Before I show you what’s in this box, this mysterious box, this incredibly alluring box, let me tell you a little story. The story of how I set out to eat the deadliest food in the world. There’s probably one thing you know about pufferfish, aka blowfish, aka fugu, and that one thing you probably know is that it can kill you. You’ve seen it all over media, right? There are countless articles about it in nature magazines. There was even a whole Simpsons episode devoted to it. And it is absolutely true that if the chef doesn’t remove the poisonous elements, the fugu’s natural defense mechanism, tetrodotoxin, will kick in causing paralysis, eventually leading to cardiac arrest and death. Now that’s freaking metal, man. Hoo! But the only thing about fugu that really matters to me is that I haven’t eaten it, which sucks. And thanks to import laws in the U.S., it’s illegal for me and you, and you, and you to eat it outside of a handful of restaurants. That sucks even harder, because I wanna experience everything that the food world has to offer and I’ve devoted a lot of my life to doing just that. I’ve eaten rattlesnake, guinea pig, beaver testicles, chicken spleen, raw pork blood, and all those experiences have meant so, so much to me. And it really peeves my jeeves that FDA regulations, bloated bureaucrats, the whole lot of them, won’t allow me to experience this beautiful, Japanese fish. That’s why a couple of months ago, I made it my personal mission to track down and eat some damn fugu. So fugu is mostly illegal in the U.S., but I knew there were at least a handful of restaurants across America that have gotten expensive insurance policies and licenses to serve it. And I knew at least one of those restaurants is in L.A., I’ve heard legend about it in the past, but I also knew that they hadn’t served it in a long, long time. And if I’m being dead honest with myself, my L.A. restaurant knowledge is a little bit rusty, right now. I knew there was a place in town that used to serve it. There’s absolute legend about it, but I haven’t heard from them in a couple of years. I needed someone with their finger on the pulse. I needed Andy freaking Wang. Brace yourself, I got in a fight with a wood chipper and it just took off a tasteful amount of hair. It’s Andy. Andy, what’s up, buddy? How you doing? How are you man? I’m on a bit of an odyssey, right now. I am trying to find fugu. So, you directed me to The Joint Eatery, really dope fish market. They had a Japanese pop-up with a chef straight from Japan. I’m wondering if you legally or illegally know where I can snag fugu in L.A. Do you actually wanna die? Or do you just want the taste of fugu? I’m not trying to die but I wanna get the little bit of mouth tingles. I want to feel, you know, the virility that Emperor Hirohito had. ‘Cause I know like, that dude was eating fugu all the time which is probably a weird turn. A couple years ago there’s this, I think there is still this restaurant called Washoku which essentially was like Katsuya, the restaurant group, was using it as a test kitchen where they’re doing like, $48 omakases. The chef, Ken Uechi, is the son of Katsuya and he was there slicing fugu. If I remember correctly, he even had like, a fugu omakase, which meant raw fugu. So, probably somebody within Katsuya, if you can get in touch with those guys, has access to at least the farmed version of this fish. You know, the other thing I suggest is like yeah, go to your best fish mongers like The Joint and just basically ask them like, you have to know a guy who knows a guy. Ah, Andy, thank you so much for the leads, man. I knew you would be the right person to call. We got our work cut out for us, here. Yeah, okay. All right, I appreciate you, man. I’ll talk to you later. All right, talk to you later, man. Bye. God dang, Andy’s impressive, man. I knew he’d be the right person to call. He has so many connects in the food world and he’s like, honestly sent me to so much good fish in the past, but we already called Katsuya. Katsuya’s stopped serving it. They are not doing it for the foreseeable future in L.A.; however, his idea for the fish markets is really interesting to me. So I’m great at making friends, I’m good at glad-handing, I’m good at shaking babies and kissing hands out there. I feel like we can walk up to a fish market, start just asking questions, we meet the right people, they point us to the