Nick DiGiovanni - Carving A Whole Bluefin Tuna

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Watch to the end to see us make the best sushi you've ever seen

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This is a $50,000 bluefin tuna that was caught early this morning off the coast of Japan. And this is chef Taka, one of the best sushi chefs in the world. In this video, we're going to cut apart this whole tuna, giving you all sorts of incredible ASMR, and then turn it into all different kinds of sushi. But first, you're going to love seeing us try to get it upstairs and into this restaurant. We're just hanging out in the streets of Japan right now, waiting for our tuna. Yeah, so it was really hard for us to get a whole tuna. This is not normal.

This is our tuna? Yeah. Oh my gosh. What the heck? Oh my god. Oh, that's our tuna. How are we gonna do this? We got dead body inside, man.

Okay, wow. This seems heavy. Oh, the stairs. We're doing the stairs. Okay. All right. No. You want to try elevator?

I think they're gonna do it. This is an insane thing to see. Bye-bye. We somehow managed to get the tuna upstairs without any damage at all. These guys are true. true pros. He's pretty big. He definitely weighs more than me but I am a little bit taller for sure. Let me introduce Mr. Mr. Takarai from Dizen. You know how many years from the history? No. 400 years. You're 400 years old?

No. Hajimimimha. So Dyson is the top tier, the best whole seller. They have too many clients. They can sell to whoever they want. If you're good sushi chef, they won't. But if not, no tuna. Yeah. So they are going to bring you back. No tuna tonight. Oh, f***. Now that we got our tuna, it's time to cut.

Before we begin, I just want to show the size of the tuna knife that we have to use here today. This knife is the same length as the fish, and they need knives to speak because of how big some of these tuna can get. I cannot hold it up on one end with one on. I want to get one now. Now that they're gonna start, I would urge you

to have a good pair of headphones on or have your volume up, because the sounds you're gonna hear are amazing. Hi. The knives they're using are so sharp. Look at that head. That is huge. Just check out how big all of these fins are.

The fins have come cleanly off, and now they're ready to keep going. Different knife. I love how often they switch knives. They are so focused and precise with the blade as they're doing this. Look at how thick the skin of the tuna is. That right there is why you need such a sharp knife, because he has to cut through that. It's like leather.

He's grabbing a new knife. Oh my gosh. Now you need two people. And now this is one quarter of the tuna, this piece right here. It's so big that they have. They need both of them to lift it. And this right here is what's left over. That is what I'm talking about.

This cut that they just took off is a lot of otoro, the fatty belly of the tuna, which is the most expensive part of the tuna. So the next part they're going to do is the Akami, that lean part of the tuna on top. When you get a regular piece of tuna negiti, for instance, and it's that sort of bright, beautiful, classic tuna color, that's Akami. So that was him separating the big top part of the tuna from the spine. Oh, I love when we bring out the big knife. That was the crispiest sound ever.

So look at that. All right, so now we've done the first side, and they are going to flip this bad boy over. So this is how you know these guys are true pros. You can see through a bunch of parts of this tuna right here. They left basically no meat on the bones, and you'll see later how they're gonna even use this meat to make some sushi, but they've gotten every bit of this tuna.

Now that they've finished the initial process of breaking down this tuna, just take a look at how much tuna we actually just got from all of this. This is a crazy, crazy, crazy amount of fish. And we haven't even started the fun part yet. Chef Taka, hi.

You ready? I'm ready. This is all the tuna that we have to work right now, and Chef Taka is about to tear it up in the kitchen. Chef Taka, could you pick up this? Okay. I'm making sushi. The first step here is to break down our tuna even more.

Yes, Kamato is super fatty. It looks so good. It's sort of dripping with like almost oil and fat. So this cut right here is from the jaw. I actually had no idea myself that you could get Tuna this nice from the jaw of the fish. Next, uh, harakami, number one expensive parts. Wow, that's beautiful.

Easy, 10,000. Easily $10,000. Okay, next. So this is the second most expensive cut of this fish right here. Taka is so smooth with the knife and it's just two clean motions. He goes back and then forward. Every time he picks up the knife, he only has one chance to get it right. So we've broken it down now into these three

three pieces. We've got Harakami, Hara Naka, and Hara Shimo. This is the most prized piece right here. This is the one that the best sushi restaurants want to buy. The second piece here is still really high quality but just not quite as good and then you go all the way down to the Harashimo, which I'd still eat myself, but is the lowest cut we have here. Now we're going to make some sushi. Taka, which one are you going to choose? Haram is coming! He's going to choose the best one, of course. Let's make sushi! So our first course of tuna will be served right off the spine. What is it called? NakaOchi.

So Nick's on, yeah, tuna, it has to be paired with soy sauce and wasabi. Always. Specifically tuna? Yes. Tuna, wasabi, soy. Yes. That's the combination. That's a mass combination.

So he's first grading up some wasabi here, and now he is painting the tuna with a little bit of soy sauce. Oh, pull it all the way up. Yes. Oh, wow. Okay. Taka, why did you put so much wasabi on mine? I thought we were friends. Wasabi chan.

