Whenever I go to Japan I look forward to trying cuisine that is often strikingly different from that I find at home. New ingredients, new tastes, textures and flavors – they’re all part of the magic of travel. With a Japanese friend as a guide, I recently went restaurant-hopping in Ebisu.  In the narrow streets around the train station I met the kinki fish for the first time.  Also commonly known in some places as idiot fish and more properly referred to as thornyhead rockfish, kinki is typically found in the northern Pacific.  Its habitat is the deep ocean, where low oxygen levels make it difficult for most species to survive.  Served whole and on the bone and with its crispy skin in place, kinki is a delicious and, it has to be said, very ugly fish.

Having enjoyed the food and being of a curious disposition, I decided to find out more about my kinki dinner guest, only to discover that it’s on a list of protected and at-risk species.   To say that spoiled my evening is an understatement and provoked this question. How can you be an adventurous and spontaneous traveler and at the same time be responsible to and aware of your environment?   I’m still thinking about that one and my encounter with the kinki fish.