When Japanese hear the word Meguro, some might recall the old "rakugo" comedy "Meguro no Sanma" ("Meguro's Saury"), about a samurai lord in the Edo Period who fell in love with the taste of saury, the fish that was considered humble fare for peasants and others on the lower rungs of Japan's social ladder.
In the story, the lord and his men are starving while hunting in an area now occupied by modern Meguro and decided to eat saury grilled in a coarse manner by peasants in a desperate bid to end their hunger. But the taste was so spectacular the lord repeatedly ordered the fish after returning to his castle.
But the saury, cooked in a refined manner by servants, never tasted as good, the story goes. Eventually, the lord came to believe that only Meguro's saury was good, although there was hardly a way to get fresh fish in the inland district.