was our first episode in this two-part series from China in Japan,

and that one I explored China's restaurant scene, which didn't even exist 40 years ago. I go to a very high end restaurant where they serve me a 16-course tasting menu. Then the next day, I go to somewhere that's pretty much the exact opposite. It's a popular hot pot chain called Heidi Lau.

It's part restaurant, part entertainment venue, and even part spa. There's flashing screens, ring lights, and other surprises. What are these robots doing though? They are like, resonating the dishes. I like preparing the dishes.

The robots prepare the dishes. I think so. I mean, we're all doing the evo.

“We also learned about Heidi Lau's birthday song,”

which is replaced the traditional birthday song among many young people in China. Check that one out, it's up now. Okay, back to the seafood trade war between China and Japan.

As we heard in the first half,

Japanese fish sellers have been able to adapt to the Chinese import band by selling to different markets. But what does the band look like in China? I went to a Japanese restaurant in Beijing to see how geopolitical tensions are trickling down to the food. I meet up with Waihang Lee, who you heard in our last episode.

I love food, of course, and then for the writer, and now I also have a podcast named Omniverse Table. Waihang's podcast co-host Jason Tang also joins us for this meal. Working in a U.S. bank here in Beijing. But my major hobby is I use a lot of part-time to restaurant critic.

Not only the reviews that restaurant, but I put a lot of content on how the food are coming from. The story behind the ingredient. Waihang and Jason brought me to a Japanese restaurant called Akimoto. It's a nice place with a dining area and a sushi bar that has six or eight seats.

Jason, Waihang and I haven't discussed it, but I quickly realized I mean, for an omakase, which means no menus. Really, whatever the chef selects for us. Waihang, what is this? Waihang, it's my favorite.

One of the favorites, a greens or vegetarian ingredients in during winter time is winter bamboo. So it will taste very sweet and or just to eat it. Stop asking, just eat it. So sweet and is this tempura?

No, it's a tempura, but it's so like light. In America, we have tempura, but it's like very heavy. There's not a plate coming.

Basically, the next dish they got aged.

Super. So, Guba is a well of the the large one. In Japanese, they called Kuhe. If you don't age it, like this one age is probably for 10 days. It's very difficult to choice.

Difficult to choose. Yeah, Difficult to choose. Well, this group must have been perfectly aged, because it was tender and a little sweet, almost buttery. Japanese restaurants really started popping up in China in the 90s,

mostly owned by Chinese people. And those owners often adapt to Japanese dishes to Chinese tastes. It's a Chinese cap of Japanese food. So in that restaurant, basically you are not using the Japanese ingredient. Eventually, Japanese people started opening Japanese restaurants here,

catering more to Japanese business people in China. When Japanese restaurants were first opening in China, what was the attitude?

“What was the perception of Chinese people to Japanese food and culture?”

Was there also some any hostility or doubt or question because of the mixed relationship between China and Japan? I don't think so. I think in the 80s and 90s there is a honeymoon period. It's food in China in Japan. Not only we started to have Japanese restaurants in China,

and also if it looked at television station, you have the Japanese animation, a lot has it. So at that time, I think that people are more open. Jason says that as Japanese food was taken off in China, these restaurants were mostly not importing ingredients from Japan.

The reason they get locally and importing some ingredients from Europe. Then there was the next wave of Japanese restaurants. So the piece of model at that time in Beijing was

You pay one price, like maybe 70 to 100 US dollars,

but you can eat or you want. And then there is another small boom of Japanaki. Like a grilling, like a barchi. I can't buy it, yes. So people think the Japanese restaurant is fancy,

but expensive. The chef of the restaurant we're in is Chinese. His name is Mingchang Zhang. And Jason tells me that Chef Zhang got his started 2004, working in one of those expensive Japanese all you can eat buffet.

I think in that Japanese restaurant, it's still old-style.

“It's not using any Japanese important ingredients.”

Then there was a turning point for Japanese places in China. The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. After the Beijing Olympics, there at least a 10 years when the fine dining industry in China has been grow a lot.

And people have become rich because one to find more expensive, more authentic way of having the fine dining, especially Japan. People are going abroad to visiting Japan more and more often. People have become more educated on the Japanese foods.

And then they come back to China in Beijing Shanghai. They want to find a similar restaurant which they can do the regular visit. So at that time, they started to have this fancy hand, oh my gosh, the tap of the Japanese restaurant opened.

Up to per person, $300 to $500 to $500 per person. Chef Zhang got a new job, but one of these fancy places. Another fancy Japanese restaurant called Luchuan.

So that's the one of the first two Japanese restaurants

“here in Beijing, I thought Japan is important in greeting.”

