Blowfish Sushi To Die For, located in San Francisco’s Mission District, has been a trendy restaurant destination since its opening in 1996. Blowfish’s fare is delicious and refined, if a bit overpriced. A concrete floor and simple wooden tables set with rolled, black linen napkins lend an industrial flavor to a dining room otherwise rich with stunning features. A dozen different high-reaching orchids form a sensuous divide down the middle of the room, projecting a sense of calm and beauty, in spite of the electronica blasting from the sound system. The walls of the cozy space are a rich burnt red and adorned with vibrant Japanese anime cells in understated black frames. But most attractive to some Blowfish diners is the scarce, pseudo-killer delicacy that gives the restaurant its name.

The loin of North Atlantic Pufferfish (northern puffer), at $29.95 for a plate of sashimi, is the most expensive and maybe the most intimidating of any Blowfish Sushi offering. Most species of puffers are illegal in the United States because they contain a deadly nerve poison in their internal organs and must be prepared by specially trained chefs to prevent accidental death. But the northern puffer is a non-toxic cousin that shares only the intimidating name, not the potentially fatal attraction.

Fugu (as the Japanese call pufferfish) is in high demand in Japan and is also the only delicacy officially forbidden to the nation’s Emperor. According to Ryo Sakai, the sushi bar manager at Blowfish, 20,000 tons of puffer are consumed in Japan every year with 100 to 200 deaths attributed to pufferfish poisoning annually. But in addition to a dance with death, another delectable draw to puffer meat, which tastes much like halibut, is its uncommonly tough texture.

“Even cutting it, you can just tell the meat is very, very hard, very firm,” says Sakai, who looks forward to dining on poisonous puffer during his next trip to Japan. “You’ll never find that kind of texture in another fish.”

Puffer poison, or tetrodotoxin, is about 1,200 times more deadly than cyanide. It paralyzes the victim’s muscles while they remain conscious and eventually leads to asphyxiation. Though the northern puffer species does not have its own poison, there have been cases of pufferfish poisoning in the U.S. due to the northern puffer’s diet, which is rich with clams and can cause saxitoxin poisoning.

Blowfish Sushi has a permit from the San Francisco Department of Public Health that licenses them to sell northern puffer (sphoeroides maculatus) specifically, but no other species. The sushi chefs at Blowfish are required to wear gloves when dealing with puffers, just to be safe. Unfortunately, the dish is hard to come by as the season lasts for only a few months during the winter and, even then, pufferfish are not always available.

“Even being non-toxic, it’s not something people serve much here in the states,” says Sakai.

Or maybe there’s just no point to pufferfish devoid of a dance with death.