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Published: April 18th 2024
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From its high-end restaurant showstoppers to its on-the-go convenience store offerings (and all sorts of other fantastic creations in between), there’s nowhere better in the world to sample sushi than Tokyo. Don’t miss the Japanese capital’s signature sushi style: Edomae sushi, a delicacy that combines expertly compacted, wasabi-smeared rice balls with meticulously cut fish that holds onto its seasonings, resulting in maximum umami. You can find it among the other super-fresh fish and seafood at the famous
Tsukiji Fish Market, as well as in the hip eateries and conveyor belt cafés of the nearby Ginza district.
We did the famous Tsukiji Fish Market tour with a former tuna auction specialist on a previous trip. Now that Tsukiji's main tuna auction and wholesale business has moved to Toyasu, Tsukiji is quite different. Everyone still enjoys eating sushi and shopping at the old Tsukiji. Only the serious fish buyers go to Toyasu, though they conduct a lottery tour now. Obviously, not as much fun as our trip.
Here is an excerpt from that trip, written by our guide.
Dear Gerry Kataoka-san,
Thank you for introducing the article you wrote.
It was the best written article of
an introduction of the Tsukiji Market I ever read. It was very fun to read! The facts were interesting, but more than that, I think your writing style is very attractive and interesting.
However, I was also very afraid that you might know a lot of things that I don't--Are the Spanish farmed raised tuna albacore? I didn't know that. I wonder if you found it out from seeing the fish that day, or you read it somewhere. Or, maybe, DID I say that? I am very curious about it because I am not good at tuna at all and I want to learn more.
Thank you also for introducing our tour to other people!
I had a family of a father and mother and their daughter that teaches art at the Temple University in Japan that emailed us to take our tour. Unfortunately, I couldn't accommodate them because the date they wished was fully booked. Maybe, those were the people from Portland.
By the way, this is a little by-talk, but I will tell you about something that happened on our tour lately.
As in your
article, you ate whale sashimi at the whale store that day, and that was the first time the middleman let somebody on our tour sample whale sashimi.
On our tour a couple of day ago, thanks to the middleman, he let my customers sample whale sashimi for the second time.
But this time, one of my customers, a young man, still a student, he collapsed after eating the whale meat.
Very fortunately for us, there was a doctor from Singapore in our group that day, the doctor took care of the student, and he recovered and continued to take our tour after a rest about 20-minutes at another middleman store.
According to the Singapore doctor, it was a simple case of fainting due to the sight of blood and nothing more serious. But I was very surprised because that kind of thing never happened before.
Yes, touring the Market is interesting!
Making a connection to Mr. Nakamura was great fun. We later found a sushi place in the outer market for a late breakfast/early lunch. And we got to see the only two remaining auctions, one for uni (sea urchin), and the big one, for tuna.
We are returning on this trip, mostly to have lunch, and perhaps buy a few gifts. I cannot think of a better way to have lunch!
The old Tsukiji is still a mad house of mostly tourists, looking for a cheap bite of sushi or sashimi. The lines are horrendous! But we found a quiet little lunch place, bought the lunch set, and a couple of beers. It was an oasis in the middle of chaos. But great fun!!!
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