60 free Hard Sushi trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This is the hard version of our sushi quiz. If you already know that nigiri was Edo-period fast food and that wasabi is usually horseradish in disguise, these 60 questions go further: which Tokyo ward houses Toyosu Market, why Sukiyabashi Jiro vanished from the Michelin Guide, which British scientist rescued Japan's nori industry, and what Kansai diners mean when they call fugu a 'gun'. The set covers sushi history from the Yoro Code of 718 to the first American sushi bar, the fish (bluefin, yellowtail, uni, conger eel), the tools (yanagiba, hangiri, makisu), the markets and record-breaking tuna auctions, and the chefs and chains that shaped modern sushi from Ginza to Los Angeles. Expect questions pitched at people who eat a lot of sushi and read about it too. Every answer was checked against a primary or encyclopedic source before publishing, and each question carries its citation. Want a warm-up first? Try the main BrainPickle sushi trivia quiz, then come back for this one.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sukiyabashi Jiro was dropped from the Michelin Guide in November 2019. What was the stated reason?
It does not take reservations from the general public
Michelin only lists restaurants the public can book, and Jiro takes bookings solely through luxury-hotel concierges. It had been the first sushi restaurant ever to hold three stars.
Q 02Which US president ate at Sukiyabashi Jiro with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April 2014?
Barack Obama
Reports differ on whether he finished the meal, but Abe said the president called it the best sushi he had ever eaten.
Q 03Who directed the 2011 documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi?
David Gelb
Gelb had originally planned a multi-chef film nicknamed 'Planet Sushi'; he later created the Netflix series Chef's Table.
Q 04Whose minimalist compositions dominate the soundtrack of Jiro Dreams of Sushi?
Philip Glass
The director said the repetitive, escalating music was a metaphor for a chef doing the same routine daily while reaching for one more step of improvement.
Q 05A 2013 fire at Sukiyabashi Jiro was traced to what?
Straw used to smoke bonito
A chef had returned the straw to the storeroom, where it most likely ignited. It took about an hour to put out and nobody was hurt.
Q 06Which critic gave Sushi Nakazawa a perfect four-star New York Times review in 2013?
Pete Wells
The owners hired Daisuke Nakazawa after watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi; the counter has just ten seats.
Q 07Kiyoshi Kimura, the 'Tuna King' of Japan's New Year auction, founded which chain?
Sushi Zanmai
Kimura heads Kiyomura Corporation and has repeatedly been the New Year auction's top bidder, including a record 510 million yen fish in 2026.
Q 08A 278 kg bluefin fetched a record 333.6 million yen at Toyosu in 2019. It was caught near which northern Japanese town?
Ōma
Ōma, at the northern tip of Aomori Prefecture, is famous for line-caught bluefin. The winning bid worked out to roughly $5,000 a pound.
Q 09Toyosu, the fish market that replaced Tsukiji, sits in which Tokyo ward?
Kōtō
It was built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay and, at 408,000 square metres, is almost twice the size of old Tsukiji.
Q 10What had previously occupied the Toyosu site, whose toxic soil delayed Tokyo's fish market move by two years?
A gas plant
Tokyo spent an extra 3.8 billion yen digging hundreds of wells to pump out contaminated groundwater before the market finally opened in October 2018.
Q 11Tsukiji fish market opened in 1935 to replace an older market that had been destroyed by what?
The 1923 Kantō earthquake
The old market at Nihonbashi was already slated for relocation over its unsanitary conditions; the earthquake forced the issue and the rebuild took over six years.
Q 12Before Tsukiji, Tokyo's fish market stood for centuries in which bridge-named district?
Nihonbashi
Tokugawa Ieyasu brought fishermen from Tsukuda in Osaka to Edo in 1590 to supply the castle; whatever the castle did not buy was sold at the 'uogashi' by the bridge.
Q 13Which British phycologist, honoured in Japan as the 'Mother of the Sea', rescued the post-war nori industry?
Q 21Japan's largest wholesale fugu market is in which city?
