The Japanese sea bass is called Seigo when it is under 8 inches long. It takes the name of Suzuki when it is three years old and grows to around 20 inches long. It is available all year but it is at its excellence in summer. It is caught in the central and western Japan. The older the fish is, the better it becomes. I have never received the fish with a tag of age, but I realized with experience that on bigger fish, the meat is more oily and more flavorful. The meat itself has blue gray color and the blood line is light brown. I usually remove the blood line except on the belly part to leave as much as flavor as possible. I like the belly side quickly grilled and the back steamed or raw for sashimi. What is interesting in this picture is to see how the fish has been killed. The spine has been cut on both ends of the fish to allow the blood to leave the fish. The meat becomes cleaner and gets that pristine flavor that everybody loves in the raw stage.
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