{"id":898,"date":"2022-12-28T18:00:05","date_gmt":"2022-12-28T09:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/?p=898"},"modified":"2025-07-21T18:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:03:11","slug":"22092","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/22092\/","title":{"rendered":"How to eat hata-hata<\/em> (sailfin sandfish) | Enjoy the winter delicacy of Akita in the Tohoku region"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is hata-hata<\/em>?<\/h2>\r\n
\"What<\/div>\r\n

Hata-hata<\/em> is a small common fish measuring 10 to 15 cm in length. It has a simple, light flavor, but with an elegant sweetness that lets you enjoy it with as much rice and sake as you like!
\r\nLet’s take a look at the steps for eating it.<\/p>\r\n

Remove the head<\/h2>\r\n
\"Remove<\/div>\r\n

The first thing to do is remove the head. Grasping the head firmly and twisting at the neck will allow you to remove it with ease.<\/p>\r\n

Loosen the meat from the bones<\/h2>\r\n
\"Loosen<\/div>\r\n

After removing the head, put it back on the plate and loosen the meat from the bones by massaging the fish. Pinch the back and belly of the hata-hata<\/em>. Squeeze firmly on these parts to make it easier to remove the meat from bones. The key is to be careful not to overly mash the meat.<\/p>\r\n

\"Loosen<\/div>\r\n

Once the meat is loosened from the bones, remove the tail. In the same manner as the head, the tail can be easily removed by grasping and twisting it.<\/p>\r\n

Remove the backbone<\/h2>\r\n
\"Remove<\/div>\r\n

The backbone of the hata-hata<\/em> can be easily removed without getting stuck in the process after loosening the meat from the bones. Just grab the backbone from the head and pull gently!<\/p>\r\n

Separate the buriko<\/em> (roe) and the meat<\/h2>\r\n
\"Separate<\/div>\r\n

The hata-hata<\/em> roe also has an exquisite flavor! Hata-hata<\/em> roe is called buriko<\/em>. Separate the meat from the buriko<\/em>, as it becomes difficult to eat when they are mixed.<\/p>\r\n

\"Separate<\/div>\r\n

Most buriko<\/em> are covered with a thin membrane. Cutting the middle of the belly and back with chopsticks along the bulge allows the buriko<\/em> to pop out and be separated with ease.<\/p>\r\n

\"Separate<\/div>\r\n

The meat can be eaten while breaking it up with chopsticks, or just as it is.<\/p>\r\n

\"Separate<\/div>\r\n

We were able to enjoy the full range of the hata-hata<\/em>‘s charms and we hope you can as well!<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hata-hata is an old-time favorite fish in Akita Prefecture in the Tohoku region. We asked the staff at AKITA DINING Namahage Ginza to show us how to enjoy the amazing hata-hata!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,70,76,100],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slug_articles","tag-how","tag-grilled-fish","tag-local-gourmet","tag-tohoku"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2307,"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions\/2307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodie-foodie.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}