So at that time, they impotes in greeting in front of Japan. Toast per week. At that time, everyone says that Japan is in greeting is good. Soon, more Japanese restaurants in China followed suit. Important fish and other ingredients from Japan.

Even though these items were more expensive, chefs now prefer them because they believed they were higher quality. And this belief spread to customers. Even many Chinese thought Chinese fish wasn't as good. When the Fukushima disaster happened, and the first partial ban on Japanese seafood imports

went into effect, Wei Hong says the chefs of these Japanese restaurants started freaking out. If we don't have Japanese fish, we can run out Japanese restaurants. Repi people are almost saying, if we don't have Japanese fish, how can we make Japanese food? Yeah, exactly.

And does China don't have good fish? I don't think so, but right? Yes, so people had like doubts. Yeah, during that time I interviewed some Iraq articles,

“and I interviewed a lot of the Japanese chefs.”

They are filled crazy. They think, oh, it's just like a tragedy. Because they don't have fish. Once the panic subsided, these chefs understood they had to adapt to their new reality. They had to make some changes.

We get to see a couple of examples of these changes in our meal at this restaurant.

First, with Spanish macro.

It's a common menu item in Japan. So Japanese restaurants in China used to import it. But today, they get Spanish macro from around Dongshan Island in southern China, which Chef Chang says has an abundant supply. Still, figuring out they can get Spanish macro from their own seas

only solved part of the problem. Because sushi-grade fish isn't just about where it comes from. It's also about how the fish is handled once it's caught. Jason says Spanish macro in particular is very delicate. And when you caught it, the fresh off of these fish has losing so quickly.

Oh, it doesn't last very long. Yes. So that's also the reason why when it's this fishing, Chinese crazy, we normally do a little bit heavy season. But now, Chinese fishermen have changed how they handle the macro after they catch it.

They kill the fish immediately. Using Japanese techniques called Ikkejame and Shinkejame. The Japanese use this method in part because it's considered more humane. It kills the fish very quickly. And in part, because it stops the search or stress hormones,

the fish releases after being caught. Reducing these hormones wards off decay and helps the fish retain freshness and flavor. In a recent article in the New Yorker, a Japanese-American chef named Junya Yamazaki said this technique brings out the best characteristic of every species.

Reporter Hannah Goldfield says that Yamazaki has taught the technique to so many fishermen in southern California, but it's transformed the fish sold in many top restaurants in LA. Chinese fishermen made other changes after the import ban started. They used to put the fish they caught on ice to transport it,

but now they put it in ice water. That way, the fish float. So when the boat rocks back and forth, the water's more like a cushion. The fish don't get beat up and transit. So all along, Spanish macro was available in China.

But the fishermen needed a little education. And had a handle it properly for Japanese food. Some ways, this change to where the fish comes from, could make sushi in China better, even if it's the same fish in both places,

Yeah, exactly. So if your imported fish from Japan, we don't have any direct flight to imported agriculture goods from Japan. So it normally comes to Hong Kong Shanghai,

and then they need a second stop to Beijing.

So Beijing normally, when we get the Japanese fish, it's one day behind Shanghai or Shenzhen or Hong Kong. So chefs figured out how to source the fish. The fishermen learned how to handle it, but to truly make the transition,

restaurants had to do one more thing. Convinced Chinese customers.

“I think in the past, even the same fish,”

they think this one caught in China. See, we cannot eat raw. When the time changed, the chefs only can offer the local fish. At the beginning, they won't accept it. And they think, oh, maybe I'm not sure, is it low quality?

They have a lot of the questions, and it's time to let them experience, right? When they did experience it, Jason says Chinese diners were able to appreciate. Also the diner, the people who have been making the consumption decision, they have become more mature, more educated, and they understand the ingredients much better than before,

because they travel all around the world, and they understand which one is good, which tastes good, the cheap one could be, have a good way of cooking it. So I think that also puts the restaurant make a change. You know, good way.

Customers came to believe that Chinese fish tastes just as good as Japanese fish, even if it isn't as expensive. When Japanese restaurant can use local fish, very well, and in the front way, I do think local people will think, oh, our fish can have more opportunities, yeah.

No, man, our Spanish macro arrives. It's broiled in glaze, which is a few drops of a miso sauce. There's a lime wedge, and a candy come-quart on the side. That Spanish macro was really good, and just like the lime juice with the miso, it's got a little bit of a glaze, it's a little bit sweet, a little bit tangy,

meaty, but also flaky. Two years before, I cannot imagine we can have a plate of different local fish, and they were made into sashimi, and also they are in high-quality. Two years ago, you would not be able to imagine that this would be possible. Yeah, exactly.

So Chinese chefs and consumers who come to believe that Chinese fish can be just as good as Japanese fish, but could it actually be better?

Jason and Wayhung tell me about one instance, what they think the answer is yes.

