Calif sushi chef charged with serving illegal whale

the U.S. attorney’s office is still investigating the source of the meat

Good idea I think..

During the October restaurant visit, animal rights activist Crystal Galbraith, 27, and a friend who spoke fluent Japanese racked up a bill of $600, feasting on increasingly exotic dishes to gain the confidence of the waiters and chef.

“It was heartbreaking to eat an endangered animal, but I knew that I was doing it to save” the whales, said Galbraith, a vegan. “We were there eating for four hours. I felt so full and sick.”

Sounds like an excuse for liking the taste, just sayin'

"..., a misdemeanor" OK, LET'S MOVE ON

The more whale meat I miss, de' meaner I get...misdemeanor

Busted!

4 Hours? Brilliant

I'm sure they hated every single delicious bite of the repeated orders of chutoro, Ootoro, maguro and oh yeah, whale. Four hours...I don't spend four hours at an Izakaya in Tokyo...I think they may have been converted to carnivores...

I think some of you might have forgotten the reason they were at the restaurant was their determination to bust these people. I seriously doubt that people with that sort of determination are so weak minded that some flavors are going to change their convictions, you know, unlike you!

The waitress brought out a dish of whale sushi, identifying the whale in English and Japanese,

If she correctly identified the whale as Sei whale, the waitress should also get charged.

"It was heartbreaking to eat an endangered animal, but I knew that I was doing it to save” the whales, said Galbraith, a vegan. “We were there eating for four hours. I felt so full and sick.”

Crystal honey, if you sat through four hours of omakase at a high end sushi restaurant I really don't think you're as vegan as you think you are.

Crystal honey, if you sat through four hours of omakase at a high end sushi restaurant I really don't think you're as vegan as you think you are.

lol. Good one.

I like how she was saving the whales too. Sounds like a bumper sticker.

How naive. She's going to "save the whales" by spending $600 at a restaurant just to get a piece of evidence for a misdemeanor. Congratulations on paying part of the lawyer fee for the restaurant!

How naive. She's going to "save the whales" by spending $600 at a restaurant just to get a piece of evidence for a misdemeanor. Congratulations on paying part of the lawyer fee for the restaurant!

The purpose is to get the illegal whale trade out into the open. This fascination with it being only a misdemeanor is bogus, Fadamor. A red herring, one might say.

Eating Sei whale meat is common in Japan, Korea and Norway and among native peoples in Alaska and Canada, but it is illegal to export the meat because of the Sei whale’s endangered status.

Iceland and a couple of Nordic Islands left off the list, but with such a long list, the Japanese are the only ones taking any heat for "illegal" whaling when they take less than 100 Sei whales a year out of a population of 60,000. Sounds sustainable to me. Resources might be better spent protecting Gorillas in Africa.

I still don't understand why North American "native" peoples are allowed to whale, when the same peoples are denied the right to practice ancient religious rituals that use hallucinogens. Other cultural practices are banned in Canada and the USA, such as child marriage, child labor, and female circumcision. So why the special exception for "native" whaling? At $85/plate, they might as well exploit the loophole and start serving whale sushi on the reservations.

The purpose is to get the illegal whale trade out into the open. This >fascination with it being only a misdemeanor is bogus, Fadamor. A red >herring, one might say.

"The illegal Whale trade"? LOL. Here in the US the illegal bear gall bladder trade; poaching and smuggling to SKorea and China, dwarfs any illegal whale trade, for the simple reason that hardly any Americans would want to even eat it in the first place. The red herring was in the Omakase.

I hope they have Mr Yamamoto's passport, otherwise he will be doing a runner before long.

I hope they have Mr Yamamoto's passport, otherwise he will be doing a runner before long.

He'd need to do a swimmer.