The Tsukiji
Fish Market is the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. While the inner wholesale market is closed to
visitors, the outside retail side of the market is open to everyone. The outside area of the fish market is filled
with different kinds of restaurants and shops.
There are two fresh
fish auction tours, which start at 5:25am and 5:50am. The tours are free. Due to the high demand and interest in
checking out these tours, the daily limit of visitors is 120, with the two tour
groups of 60 people each. Prior to
visiting the fish market, we read that we should arrive by 4:30am to catch one
of the popular tours.
We woke up at 3:30am, and took a taxi to the fish
market by 4:20am (subways and buses are closed this early). The taxi ride cost 2,980 yen, or about
$25. We anxiously walked up to the
Osakana Fukyu Center (Fish Information Center) excited to check out the fish
auctions…however all the tours were already full. Bummer.
The locals told us
that we should have aimed to arrive by 3:30am or earlier to catch a tour! Since we already spent about $25 getting to
the fish market, we thought we should make the most of our time here.
Sushidai
We decided to grab
sushi breakfast at Sushidai,
the most popular seafood restaurant at the Tsukiji Market. We hurried over there to find that a long
line was already forming to eat at the restaurant.
The reason the line was so long was because
there were only 12 seats in the restaurant!
The inside of the restaurant was extremely plain.
We waited in the dark
and in the cold for 2 hours, and then we were seated!
The sushi chefs were
very friendly and freshly prepared the sushi right in front of us. The sushi was amazingly fresh and delicious,
also surprisingly cheap! I agree with
most reviewers of the restaurant that Sushidai truly offers the best sushi that
I have ever eaten.
Uni (Sea Urchin) |
Mackeral |
Tuna |
Salmon Roe |
Eel |
Some reviewers have
even waited up to 5 hours to get in! 2
hours was pushing it for us, but we definitely enjoyed the experience. Sushi breakfast cost us 4,000 yen, or a
little over $33. My wife didn’t feel
like eating fish this morning, so she enjoyed the soup and tamago (egg) sushi.
When we left Sushidai,
we noticed that the line was even more insane.
Tsukiji Fish Market
The wholesale seafood
area can be entered after 9am. After
lunch, we walked through the fish market to check out all of the fresh
seafood. The atmosphere here was
incredibly busy. There were sellers
yelling, buyers hurrying around, and a ton of scooters driving around every
which way.
We found ourselves
frantically dodging the scooters as we walked around and checked out all of the
sights and smells of the market.
Tenfusa
All that walking made
us hungry, so we decided to get some delicious tempura at Tenfusa
restaurant. This small restaurant seated
about 10 people. We tried the tempura
combo, which included various shrimp, sweet potato, asparagus, eggplant and
more.
The food came out piping hot and
was very tasty. We paid 1,900 yen, or a
little less than $16 for the meal.
We were exhausted
after lunch since we woke up at 3:30am that morning. We then took the subway back to our hotel and
took a nice long nap.
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