There isn’t anything more expensive that Oma’s tuna, priced now at over $500+/kilo on the wholesale market. The center cut of the fish is divided into three parts and if you order center cut, you will be hard pressed to get it, unless you are a loyal and frequent customer of the supplier and one of the few sushi chefs on the list.

This fish weighed in at 120kg and was one of the best I tasted this year. As the year closes the prices will be driven up by the last-minute demands. I am grateful for the opportunity to try this quality as it’s rare!

Oma is famous throughout Japan as the port of landing for the highest quality hon maguro, which is dealt almost exclusively to high-end sushi counters. This Pacific bluefin tuna is known as hon maguro (true tuna) or kuro maguro (black tuna) in Japanese, and is caught in the Tsugaru Strait, a narrow and dangerous passage that separates Japan’s main island of Honshu from its northern neighboring island of Hokkaido, and links the Pacific Ocean with the Japan Sea.

It will be interesting to see the first Pacific bluefin tuna auctioned at Tsukiji market this New Year. My guess is Kiyoshi Kimura a well-known Japanese based sushi chain operator, who paid $1.76 million for a 220kg bluefin tuna in 2013, and this year paid a fraction of the cost ($70,000) will be top in the running at the first auction in 2015. It’s an excellent marketing tool for his chain of sushi restaurants and he pays for it.