Ibashou’s craft is hitsumabushi, a multi-step Nagoya-style preparation harking back to the Edo period. The eel is fresh-killed, skewered, grilled, and lathered with sweet sauce, grilled again, sauced, and so on until crisp and copper-colored. Like with cooking a steak, it’s essential to know how high of a temperature you should use relative to the amount of fat. You also have to know when to turn the fish on the grill. Ibashou has perfected this.