I found out about a tuna cutting show at James Parker Sushi about a couple of weeks ago, and I pretty much instantly decided to buy tickets! I wasn’t completely sure that it would be breaking down an entire tuna, but I figured it would be exciting all the same!

The show had bar seats available, or standing tickets. Since I found out a little late, the 8 bar seats were already sold out, so I ended up buying a standing ticket (which ended up being really good value!). But, for some inexplicable reason, I ummed and ahhed and then also decided to buy a bar seat for the next night (which was a collaboration degustation)! $500 later I was set up for a really great weekend!

Since I’ve never seen a tuna cutting show before, I wasn’t actually sure what to expect. I thought it’d be a very formal, ceremonial event, but instead it turned out to be super fun, party-izakaya vibe event! A lot of dancing and yelling! They even invited all the guests to go behind the counter and get their photo taken with the tuna!

I was one of only a few solo attendees, most of the customers came in groups (this becomes funny later), and I’m glad I hogged a standing spot near the counter, because of the restaurant layout, there were places where there wouldn’t have been such a good view of the tuna.

This was a Tasmanian southern bluefin tuna that came in at 78kg. Apparently they wanted to bring in an even bigger one (128kg!) but it wouldn’t fit in the box! We also had two guests, the chef from Sushi Oe, and a fishmonger (the only person in Australia to hold a Japanese tuna auction license?) from the Sydney Fish Markets! So it was a super special event, even though I hadn’t heard (or was consciously aware of) Sushi Oe (mainly because there are too many good sushi restaurants in Sydney to keep track of), a quick Instagram check showed that this was super tiny two hatted omakase restaurant!

There was a lot of fanfare, including a shoutout to James Parker’s 10th anniversary (that means my first visit was within a year or so of their grand opening?), and the fishmonger even had a bell (like the ones at the auctions) for the occasion!

It was a fairly quick process for them to cut half the fish (the other half would be saved for the next night) - head first, then collar, tail, top half, bottom half. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to cut cleanly, they had super amazing knives (one was an $8000 heavy knife) to cut through all those bones! The rest of the night was all about the canapes (oysters, a cold pumpkin soup, tuna appetiser (raw tuna with avocado smash, in a lettuce cup), tuna burger, octopus, grilled eggplant, grilled duck, and then heaps of fresh tuna and other nigiri. The one canape I didn’t expect at all was pickled mackerel, camembert, and grape, on a nordic cracker. That was interesting, but I’m not entirely sold on the concept! It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t amazingly mindblowlingly delicious either! Just nice and tasty! It was also awkward trying to get the canapes and hold them (especially the nigiri - I was so worried about dropping the rice!), but luckily it didn’t take me long to realise they actually had plenty of sushi plates available to take, and so I was finally able to place and eat my food without making a mess!

Now back to the crowd - because the restaurant’s tables had been mostly cleared to allow room for standing guests and canapes, people were all standing around and drinking, and it felt very much like bar vibes. I managed to find a spare seat, which happened to be right next to another solo attendee, and we both ended up planted there for the rest of the night. What’s even funnier is that it looked like we were both foodies who did the exact same thing - take a canape, take a photo, then eat the canape. I actually found it quite hilarious! But I was too socially awkward to decide to make conversation, so I just imagined that we were both socially awkward foodies comfortable doing our own thing.

However, there was still a limit to how long I could sit there without getting super self conscious, so 30 canapes, 2 hours in, I was full enough that I decided to retire for the night. I wasn’t worried about missing out since I booked the next night too! And that’s when I brought my camera!

They even re-moisturised the head for display!

*Saizuke - homemade tofu with tuna soboro sauce*

This first course came out before they completely finished preparing the tuna, though they were cutting some parts of tuna for most of the night. This homemade tofu was so smooth, it was more like a just-solid custard - softer than even the softest solid tofu I’ve had!

This is going to sound a bit weird, but I absolutely love being served fresh akami! It’s much rarer to get akami of this quality than it is otoro, because more people go “oooh otoro” and spend money on it. But I still remember the first fantastic akami I had was from Tetsuya’s, that memory has stuck with me to this day, that’s how impactful the experience was. The sauce had a great acidic punch as well that made it even tastier!

Zensai - crumbed medium fatty tuna with tartar sauce

Is this a psuedo fried fish? The presence of tartar sauce made me giggle, but in a good way! This was a classic flavour done well!

Zensai - tuna bloodline meatballs with seasonal vegetables

I remember watching them cut out the bloodline meat, and I was so worried they were just throwing it away or not doing something interesting with it. I actually enjoy eating the bloodline meat on smaller fish; I’ve never seen such a huge portion on such a big fish! It’s almost like the restaurant read my mind, and served up some bloodline meatballs! Super dark tuna, and also featured some of my favourite veg (most veg are my favourite veg), okra and eggplant!

Oh my goodness I can’t believe I’ve never thought about using persimmon as a vessel for other food!

What a cute way of serving sashimi! It is right on persimmon season too, so i was really happy seeing it presented this way! I am loving all the akami I got to eat across the two nights!

