The Kyoto Aquarium is offering a limited summer snack officially dubbed the “ayu salt-cooked hot dog.”

To the uninitiated, this probably sounds like a hot dog topped with some exotic, delicious spice called ayu, but adventurous expats will recognize ayu as a native Japanese fish species often served grilled whole on a stick.

The fish is usually consumed in its entirety, head to tail. Even many  Japanese, noted consumers of weird stuff by Western standards, find the idea of looking into the cold dead eyes of their dinner before consuming it head first a little off-putting, and avoid the skewered fish or discard the bonier portions.

Apparently deciding one good way to introduce the delicious, slightly sweet-tasting flesh of the ayu to pickier eaters was to (poorly) hide its face in a hotdog bun, a café at the Kyoto Aquarium devised this simple but unique dish.

The ayu dog (500 yen/US$5) is proving popular, too, with an average of 200 selling on weekends – an impressive figure for a food item that looks like it’s personally blaming you for its untimely death while you munch away.

Call us wimps, but we think we’ll pass on this one.

Source: Itai News