In Japan, it's called Emberjack.

“I think the best quality of Emberjack should be in the North China Sea and the Korean Sea.”

It has a silver skin, so it's very, very quickly to get not good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so in the past, the chef suggested he won't use this fish from Japan, but now if you're getting from local seas, we'll be very high-quality. Before the ban, Japanese Emberjack was rarely served at sushi restaurants in China, because it wouldn't survive transport from Japan.

There was domestic Emberjack in China, but it wasn't considered high enough quality for sushi. Chinese people only ate it cooked. When the ban went into place, and the fishermen learned those techniques of UKJMA and ShinkaiJMA, it transformed the quality of the fish. Suddenly, local Emberjack was good enough to be served raw at sushi restaurants in China.

Wayhung says it was a real revelation for Chinese chefs and diners to learn that their Emberjack could be such high quality. Yeah, just like a new, new friend's come, new friend. Right then, a piece of Chinese caught Emberjack lands in front of me. Serve with a Yuzu kosho sauce, sprinkled with Yuzu zest and finished with a blowtorch.

So good, right? Very good, huh? I do think it's supposed to be Japanese technique and the low-coated fish magical. Yeah, I should say, when I was in Japan, I tried their Emberjack, which likely came from Japan.

“And honestly, both were great, but I don't think I could tell the difference.”

The one in Beijing might actually have been better. After the Spanish Macro, an Emberjack, the parade of small dishes continues. Each plate, just a bite or two.

They're these local shrimp that are incredible.

There's a steamed egg topped with fish roe and served inside a Yuzu peel. And then there's something very exciting that comes out. So is this the uni now? Uni is sea urchin. It's a delicacy because of its sweet, fatty, slightly briny flavor.

It's a huge thing in Japan. It's also becoming more of a thing in the U.S. where it's a real luxury item. And it's gaining popularity in China. Chef Chankas is actually the Gordon's from Russia.

Kigas.

“I think the best uni you can find in Japan.”

The most expensive one is also coming from Russia.

It's coming from northern four islands. northern four islands is an area which are currently owned by Russia. But it's sorry they have some debate, whether they should belong to Japan Hokkaido or Russia. But the best quality of uni or coming from that area. The northern most part of Japan is only 25 miles from the closest part of Russia.

These islands, Jason's talking about are the Korean islands. They've been occupied by Russia since World War II. So in China, the official line is that the uni comes from Russia. In Japan, I was told all the uni comes from the north of Japan, near islands currently occupied by Russia.

To be clear, both sides are talking about the same water.

They just disagree about who's water it is.

“Another area where you see tensions playing out between China and Japan.”

Anyway, the uni here is phenomenal. As was the uni I had in Japan, which makes sense. It's all coming from the same place. I didn't ask anyone of the restaurant for their takes on the geopolitics of uni or the ban on Japanese fish.

Other than pretty quickly that in China, there are some questions you don't ask, at least not in public to people you don't know very well. So tensions are high between the Chinese and Japanese governments. But on the ground, people on both sides are adapted. And the adaptations are further intertwining these two cultures.

Which became clear as I sat in this restaurant with Jason and Wei Hong.

Eating Chinese fish prepared in a Japanese style. I tried a lot of fish before.

“I cannot imagine I can see a lot of the new fishes on the table in that way.”

So I do think Japanese techniques to let a lot of the local fish in the new life. [Music] That's Wei Hong Lee and Jason Tong, co-host of the omnivores table podcast, willing to their Instagrams in our show notes. The restaurant we ate at was Akimoto in Beijing,

and you can find Kuruomi Mori on X and Instagram, she's at Rumi reports. Special thanks to Yebuji and Ellen Horn from making my trip to China possible, and to Yuki Nakajima and Kanako Matsuyama for your research help in Japan. Next week, I invite longtime friend of the show Kenji Lopez Alt and Kama Judy Gold, join me for a salad spinner.

We'll get into the state of the bagel. The recent revelations about Renee Red Zeppie of Noma, and babies eating straight up sticks of butter. We'll cover a lot on that one. That's next week.

While we were for that show, check out last week's episode about the explosion of the restaurant scene in China. They get to hear me eat swallows in that soup. And get my nails done at two very different Beijing restaurants. That one's up now. And hey Juni, you can listen to the sportful and serious XM app.

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The podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, sportful listeners can get three months free of the serious XM app by going to SiriusXM.com/sportful. This episode was produced by me along with Managing Producer. I'm a Morgan Stern.

And senior producer, Andre Sohera. It was edited by Camille Stanley. Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. Our interns are Morgan Johnson. And India Rice.

Music help from Black Label Music. The sportful is a production of SiriusXM podcast our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And I'm Alyssa from Jupiter Florida.

Reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.