The smell and texture were such that I felt an urgent need to temporarily become a vegetarian. But one other HN'er was present at that dinner and gave in to peer pressure, maybe he'll chime in.
Same in the Philippines. The smell will drive non-Filipino's out of the area. The locals love it, but I never heard of such a thing before arriving here.
Depends on the fishhead. One of the best meals of my life involved lingcod cheeks at the Tjoruhusid in Isafjordur, Iceland.
If you can imagine the difference between leavened bread and non-yeasted bread - it's a bit like that. The cheeks specifically were lighter, fluffier, and more buttery in comparison to the otherwise delicious but more dense fillet.
I don't usually eat fish that are big enough to have big meaty ones but even on tiny fish they're amazing and usually worth the effort to dig em out. Even on Salmon its worth it.
