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The story
What fish comes to mind when you think “delicious whether boiled, grilled, or raw”? A thread on 5ch debated exactly that. Votes piled up for all-around favorites like yellowtail, sea bream, and squid, while raw mackerel sparked a side debate about anisakis parasite risk and the food culture around the Genkai Sea. Opinions also split over whether the appeal of mild-flavored cod really comes across.
What people said
Of course it's good.
Not just teriyaki — salt-grilled is stupidly good too.
Teriyaki's basically simmered, isn't it.
Hate to admit it, but I'll give you salt-grilled yellowtail collar.
Squid gets tough when you simmer it, though.
Chikuzen-ni (simmered veggies and meat) with squid in it is unbeatable.
Man, I want some winter yellowtail 🥹
Sea bream's great too!
I love the head-and-bone soup (arajiru) and tai meshi (sea bream rice).
Mackerel caught on the Pacific side has a high chance of anisakis, but it's rare on the Sea of Japan side.
Mackerel from around the Genkai Sea especially almost never has it.
That's why people in northern Kyushu eat mackerel raw.
Honestly, I don't think eating even a lively anisakis larva makes you sick that often.
I saw a piece by a university professor making that argument once, but sorry, I can't dig it up now.
Japanese people eat tons of raw fish all the time and almost never get hit.
Mackerel has anisakis in it almost every time, and dried squid too.
There must be misses people don't notice, but still — barely anyone gets sick.
Good boiled, good as takoyaki,
and of course good raw too.
Calling takoyaki 'grilled' is a bit of a stretch.
🦑 "Please stop stuffing rice inside me." (a jab at ikameshi, rice-stuffed squid)
Squid and daikon,
or squid simmered with taro —
love both.
Bonito's more of a raw-only specialist, isn't it.
Though seared bonito (tataki) might count as grilled too.
Boiled, smoked, and dried — that's how you get katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes).
Eat raw mackerel and you'll get food poisoning, lol.
You're the one embarrassing yourself — you don't even know what real good food is!
Mackerel from the Genkai Sea doesn't have anisakis, so in Fukuoka and northern Kyushu people eat mackerel sashimi as a matter of course.
Grilled saury is just too strong a category for it.
Raw and grilled are top-tier, but boiled is weak.
Tuna.
Poor thing can only survive as sashimi.
Show me what you've got, both knowledge and taste buds.
Horse mackerel.
It can ascend to the top tier as aji fry.
Though boiled horse mackerel is probably its weak point.
Has to be shirasu (baby sardines).
Those you can only eat raw.
People picture it as buri-daikon or teriyaki,
but a fatty salt-grilled yellowtail is seriously amazing.
All I can think of is mackerel, flounder, cod, ocean perch, and pufferfish.
That's plenty already.
Doesn't hot pot count as boiled?
Doesn't have to be nitsuke (simmered in soy sauce) — anything simmered should count.
There's tons more — scorpionfish, splendid alfonsino, thornyhead… take your pick.
You're probably just assuming it's not that tasty because it's mild-flavored.
Go buy some tomorrow and salt-grill it —
I bet you'll think it's just plain good.
Thanks ("sangatsu," net slang for thanks) — I don't dislike it, but when it's in hot pot I never really notice it.
Honestly, cod in hot pot doesn't do much for me either.
Too little punch in the flavor, doesn't work as a main dish.
Background and Key Points
The debate over raw mackerel needs Japan-specific context: anisakis is a parasitic nematode common in mackerel, squid, and other cold-water fish, and Japan records more anisakiasis cases than anywhere else in the world simply because raw and lightly-cured fish are eaten so routinely. The Genkai Sea, the strait between Fukuoka and Tsushima, is the reason northern Kyushu can serve mackerel sashimi (goma-saba) as an everyday dish rather than a delicacy reserved for aged or vinegar-cured fish elsewhere in Japan — mackerel caught there and gutted quickly is considered far lower risk than Pacific-side mackerel. Yellowtail (buri) is also a seasonal marker: it’s prized fattiest as kan-buri in winter, and in the Hokuriku region it’s traditionally the celebratory New Year fish, which is part of why posters treat “is grilled buri actually good” as almost a matter of regional pride.
The thread didn’t split on facts so much as on taste judgments: whether yellowtail earns its reputation grilled (versus being “just” a simmered or raw fish), and whether cod’s mildness in nabe is a flaw or simply the wrong preparation for it, with salt-grilling proposed as the fix.
What’s missing is the one detail that actually settles the anisakis argument: freezing (around -20°C for at least 24 hours) reliably kills anisakis larvae, which is the real-world basis for sushi-grade handling standards — geography and freshness matter, but freezing is the reliable control, not luck.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread ‘Fish that’s delicious boiled, grilled, or raw — what came to mind?’.
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