Maizuru’s Tore Tore Center indoor fish market is a large collection of fishmongers selling their daily catches on ice. Many of the fresh seafood can be prepared and cooked for you to eat here (if it isn’t already), and there are restaurants as well. In addition to the fish stands and restaurants, there are large, live fish tanks and specialty shops selling a variety of local foods and drinks.

Since the catches are all daily, the products change with the seasons, making the fish market a place worth revisiting. During the spring, and only during the spring, visitors to the indoor market can try odorigui, the eating of seafood while its still moving. The Japanese would literally translate to eating [something] while it dances. Odori, meaning dance, and gui, meaning eat. This often refers to the ice gobies, which are tiny translucent fish, but can apply to other sea life, such as octopus, squid, shrimp, etc. Tore Tore Center offers the dancing ice gobies for 500 yen per serving.

The fish seller has a bowl of the tiny school swimming on display and will scoop a serving into a bowl, pairing it with a bowl of ponzu sauce. When arriving at your table, you take a small net and scoop some of the ice gobies into a bowl that has a small amount of ponzu sauce (the amount to your liking), and then pour the fish and sauce into your mouth, with the help of chopsticks if necessary. Some people prefer to swallow the fish whole, while others chew the fish before fully ingesting them. Either way, this is the only way to have fresher fish than the sushi served in the port-towns of Kyoto by the Sea.

Try it, you might just discover your new favorite food.