The Endless Road Trip – San Diego’s Top 10 Eats: 6. Uni Everything

We were excited enough to eat live sea urchin at the farmers’ market in San Diego, but that wasn’t the end of our uni adventures. At Sea Rocket Bistro, those salty, meat-y, rich little bites of pink flesh come served in a sea urchin shooter, submerssed in nothing else but our liquid obsession of the moment—ginger beer—plus chili flakes and lemon juice.

A seafood smorgasbord…and and even crazier sea urchin usage…after the jump.

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The Endless Road Trip — San Diego’s Top 10 Eats: 5. Live Uni

Being on the east coast, I never really eat uni. Most of my experience with the creature that is the sea urchin came from my freshman year of college, when I was a slave intern to a senior research project, and had to inject urchins with hydrochloric acid to make them…do something (I promptly switched my major after that semester).

On our first day in San Diego it was recommended that we try the fresh, live uni at the Little Italy Farmers Market. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I’d sure as hell never bought seafood at a farmers market, let alone eaten it there. Regardless, I was super excited for this. Sign me up. When we spotted Poppa’s Fresh Fish stand I was immediately intimidated. These spiky animals were at least 3 times the size of the urchins from the bio lab. (I’m not sure why I just assumed they’d be the same —-I’m pretty sure my university ordered those urchins from some weird biological animal supply company).

The whole uni stand operation seemed a lot less glamorous than I had hoped. The stand smelled like a fish market (obviously, what else would it smell like?) and I became appalled at the thought of eating there. But ESers don’t back down, and I definitely wasn’t going to say no. After watching the guys behind the stand clean some urchins and shuck some oysters….we ordered. And it began.

First, they put the live urchin in this vice like contraption that cracks its hard shell in half. Then, they pour water into each half of the shell and pick out all of the gooey, brown, inedible bits (the part that freaked me out the most), that are then deposited in that metal bucket After all is said and done, they handed the thing to us (when I say “us” I mean BS, I wasn’t getting near it yet) on a styrofoam plate. It was still moving:

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Artsy Photo Winner

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Thanks for all the awesome guesses. And of course, many of our savvy readers guessed the correct answer. But the first to get it in there was the very first commenter.

Awesome job Jillian. It’s sea urchin from Kushi.

And OMG 80 and I are leaving for Japan and South Korea next Thursday. Please, Please, Please send any suggestions: food, shopping, spa treatments or otherwise.