Tentacles

Ken and I have been having this ongoing struggle for the last three years. We've been trying to find a place where they served squid live, and, although there is a handful of places that do it, we've just been down on our luck. It's been an endless cycle of us calling places, figuring out they did, asking them if we could get some, learning that they ran out. Throughout the years, it's happened a solid five or six times.
 Well we decided we'd go at it again, and just did the smart thing and reserved not only a spot at the restaurant, but a damn squid too.

 The restaurant in question this time around was the ikasentaa, or the Squid Center. It's a pretty bland name for a place specializing in squid, but what the name lacked for in creativity, the place made up for in quality of food. In this wonderful yet not-so-well-known restaurant, squids of every kind are served in every way imaginable - including the freshest of all ways - cut live and served immediately.
 To be frank, I thought they'd do it more or less like they do horse-mackerel, but for squid, it's a little different. The tentacles were served to us first, then the pod, served in fine slices. It was excellent with a little bit of minced ginger. As much as it's hard to describe the subtle taste of squid, if you've ever had any, you would know it's quite chewy.

 Really, there isn't much else to this story. I was simply happy to be eating something uniquely Japanese (or is it?) In short, we had squid served to us so fresh the tentacles wriggled. The moral is if you want very fresh squid, reserve it!