Inside Japan's Addiction to Blue-Fin Tuna

For a sushi lover, there's no better place in the world than the Tokyo fish market where superb tuna changes hands for much money, and where the surrounding sushi bars serve their delights 24/7.

In 2008, as reported on Gadling, a Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 for a single bluefin tuna weighing 607 pounds. That may sound expensive to anyone not initiated into the Japanese delights of sushi and sashimi, but in January 2010 the price for bluefin tuna was way up and three times as expensive ... a 511-pound weighing tuna sold for a record-breaking $175,000 - according to Luxury Launches. This time, during a global recession, it took a conglomerate of three to buy and share the fish of superb quality ... two restaurants from Tokyo and one from Hong Kong. The rise in price, of course, is not only dependent on the perfect taste of raw blue-fin, but mainly on availability - and the sad reality is that all tuna, yet especially the marvelous blue-fin have been over-fished, are endangered, are dying out, are caught illegally ... and yet are still in demand. At Tokyo-to's Tsukiji, the world's largest and most exclusive fish market, one can meet fellow lovers of sushi and sashimi having a breakfast at 5 a.m., consisting not only of very fresh fish - but of fish cut and prepared by masters of the art.