The heavy lifter of the flatfish family. This creature looks like a brill that has been to the gym. It is thicker. Heavier. More muscular. A broad rounded diamond shape covers the body, clad in small rough scales that feel like sandpaper to the touch. The upper side displays a mottled olive-brown to grey colouration with scattered dark spots. The underside remains clean and creamy white. It acts as a patient hunter with a distinct taste for crabs. Turbot bury themselves in sand, waiting for a crab or small fish to wander past. The mouth is large and powerful, capable of crushing the hard shells of their prey. It is not a chaser. It is a waiter. Slow-growing and long-lived, the species takes up to a decade to reach breeding size. This biological reality makes them more vulnerable to overfishing than their faster-growing cousins. A turbot takes ten years to become an adult. A trawler can remove it in seconds. The imbalance is stark. It holds a legendary reputation among fish lovers. The flesh is firm, white, and almost meaty, with a sweet clean flavour that holds up to grilling, baking or frying. Chefs often compare it to halibut or European turbot, two of the most prized flatfish in the world. It is a fish that chefs dream about. The Māori name is not separately recorded. Turbot was likely grouped with other flatfish, noticed but not named individually. It is a fish of the deep trawl, not of the inshore nets. Traditional fishermen rarely encountered it in shallow waters. To catch a turbot is to catch the king of the flatfish. It is the big rough-skinned deepwater giant that tastes as good as it looks ugly. This is the flatfish of the deep trawl, the one that shows up occasionally, surprises everyone, and disappears back into the depths. That is the turbot. Heavy, rough, and delicious. A flatfish that takes a decade to grow and a moment to catch. No one told it otherwise.