Japan Sets Tuna Price Record

AP
Alexander Abad-Santos 962 Views Jan 5, 2012

To help the economy, a Japanese restaurateur bought a record-setting $736,000 bluefin tuna today at the first auction of the year at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market. "Japan has been through a lot the last year due to the disaster," Kiyoshi Kimura, the restaurateur and now proud owner of the tuna, told the AP."Japan needs to hang in there. So I tried hard myself and ended up buying the most expensive one." Bidding crazy prices for bluefin tuna at the year's first auction isn't that uncommon in Japan--it's almost tradition. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that last year's then-record-setting fish sold for close to $400,000. But this year's fish is almost double the price and came with this nifty gesture: Kimura's sushi shop began selling the sushi today for just under $5 per piece--over $90 under its normal asking price. 

 

 

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