Tsukiji - Day Three

When in Japan, we figured we must eat sushi. If there is any signature Japanese dish, it's got to be sushi. The Tsukiji Fish Market is famous for being the largest wholesale fish market in the world. We weren't up early enough (5am) to see the auctions, so we went to the nearby Tsukiji external market which is more retail oriented. The market is basically 3 alleys lined with all kinds of little shops selling all kinds of stuff. It's pretty interesting. Some of the stuff looks delicious, some not so delicious, and some just weird. One thing about groceries on display is that you shouldn't mess up the food. We should have learned this from watching Tampopo and Sophie's Mom telling us about squeezing fruit during her visit to Japan. But no, Sophie had to go poking the bag of dried fish. The shopkeeper immediately ran over and started scolding us. Of course we couldn't understand what he was saying, but we were pretty sure he wasn't asking us to poke more fish.

But the real reason we were wandering around here wasn't to look at stuff, it was to eat some sushi. There actually aren't that many sushi restaurants in the market and we narrowed it down to two places (out of maybe 3 or 4). One was half the price of the other. I figured any genuine sushi in Japan would be way better than anything we've had in the US, so voted for the cheaper place. Sushizanmai's Y1480 (US$13.50) lunch special was the winner. To make a long ramble somewhat shorter, sushi in Japan is unbelievably good. We ordered the two different lunch specials which each cost about $13.50 and came with about a dozen pieces of sushi and a bowl of miso soup. The sushi in the US looks similar, but the taste, texture, and temperature are different. Literally with the first bite the difference is obvious. The fish is buttery smooth, delicious, and feels warm. I guess it's not room temperature but it doesn't seem like straight from a freezer either. But the main thing is it's just downright delicious, far better than anything we've ever had before. So the nigiri was awesome, the maki were a bit strange. The salmon eggs were ok, but the others did have some unknown bizarre squishy things in them. Next time I'll stick to the fish. The combo plates were such a good deal, we actually had so many pieces of sushi we had trouble finishing. I guess we were just out of practice. The old lady on one side and the three young women on the other side ordered the same combo plates and just scarfed them down.


Now that's a big fish head.



Sophie perusing the goods on display in the market.



Fresh tofu looked pretty good. Unfortunately, we were too full after lunch to try any.



There were several of these little knife shops.



Lunch specials (Y1480) and dinner combos (Y3000) at Sushizanmai.



Mmmm, the sushi was delicious.



Sushizanmai is highly recommended.


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