Shimonoseki
Locals there still use the old pronunciation 'fuku', a homonym for good fortune, and hold a ceremony releasing hundreds of fugu into the sea each season.
Q 22In Kansai slang, fugu is nicknamed 'teppō'. What does the word mean?
Gun
It is a pun on the verb 'ataru', which can mean either to be shot or to be poisoned.
Q 23In which year did Japan's fugu deaths peak at 176, the same year chef licensing was introduced?
1958
Since then, would-be fugu chefs need a two- or three-year apprenticeship and a written, identification and practical exam; only about a third pass.
Kathleen Drew-Baker
Her work on Welsh laver revealed the seaweed's three-stage life cycle, which Japanese scientists used to seed and grow nori artificially. She has a statue in Japan.
Q 14Sheet nori (ita-nori) was invented in Asakusa around 1750 by borrowing the method of which other craft?
Japanese paper-making
Before that, nori was eaten as a paste. The sheet form is what made makizushi possible a few decades later.
Q 15The most prized 'shin-nori', from the first harvest of the year, is cultivated in which Japanese sea?
Ariake Sea
Ariake lies off Kyushu. Top-grade sheets can cost around 90 cents each in the US, versus about six cents for common Chinese-grown nori.
Q 16Most nori is made from red algae of which genus?
Pyropia
P. yezoensis and P. tenera are the main species. Farmed plants grow on nets at the sea surface and can be harvested about 45 days after seeding.
Q 17The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to researchers who used wasabi vapour to build what?
A smoke alarm for the deaf
Sniffing wasabi acts like smelling salts; one deaf test subject woke within ten seconds of the vapour being sprayed into his sleeping chamber.
Q 18The Daio Wasabi Farm in Azumino, the world's largest commercial wasabi farm, is in which prefecture?
Nagano
Runoff from upstream rice paddies means the farm needs no added fertiliser. Shizuoka's Izu Peninsula is the other great wasabi region.
Q 19Where do sushi chefs traditionally place the wasabi in a piece of nigiri, so its flavour is preserved?
Between the fish and the rice
Fresh wasabi paste loses its punch quickly when exposed to air, which is also why top restaurants grate it to order.
Q 20Kabuki actor Bandō Mitsugorō VIII died in 1975 after eating four servings of which part of a fugu?
The liver
He claimed he could resist the poison. Serving fugu liver in restaurants was banned nationwide in 1984.
Q 24Uni, the part of the sea urchin eaten as sushi, is actually which organ?
The gonads
Menus euphemise it as 'roe', but both male and female urchins are eaten. Regular urchins carry five of them, and top grade can retail for ¥40,000 a kilogram.
Q 25Hamachi, often sold as 'yellowtail tuna', actually belongs to which family?
The jacks (Carangidae)
Around 120,000 tonnes a year are farmed from wild fry scooped up under floating seaweed each May.
Q 26Farmed Japanese amberjack is called hamachi at about 3 kg and what once it reaches 5 kg?
Buri
The winter fattiness of the adult fish makes it a seasonal delicacy of Toyama and the Hokuriku coast.
Q 27Ōgiya, a tamagoyaki shop trading in Ōji since 1648, appears in an ukiyo-e print series by which artist?
Hiroshige
The shop also turns up in the rakugo tale 'Ōji no kitsune'. Chicken eggs only became a common Japanese food in the early Edo period, once the ban on eating them was lifted.
Q 28Traditionally made gari turns naturally pink only under what condition?
The ginger is very young
Mature ginger stays yellowish, so many commercial brands add beet juice, red shiso or the dye E124 to get the colour diners expect.
Q 29The Japanese word 'ikura' for salmon roe is borrowed from which language?
Russian
In the original tongue 'ikra' means any fish roe or caviar; Japanese narrowed it to salmon eggs, usually cured in soy sauce and sake.
Q 30Masago, the cheaper roe often swapped in for tobiko, comes from which fish?
Capelin
Tobiko is flying-fish roe and sits between masago and salmon ikura in size, at 0.5 to 0.8 mm per egg.