Extra course - lean tuna and chutoro in spicy sauce

This dish wasn’t written on the menu, but I won’t ever say no to more sashimi! This was presented as a spicy sauce, but it wasn’t too spicy upfront. The more I analysed it, the more it kind of reminded me of yuzu kosho (but without the yuzu). The chef explained that it was mostly made with jalapenos, which was interesting!

A random sneaky shot of another table’s beef roll being prepared! Dual flame action!

Yakimono - rare tuna steak with sudachi salt

It’s basically tuna tataki, with some excellent aromatic sudachi lime salt! I enjoyed with just the salt, but I also did squeeze some sudachi juice on them too, which tasted just as good!

Bonus dish - grilled scampi with uni butter

Ever since I discovered that I can buy sashimi grade scampi from a seafood shop, I feel that scampi is a much more accessible ingredient for me now. To be honest, I probably won’t continue to buy it because it’s so expensive! I was really glad that this came up as a bonus course!

I spent a good while trying to get all the hand shots with just my short lens. I didn’t want to bring other lenses and spend half the night fiddling around, so these were the best shots I could take.

Did I mention how much I love lean tuna?

This was probably my 8th attempt or so on trying to take an in focus shot as he brushed the fish!

One can never go wrong with some delicious otoro!

This is new! I’ve never had tuna cheek nigiri before! When I was googling exactly what the word was (I heard “kamako” or thereabouts when the chef explained it, and I was sure I was wrong! And google said I was right for being wrong!), I learned that cheek sashimi is generally only served when a tuna cutting event happens because of little there is of it. The other people at the counter said it had a really buttery texture and was different from otoro, though I don’t think I have a developed enough palate to have noticed the difference.

This was a suprise only because I wasn’t expecting anything to be torch grilled, but still very tasty! I definitely like the soy sauce variants over the salt variants though.

Nigiri - soy sauce and sake marinated akami

I was so busy trying to take a hand shot that I forgot to take a photo of the nigiri itself afterwards! The marinade on this was really nice, and I was fascinated that it caused a colour change to the outside in a similar style that tataki would!

How cute are these mini rolls? These used chopped up tuna belly, and some chives too. Really tasty little snaack!

That was the end of the official tasting menu, but the staff told us that we could order anything off the normal menu if we still wanted to eat. The nigiri section was also free for us to choose from - a literal no extra cost. At first I felt I was really satisfied with how full I was, and that I’d gotten all the value out of the ticket I purchased. I actually ended up asking just to continue to the end (i.e. soup and dessert), but then I was pretty sure the rest of the counter was ordering more nigiri, and I definitely wasn’t full as the night before, so I felt socially pressured to order more as well? So I ended up going with the sea urchin since that was one of the things I didn’t manage to buy for my home cooking last year. This urchin was small and quite bitter tasting, so it wasn’t my favourite. It actually feels like they’ve used the same supplier as the first time I dined here all those years ago, because I remember having the same impression of the uni not being a particularly sweet variety.

I got presented dessert at this point because I’d told them I was done, but what actually happened between the uni nigiri and this ice cream was that the group sitting to my right wanted more nigiri, stating that they also weren’t expecting the uni nigiri to be so bitter (they also liked sweet uni more!), and wanted to cleanse their palate with more otoro. I somehow also got involved in the conversation, so the chef ended up looking at me and asking if I also wanted more otoro. And whenever I’m asked if I want more tasty food, well, there’s only one answer.

As a result, the conversation when I got given dessert became really awkward! The waitstaff said, as they were giving me the gelato, that they didn’t realise I was getting more nigiri, so they would prepare dessert a second time when I was actually done. I felt so bad, I told them it wasn’t necessary, but they insisited! So…. I was going to get 2 desserts?

In any case, I finished eating my gelato, drank some water, ate some ginger, and prepared my palate for another piece of otoro!

Now we’re back on track. Everyone was done with the extra nigiri so we got our miso soup! A very red version with tuna meatball!

And lo and behold, I got a second dessert, just as the waitstaff wanted! It was actually a really light and refreshing yuzu gelato so it was no trouble eating even more!

Overall this was a great experience, apparently this was only the 5th tuna cutting show that James Parker has done, and possibly one of the few (or only) collaboration cutting events! I am so glad that I got to see a Sydney sushi chef here in Perth, especially from a hard to book 2 hatted restaurant, because now it means I won’t feel so bad that I can’t visit Sushi Oe since they visited me!

There was also a really interesting conversation at the end about how Japanese tuna no longer tastes as good, in fact, the chef said that Tasmanian tuna currently tastes a lot better. The waters around Japan have risen by 2 degrees celcius in the last few years, meaning there’s a change in the type of fish available, and the tuna is less fatty since the water is less cold. The conversation reminded me a lot of Jiro Dreams of Sushi where Jiro mentions the same thing - climate change means that many fish that used to be common are not so common anymore.

Next time it would be great to either get standing tickets with a group (so that I’m not a solo socially awkward foodie), or, have keen senses to know when it’s happening again and get a counter seat (to avoid awkwardness altogether while still enjoying all the food). And save money by not having to book twice as a result!

maguroooooo

MAGURO

MAGUROOO!!!

Tuna Cutting Show at James Parker

Perth Japan Festival 2025