The top bidder at a Tokyo fish market yesterday said they paid US$1.3 million for a tuna, the second-highest price ever paid at an annual prestigious new year auction.
Michelin-starred sushi restauranteurs the Onodera Group said they paid ￥207 million (US$1.3 million) for the 276kg bluefin tuna, roughly the size and weight of a motorbike.
It is the second-highest price paid at the opening auction of the year in Tokyo’s main fish market since comparable data started being collected in 1999.
Photo: Reuters
The powerful buyers have now paid the top price for five years straight — winning bragging rights and a lucrative frenzy of media attention in Japan.
“The first tuna is something meant to bring in good fortune,” Onodera official Shinji Nagao told reporters after the auction. “Our wish is that people will eat this and have a wonderful year.”
The Onodera Group paid ￥114 million for the top tuna last year.
However, the highest ever auction price was ￥333.6 million for a 278kg bluefin in 2019, as the fish market was moved from its traditional Tsukiji area to a modern facility in nearby Toyosu.
The record bid was made by self-proclaimed “Tuna King” Kiyoshi Kimura, who operates the Sushi Zanmai national restaurant chain.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS