Category: Japan

One of the “must dos” in Tokyo is to go to the Tsukiji fish market in the morning.  This is the largest fish market in Tokyo and literally tons of seafood are processed, sold, and distributed.   It’s said that you should wake up super early (or go after a night out on the town) to attend a tuna auction and go have sushi at a famous sushi bar just outside the market.   As of this writing though, it wasn’t clear that tourists are even allowed to view the auctions anymore (word has it that some dumb tourist put his tongue on a piece of tuna for a photo and so access to the auctions is now restricted!).

So, unless you really want to see the market when it’s super busy, going later – like 8:30 or 9:00am – is fine.  It’s far less hectic, you’re less likely to get in the way, and far less likely to get hurt by any one of the trucks and forklifts driving through the crowded market.

The market is huge and sells just about everything you can find in the ocean.

The most exciting part is seeing the stuff you eat in sushi restaurants and what it looks like before you even get to the restaurant.  Look at the size of these hunks of tuna!  Each of these is the size of a human torso!

How about a side of salmon?

Or, some salmon roe?   That’s a lot of roe!

What about sea urchin (uni)?  Look at the range in prices – it goes from 1700 yen ($20 USD) for one box, all the way up to $50 USD.  When you eat uni and you can taste the chemical aftertaste, that’s the $20 version.  🙂

Look at the size of this guy’s knife!

Here’s some octopus (tako), beautifully laid out.  That was another thing we noticed in the fish market – there’s still pride in presentation, even though you’re buying wholesale.

Mmm… calamari…

Outside the fish market, you have the “outer markets” where just about anything edible is sold – veggies, chicken, seafood, dried stuff – you name it.   It might be nice to hire a guide to explain what foods you’re looking at, but it’s expensive – it can run almost $300 for the morning.  Steep!  So we did the self-guided tour… there are stores that sell a specific kind of food from a specific prefecture in Japan.  It’s that specific.

Finally, after touring the markets, you can find a sushi place in the outer markets to have some fresh sushi.  This is about as fresh as it gets.  Be forewarned though, most of these places seem to get you in and get you out quickly.  You’ll be done in less than 30 minutes!  We went to Sushi Sei – it was very good and very fresh, but it wasn’t mind blowing.   Maybe that was because our expectations were already super high.

There’s another place called Sushi Dai or something like that.  It’s the one with the long line that’s in the tour books.  Word has it you can wait for hours just to get in, which makes me think it’s probably overrated.  Well, if you go or have gone – please do enlighten us!

Have a look at all of our photos in our Flickr slideshow below:

[flickrslideshow acct_name=”tony-chen” id=”72157625514867098″]

We didn’t just eat in Tokyo, we also explored the city’s many neighborhoods.  Here are some of our favorite pics:

Tony really liked this building in Shinjuku –  he called it the USB Stick building.

We toured Mitsukoshi Department Store’s food court.  They look like they should be selling perfumes, but instead it’s tons of yummy gourmet foods…

We went to Asakusa to visit the Senso-ji Buddhist temple.  Souvenir stalls paved the way to the temple:

Here’s a few of pics of the temple:

One of our favorite discoveries was an street called Kappabashi – otherwise known as  “Kitchen town”.  This area near Asakusa is a haven for both professional and amateur chefs – it’s where you can find everything you need to run a restaurant.

Check this store out.  It’s all plastic foods!

One of our favorite stores with lots of ceramics:

A knife store displays it’s wares:

Anyone want to buy a lantern or menu stand?

We saw this cutie hanging out in the trash truck waiting for it’s owner – a garbage collector – to finish his task.

It’s Christmas-time in Omotesando – a posh area that we visited one night.

Omotesando is home to a great toy store called Kiddie Land.  Tony saw this Humping dog USB stick… we weren’t quite sure what it was doing in a kids toy store!

While wandering around Omotesando, we happened upon a little slice of home…

… and a mobile espresso cafe, complete with benches and portable tables outside.