right fish. There’s at least a 3% shot that I’ll get arrested and then this whole video is kaput but either way, I’m down to put in the work. All right, look, look, look. The best things in life, they don’t always come easy, right? Sometimes you gotta put your damn shoes on the pavement, you gotta do the groundwork yourself. As an amateur fish sleuth, your eyes and ears are truly your most important tools which is why I am at Mitsuwa, it’s the biggest Japanese market in L.A. I’m not an idiot though, I know I’m not gonna like, go find fugu in the fish section but I figure I can go in there. I’m a smooth talker, I’m gregarious, I can make friends, I can start glad-handing over here, and I think I can get someone to tell me where I can find it. All right. It was going really well, I was bonding with the guys at the fish counter. I thought we really had a moment there but then they were like, yo dude, if you’re gonna stand there you gotta buy something. And then I was like, no, no, dude. Just hold on, I just need some information about Fugu and so then, I started buying some stuff and so, I don’t know man. I got these chips. I bought a little bit of like, some fish cakes. I figured I’m gonna get hungry on the drive home and then I kept talking. I was like, fugu, fugu, fugu. Do you know where you can get fugu? And they were like, “Yeah man, maybe if you just buy some of like, our more premium fish, you can do that.” And so I got this deluxe sushi platter, right here. It’s pretty cool, dropped a little money of that. But again, pretty sure you can put that in the car. And then they were like, next, next. So I was like, yeah, next, next. What’s next to find fugu? And then they just stopped making eye contact with me. You know what? I actually prefer failure to success. ‘Cause here’s the thing, when you fail you learn something. When you succeed, you learn nothing. And learning and knowledge is the real capital of the Gorilla success mindset. If you’ve just watched one of Tai Lopez’s full 90-minute YouTube ads, you can learn as much as I did. What you’re gonna wanna do is set up an LLC ’cause that’s passive income, baby! Anyway, so what I ended up doing is, I typed ‘Fugu importer America’ into the Google search bar and it ended up giving me the name ‘Yasuhiro Makoshi’ who agreed to help me find some blowfish. Makoshi, how are you doing? Hi Josh, how are you? I’m doing great, man. Thank you so much for taking the time. Oh, not at all, not at all. You are active in helping import fugu into the United States. Yes, we as the Wako International Corporation. Wako International is the sole importer to import this pufferfish, fugu, from Shimonoseki in Japan. That’s incredible. How long have you been doing this? We got the approval in 1989, after five years negotiation, very tough negotiation with the FDA. Ah, the FDA didn’t want fugu in the U.S. because as we know, I mean it’s deadly, right? But can you talk about how deadly fugu is? The toxin of the fugu is called tetrodotoxin. That may be up to 1,200 times more poisonous than potassium cyanide. Wow! In fugu history in Japan, I think over the 20,000 years, people also eat the fugu. And at the time, I’m sure, you know, there is no professional chef to prepare the fugu. So I’m sure many people, you know, unfortunately lost their life, but still, they are eating. Yeah. Still, people when they try, you know, it’s a little bit scary. Yeah. Or, you know, people talking about, “Oh, do you have the life insurance? Make sure the life insurance you carry.” Or something like that, right? Yeah. So that is the, you know, enjoyment of the fugu. You need to keep people a little scared of it. You need people to be a little afraid, but also want it. It’s like a constant wave that you balance. That’s right. No other ingredients like that, right? No, it’s so unique. And how many restaurants is this approved for? We associate the membership, it’s called Torafugu Buyers Association. They can buy the fugu pufferfish through our importation. So, I have always wanted to try fugu, but can you describe to me the flavor of it? What makes it so coveted? Why is it so delicious? Like, a Fugu has a really beautiful, like a meat. And then the texture of the meat is entirely different from any other fish. And is it typically eaten raw, or are there any other preparations? Thin slice of sashimi and also the deep fried, or like a casserole. What’s your personal favorite way to eat fugu? The highlight of serving the fugu may be the sashimi and that is, I believe, the ultimate sashimi. 