Tsukiji Fish Market

Tsukiji Fish Market is the world's most famous seafood wholesale venue. About ¥2 billion worth of seafood is sold here daily. If it lives in the sea, chances are it is sold here. From Tsukiji, wholesalers distribute goods to restaurants in Japan and the rest of the world. At one point in your life, your sushi probably passed through this market on the way to your plate.

The market itself is a series of concentric horseshoe shaped stalls and warehouses, and the atmosphere is chaotic, to say the least. You need to be hyper-aware of your surroundings, since people are constantly trying to move around you, lifting heavy boxes nearby, and the fishmongers drive surprisingly agile motorized carts, which whip around corners unexpectedly. If you aren't careful, you will get in the way/get hit. The market is also rather wet, so you should not wear your best dress shoes.

The market's most notorious event is the morning tuna auction, which takes place from 5-6:30 am each day. For a while, visitors were banned from viewing the auction due to its popularity; the crowd of rubberneckers was becoming too much of a distraction for people trying to conduct business. Now, it is possible to watch the tuna auctions from a cordoned off area, and you can take photos without flash.

I woke up a little later than I wanted, and made it to a train station at 5:15, not accounting that the trains would be running less frequently in the morning. It was 6 am by the time I arrived at the Hibiya Tsukiji stop, and I started running down the street towards the market. After a frantic search, I found the tuna auction in the back of the horseshoe, with a door marked "Vistors Entrance." It was 6:10 am, and they stop admitting people at 6:15. Phew!

Inside, you could see hulking frozen tuna lying on the floor, with pieces sliced from the ends so that buyers could inspect the quality of the meat inside. On another table, you could inspect tuna steaks, touch them, and warm them a little with your hand, before putting in bids.

A bell clanged and the auctioneer moved toward a tuna. These bluefin tuna weigh several hundred pounds and can fetch up to $20 million apiece. I couldn't follow what the auctioneer was actually saying, though he held up fingers to indicate the current asking price. After the tuna are sold, they are packaged and shipped off around the world again. There is also a fresh tuna room, with tuna that are caught in the previous few days. The frozen ones could have been caught anywhere in the Atlantic or the Pacific, before being frozen and flown here for sale.

Outside of the tuna auctions, you could buy every seafood product imaginable, dead or alive. There were buckets of writhing eels, beautiful iridescent shrimp, freshly gutted fish, piles of oysters and even a few turtles. (This is where you can get upset about the devastation of the ocean's seafood stocks and Japan's lack of environmental policing.) Men sliced apart hunks of tuna with hacksaws. Forklifts and trolleys sped through the warehouse.

Traditionally, a visit to Tsukiji is followed by a trip to a nearby sushi restaurant. Just north of the inner market is a series of stalls with slightly less chaotic shops and restaurants. Tipped off by Lonely Planet, I headed to Daiwa Sushi (building #6), where a mass of people was crowded in front. Disorganized though it appeared, the crowd was actually an orderly mass of people, snaking towards the front. I was directed to the end by an employee, who urged us to stay clear of the central path so that the carts could get by. It was 7 am.

After about 45 minutes of waiting, I was starving and had only moved 50% of the way to the door. Suddenly, the hostess leaned out of the door and shouted something, holding up one finger. The crowd jostled and looked around. Wait, one person? I said. Me, me! I leapfrogged in front of at least 15 people to be seated.

Daiwa Sushi is actually two adjacent shops, one run by the father and the other by the son. I happened to be in the one run by the elder chef, who was quite friendly as he showed me a picture menu with English translations. The easiest thing to do though is to order the set sushi meal (¥3500). Everyone else around me seemed to be doing the same. This comes with 7 pieces of nigiri, 1 set of maki rolls, and a bowl of miso soup. As the pieces were made, the chef would set them down in front of you on your plate. I ended up with a piece of squid, shrimp, maguro, sea urchin, tamago omelet, horse mackerel, eel, and tuna and roe maki.

Not surprisingly, everything was top-notch and extremely fresh. I even got a piece of the shrimp head with the shrimp nigiri. Earlier, someone had mentioned that they didn't like the sea urchin, and I have to say that this was the most challenging piece. The texture of sea urchin is too soft and squishy for most American palates, but I actually enjoyed it once I got over the unexpected texture.

I don't think I can ever eat another Philadelphia roll.