We also discovered what people do after work – head to the nearest Pachinko parlor.   It’s like Vegas in there!

We liked this photo because of the mix of old tradition and new technology…

Of course, we HAD to eat at some point.  We had dinner in Ginza at Kakoiya, which features some traditional foods.  We had something similar to a shabu shabu.

Our overflowing sake… They overfill the sake on purpose because it makes it look like you’re getting a lot.

We thought this was a cool way to promote a new product.

If you haven’t seen the rest of our photos from Japan, take a look a this slide show:

[flickrslideshow acct_name=”tony-chen” id=”72157625507369822″]

It’s over.  Tokyo has ruined us.  The food was already amazing in other parts of Asia…and then we had our best food day ever.

We knew we wanted to eat sushi in Tokyo, so our friend Adam told us to check out Kyubei in the Ginza district.  It wasn’t going to be cheap, but we didn’t care.  Incidentally, he had mentioned another sushi restaurant that cost $350/head!  Can you believe that?  Sushi for $350 per person?  And apparently you’re out of there in 30 minutes.  Fortunately, Kyubei was not that.

Anyway, Kyubei is located in a narrow side street in a non-descript building…

Inside, it’s tiny – at most, it seats 15 people.  It’s a very traditional sushi bar filled with locals.  We had to wait upstairs for about 20 minutes before we were called to our seats at the counter.

When the waiter asks what we wanted, we both said one word in unison: “omakase.”  For those not familiar with the term, it literally means “it’s up to you” but is a phrase used in restaurants to signify “chef’s choice”.

We embarked on what we later counted to be a 14-course meal of sushi, sashimi, rolls, soup, and dessert.   You could really taste the difference in the quality of the fish!  The shrimps pictured below are still breathing – one even flicked itself off the plate!

But that wasn’t the only difference.  The service here was really great.  In addition to asking what you didn’t eat, they also asked how much rice you wanted on each sushi piece, whether you wanted salt or soy sauce, or whether you wanted a certain fish raw or cooked. And the green tea was always replaced regularly to make sure it was hot.

Back to the meal…

Uni (sea urchin).   The quality varies a lot and I think that’s why some people won’t go near it.    You’ll see in a future post on our visit to the Tsukiji market, that there are several different grades of uni with a huge price differential.  The lower quality stuff, we feel, has a strong chemical aftertaste and it’s really quite off-putting – you know it as soon as you put it in your mouth.  The high quality uni has no aftertaste at all.  It has a soft slightly salty creaminess to it… really really good!  Our sushi chef makes our uni…

Ark shell clam – quite nice and not something we’ve had in the states.

And by the time we reached our second to last course, we were already full, but out came more – rolls and Japanese sweet egg omelette.

And then you had a choice of homemade mochi or sweet pear.  We opted for the mochi and it was delicious as well.

We left Kyubei thinking we had just had one of the best sushi experiences in our lives and decided to just spend the rest of the day wandering and shopping in the Harajuku area.

But then dinner time rolled around.  Tony had read about a place called “Agaru Sagaru Nishi-Iru Higashi-Iru” – it’s a mouthful isn’t it?  The restaurant served “kaiseki” which is supposed to be a formal multi-course Kyoto cuisine, but the style of this place was more casual and modern.  The restaurant was actually below ground – and looked like a cave.

Like many other restaurants in Tokyo, the chef and staff prepare the food right in front of the patrons, so we made sure to sit at the counter so we could have the best view.  We had never had a kaiseki-style meal before but knew we were in for a treat when we found out what it is…  Kaiseki is a multi-course menu that follows a traditional sequence of preparation styles.  As each dish arrives the waiter provides detailed explanations of the many seasonal ingredients incorporated therein, right down to the origins of the miso paste and seasonings.  Alas in our case, we were foiled by language issues, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying what is probably our best dinner ever!   Both the presentation and the flavor were beautiful!