We worked really hard to get this fish right here. so you better enjoy this. Kampai. Just peeling the tuna off there and seeing how easily it just falls right off of the spine there, it has to be the freshest tuna I've ever had. There's just no way that it's not. So easy, so delicious.

Yes. Yeah. Enjoy. So good. So next step, Taka's going to show us how to make Nigiri. But first, there's a crazy cool fact that I just learned about rice in Japan. They design sushi rice, especially for the tuna.

And what happens? if your sushi rice isn't good enough. Top-tier tuna horse setter never deal with you. So the people in Japan that sell tuna will go to your restaurant, they'll taste your rice, and if they don't like your rice, they won't give you their tuna. No.

Show us your knife, please, Taka. How much did this knife cost you? 20,000 US dollar. Taka, what are you doing? This piece here, Taka handpicked because it is Ichiban, number one. It is the best cut from our whole 250-pound tuna. This lower cut down here is the O-Toro.

This is the fattiest part of our tuna. The middle section here of this loin is Chu Toro. The flavor is a nice balance between that O Toro that's super fatty and the Akami, which is more lean. And to finish we have the Akami, which is that classic lean tuna. It's got that same tuna color that we all know and love. I'm so excited to see Takka do his magic. Best in the business right here. This is the part we cannot use. The bloodline. It's too bloody and it's too intense of the flavor. We don't use this part. So he's going to start by just trimming all of that off. The next piece he's going to cut off is the The

lean tuna on the top portion of our loin here. Wow. That is the cleanest cut I've ever seen. Do we just take it and eat it right now? Yeah. Oh. Wow. We have a special name for that.

We call it Jabara. Jabara. Which means traditional Japanese umbrella. Wow. Almost like accordion. Similar to Wagyu, every piece of tuna that taqa cuts reveals a completely different pattern inside. As you can see, the condition of the The surface is different, right?

This is more like Jabara and towards the shimofuri. And we use exactly the same phrase for our wague. We say shimofri. Listen carefully to the sounds of chef Taka slicing the rest of this fish. So look at this. This is just the skin from the tuna. And now look what we got. Just like the guys that broke down the tuna earlier,

he is so precise with the blade. And he's so, so careful and focused. And I can tell with the tuna that they're very thoughtful about every single cut that they're making. You want to try? Oh, looks like I don't have a choice, huh? Okay. So this right here is the second bite

that we're having of our beautiful tuna today. It's a different league. Yes! It's just like eating a piece of tuna-flavored butter. I'm just melting while I eat it. This tuna is so incredibly soft and fatty and delicate that it's actually melting on my hands as I just hold it here. Next, make sushi.

Sushi chefs in Japan, they often work very fast. Their hands move so quick. So first we'll watch Takai do it in full real speed, and then I'll slow it down for you to see you how his hands are moving, because it's very, very cool to watch. Let's see. This is all. Oh my god, it's done.

Let's watch this in slow motion. So he starts by gently gathering some rice, then with the same hand, he grabs some wasabi, dab it onto the fish, and lays down the rice, gently shaping it, not squeezing it, in his hand. That's when he uses two fingers to carefully bring everything together and give the sushi its shape. And in just a few seconds, it's done.

Duzzo. Incredible. Eat ta-toukimos. Let's see. Tell us from the pros, what goes through your mind when you eat a piece of sushi? Three layers. One, the creamy, almost like a buttery taste, comes in.

Then the aroma goes into the nose. Stage three, the umami, and then umami from the rice pairs. Three stages. Mm. Layer. Layers. A double for taka. He deserves it. He's done a lot of hard work today. Tasty.

Come by. Comey. Next, tuna rice bowl. Dunburi. So first he's going to wet his hands again. You always have to wet your hands with sushi rice because it's so sticky. And then he's going to fill the bottom of this bowl with that seasoned sushi rice. And again, it's not brown rice.

Even though it looks like it, it's just very, very well-seasoned. They're very serious about their rice here. And it is really good rice. Another thing they're careful about in Japan, they never smush it together. each individual grain of rice is always separated not smushed into any other ones so he's going to carefully spread this out and now he's going to use three different types of tuna the first is the otoro which he's going to carefully lay around the edges of this bowl next is the chew torah which is actually my favorite cut of tuna because i think it's the perfect perfect balance of flavor and texture and the final one is the lean tuna we're going to get three different types of tuna three different flavors and three different colors So, Nixon. Yeah.

Finish. Nick San is an uni your favorite. Uni is my favorite food. Uni up. This is a beautiful tray of uni. So they are going to take a big, large portion of this uni. Put some on top. Wow.

Oh, not done yet. Oh, more. More. Double decker? Yes, double decker. Rippledecker. This is $300. Seriously, maybe more.

Titochee. A chopstick. Oh, special chopsticks. Yes. Thank you, go, nice. Wow. Here we go.

One? One rice. Yes. Two. Enjoy. Oh my God. One more thing. They want me to try to saw this tuna head and half,

because we're going to grill it. Oh, it's hard. Got to get in there first. There we go. It's a workout. I did it. I don't know what to do now. Thanks for watching and go subscribe so we can catch Gord.

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