10 Years from now, do you want more people in America to know about fugu? To eat fugu? Yeah, I believe so. And the serving the fugu, I really feel like the legacy of Mr. Kuraoka, Mr. Kuraoka, he’s the founder, established this Restaurant Nippon, and then he made it possible of the pufferfish, fugu, to import from Japan. So I feel like serving the fugu is kind of like a legacy of Mr. Kuraoka. Well, I hope I can one day share some fugu with you, Makoshi. Of course! Yeah, come to try. I will. And don’t worry about the life insurance. I already got a policy, we’re all good on that. My cat gets my money. Well, thank you so much, Makoshi. You are truly- Oh, you’re welcome! Truly honoring Mr. Kuraoka’s legacy. I mean, really. You’re doing amazing work. You’re welcome. I mean, none of this seems fair. Makoshi worked tirelessly for over a decade to get fugu into America, but he’s still so hamstrung by the FDA that damn near no one can actually enjoy it. I just, I know there’s a solution here, even if we have to play the long game. There’s gotta be some home alone, booby trap loophole we can find. What if we just relabel all imported fugu to some nonsense word like ‘spike tony’ and ‘sea bass’? No, no, it’ll never get past the inspectors. Lab grown fugu? I mean maybe, but we need a good gene editing guy and mine, he stopped returning my calls. No, stupid Josh. Stupid, stupid. If we really wanna bring more fugu to the U.S. and all over the world, we need a grassroots movement led by the people, for the people. If we raise enough awareness and demand for fugu, we can put pressure on the FDA to loosen their restrictions. So what we would need to do is infuse fugu into a recognizable, universally beloved food. But what food… Oh my God! It’s chips! Ben, it was always chips. It was right there staring us in the face. Chips, fugu chips. Maybe fugu pancakes? Fugu, no, Ben. Chips! It was right there in front of us the whole time! Do you wanna enjoy the electrifying, illegal flavor of the world’s deadliest fish? Do you wanna stick it to the FDA and tell them to get their grubby hands out of our mouths? Do you want to tell my new best friend, Makoshi, that all his efforts to get fugu imported to the USA were worth it? Yeah! Yeah we do! Yeah we do! We definitely, that’s a good thing! Yeah! He did a good job! They said we couldn’t have fugu. They said we couldn’t eat this delightfully deadly fish. Yeah? Well now we can. These chips are illegal. We’ve partnered with MSCHF to create these fugu chip sales. We’ve got two more awesome illegal chip flavors in horse and casu marzu. If you go to illegalchips.com, you can order the whole dang bundle. These are the flavors the government doesn’t want you to try. Stick it to the man, order yours today. We wanna congratulate mythical chef Josh and the mythical kitchen team on the release of their very own pu-tay-tuh chip flavor. Wait, you said very own potato chip flavor? I said pu-tay-tuh chip, but we’re in North Carolina. Josh, come out here and tell us about your flavor. The fugu poison blowfish can kill you because of the poison part. Yeah, so it’s a natural defense mechanism, called tetrodotoxin, that causes cardiac arrest, paralysis and eventually death. So we’re going to die when we eat them. No, I mean, you know, we’re all gonna die one day, but you probably won’t eat them. But that said, when you eat them, your mouth does start tingling from the toxin. So it has a similar sensation? Yeah, it will give, uh huh. We worked with scientists to make this all happen and I’m super proud of this. So you can really experience what it’s like to do something illegal with your tongue. Tink it. It’s like playing Grand Theft Auto, but for food. Oh, you got a semi-folding. Yeah, mhm. Oh. Well first of all, it tastes good. Yeah, that was another thing. We wanted to make sure it doesn’t suck. Yeah, I mean, Oh and there’s a little, I can easily wanna keep eating them. There’s a tingle. Yeah, uh huh. Coming to the back of the pallet, especially when you start- I want more. I know! It’s addicting, right? If you just really load up, you get a big tingle? Uh huh. I’m a guy who likes a big tingle. These are the flavors the government doesn’t want you to try. Stick it to the man! Order yours today at illegalchips.com.