Because it was so perfect from the first drink to the last bite of dessert, we present you, our best dinner ever.  First up, the sake.  As is common in Japan, we got to choose our own sake glasses.  Note how each glass is unique. Love it!

Course #1: Steamed Egg with a spinach puree, topped with salmon roe and served in a hollowed out lemon.  Note that each course is presented in a different plate.  The array of plates and bowls used was beautiful!

Course #2: 4 yummy goodies – one is tuna, one is a daikon radish, one we are not sure about… but our favorite was a tuna casserole covered in small seeds.

Course 3:  Lotus root with fried sardine, minced carrots and a sauteed green veggie served in a broth

Course 4:  Sashimi with tempura crumbs.

Course 5:  Grilled mushroom sushi with seared fish.

Course 6:  Fried potato with fried fish skin.  We don’t know what the rest was, but it was yummy!

Course 7:  Palate cleanser.  Vanilla sorbet with a sour plum sauce topped with pomegranates

Course 8:  Fish and seaweed rice with miso soup.

Course 9:  Dessert!  Four kinds.

Last drink:  A glass of Yamazaki 12 year old single-malt whiskey.  They served it using a perfectly square ice cube.  What a perfect way to end the perfect meal!

And so folks, this is why we are ruined!   This is a day that we will remember always  as our best food day ever (at least until the next time we are in Tokyo!).

Total Miles Traveled: 41,739

We had 3 goals in going to Tokyo;  1. Leave Taiwan so that we didn’t overstay our visa. 2.  Eat  3. Shop.  We happily succeeded in all our goals.

Although both of us had been to Tokyo before (and I had lived there for a brief time – albeit 20 years ago), we decided we would go back because we wanted to try great cuisine and browse quirky, fun stores.

Our first night, we had sushi – surprise, surprise.  On the recommendation of a friend (thanks Adam!) we headed to a place near our hotel in Shinjuku.  It’s called Numazukou and offers ‘conveyor belt’ sushi.

The price of the sushi depends on the color of the plate (you can see Tony is practicing being Asian)

When you’ve had enough sushi goodness and you are ready for the bill, the waiter counts each plate color and tallies up the price.  Gotta love that Japanese efficiency!

After great sushi, we headed to a sake bar/restaurant – this one was on the second floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku. The sake guy was really great – he gave us a flight from dry to sweet and aged/unaged. We learned that I like dry sakes while Tony likes something in between sweet and dry.

The next day, we continued the good food trend.  We went to a small restaurant that serves omakase tempura.  Omasake means ‘chef’s special’ and it is basically a set meal of the chef’s choosing.  The tempura was fantastic – not at all as oily or heavy as tempura in the US.  And it was fun to sit at the counter and watch the chef make it right in front of you.

To walk off lunch, we headed to Harajuku.  This district is known for its quirky, funky boutiques that serve Japan’s hip youngsters.   There are hundreds of small stores selling odd things.  Tony and I had fun at what we call ‘dongxi’ stores.  “dongxi” means “something” or “thing” in Mandarin.  If you are looking for dongxis, this is the place.  As the sign below says “Let’s go to there……”

That evening, we met up with Tony’s high school classmates who live in Japan.  We ate at a small Izakaya restaurant in the Ebiza area.  The restaurant’s menu was printed in Japanese and lined the walls of the restaurant.  Luckily, Tony’s friends read and spoke Japanese.  The food – wonderful!

But the highlight of the evening was the sake bar we went to after dinner.

It pours various sakes into small jars and then freezes them.  It believes in serving sake at extremely cold temps.  But the best part is the glasses they use.  Each has a different picture or sticker and the best part is that you can keep the glass!

Check out the wall of glasses… or is it a door…. hmmm

OK folks, that’s it for this post. More to come from our few days in Tokyo, including our “best food day ever”, the Tsukiji fish market, and the Kappabashi “Kitchentown”!