Fukuoka Direct
Thursday auction in Fukuoka. Friday in your kitchen.
Fresh sashimi fish bought at Fukuoka's own landing market and flown the same morning. No Toyosu in between. A day younger than anything else in Singapore.
同一片东海, 纬度更高
同品类的鱼，鲜度肥度更高。
The same East China Sea, eleven degrees of latitude north of Hong Kong. The fish you know. Fresher, fatter.
The Week
Friday we send next week's fish and the prices we expect.
Monday 11am orders close.
Thursday 3am the auction runs in Fukuoka. Packed that morning, flown that day.
Friday it's in your kitchen.
Free delivery above S$300. Mix it with our frozen range in the same drop. Mostly wild caught, so the sea has the last word. If a fish isn't right that week we'll say so, and substitute on your behalf.
In Season Now
Hon Katsuo 本カツオ · 鲣鱼
Sep–Nov. 戻りガツオ, the return run. After a summer feeding in the north the fish comes back south with fat on it. Tataki over straw, or sashimi with ginger and shiso.
Tachiuo 太刀魚 · 白带鱼
Sep–Nov. Bungo Channel fish putting on fat before winter. We buy the 8入 grade, 600–800g. Salt-grilled, or sashimi when it's a day old.
Akahata アカハタ · 红瓜子斑
Jun–Nov. Shallow-reef grouper off Ojika. Firm, sweet, clean. Steamed whole, 清蒸.
Kihada キハダ · 黄鳍鲔
Jul–Oct. Warm-water tuna off Tsushima, 30–60kg gutted. Lean and clean. Sashimi, tataki, or a whole fish for a cutting show.
On the plane this week, out of season
Managatsuo 斗鲳. 旬 is spring by the market's own table, but Fukuoka lands it all year and the big winter fish are the ones our chefs ask for. Steamed Teochew style. The 1kg-up are on Friday's flight.
Coming from November
Madai · Sawara and 寒サワラ · Kinmedai · Amadai · Yokowa · Hirame. Cold-season fish. We'd rather tell you when they're right than sell them early.
Fukuoka Uoichiba
Between Japan and Korea, warm and cold currents collide in the Tsushima Strait, driving nutrients up from the deep. Phytoplankton blooms, the base of the marine food chain, and the strait becomes a breeding ground for fish. The narrow geography concentrates it, and makes this one of Japan's richest fishing grounds.
The market
Nagahama fish market opened in 1955 on the old harbour of 那の津, where Hakata has traded with China and Korea for a thousand years. It's a rare thing in Japan, a landing market and a city market in one building. Boats from the Genkai Sea, the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea unload straight onto the floor, and the same floor feeds four million people in Fukuoka. About 300 species pass through it in a year. Fukuoka calls it 博多の台所, Hakata's kitchen, and it's why this is a sashimi city.
The company
株式会社福岡魚市場 has run the auction there since 1963, and traces its line back to 博多魚市 in 1892. 130 years without a break. Around ¥45 billion of fish a year, ten desks, and a live-fish company of its own. When we say we buy at Fukuoka, this is who we buy from.
How we buy
We don't buy from a trader who buys from the market. We put our order to the market company's own coastal desk on Monday, they buy for us at the Thursday 03:00 auction across the desks that have what we asked for, pack it that morning and put it on the plane. Every box carries the ground and the grade, and the expertise and passion of the men who run it.
