What does the world’s most expensive sushi taste like? Smooth, succulent and a little on the light side according to Yumiko Ono.

The Tokyo restaurant world was shocked last week when a 128 kilogram Japanese bluefin tuna fetched 9.63 million yen ($104,800) – the highest price paid for a bluefin tuna in eight years.

Two restaurants with distinctly different styles bid jointly at Tokyo’s first fish auction of the year, splitting both the cost and the fish.

Half the trophy tuna went to Kyubey, a posh sushi bar in Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza district that serves 40 kinds of fish and counts Sony chief executive Howard Stringer as well as Steven Spielberg as clients.

The other half went to Itamae sushi, a Tokyo outpost of a casual, Hong-Kong restaurant chain that has been expanding recently.

At Kyubey, a single sliver of the prized Bluefin cost $22, which was rated by the writer as smooth, melt-in-the-mouth type of texture.

The Itamae sushi offered $11 lunch specials and tuna maki rolls for $32 for 10 pieces to the first 20 customers of the day after which the restaurant ran out of stock on Wednesday. They had posters plastered all over the place to tout its achievement: “We bid successfully – for a whopping 9.6 million yen!”

Head of Itamae’s said that the quality of the Bluefin was not the best as they’ve seen. But he also confessed that the attention his restaurant received after the enterprise helped a lot and that he will do it again next year.

Source/Photos : The Wall Street Journal