中央卸売市場 | Blue Lapis Road

DAY 1 (2/3): TSUKIJI INNER MARKET (築地中央卸売市場), Tokyo, Japan, 2018.05.25

Due to the fact that this world-largest fish market is running out of space for future development, and that the site of the existing Inner Wholesale Market is sitting on prime real estate land, the Tsukiji Inner Market or Jonai Shijo (築地中央卸売市場) is scheduled to be relocated to Toyosu (豊洲) in this October. Handling over 2000 tons of seafood per day and employed over 60,000 staff, relocating the Tsukiji Inner Market is no small feat. Not catered for public visitors and tourists, the wholesale area is not an ideal place to wander around. No tourists are allowed before 11am according to the rules, and there is a limited number of quota for watching the famous tuna auction before dawn. Outside of the wholesale area, a few small lanes of restaurants are extremely popular with tourists. There are about two dozens of small sushi restaurants serving fresh fish just a stone throw away from the wholesale area. No wonder the most popular restaurants such as Sushi Dai (寿司大) and Daiwa Sushi (大和寿司) are infamously known for the long queues, with some bloggers mentioning in the range of one to three hours of wait.

This time, we didn’t enter the wholesale area of the Inner Market. We didn’t want to stand in the way of the busy staff.

We walked to the lanes of eateries and sushi bars to hunt for a place for breakfast.

Japanese grilled omelette or tamagoyaki (玉子焼き) could also be found in the Inner Market area.

In 2014, we came to the Inner Market in early morning and had a bowl of chirashi for breakfast.

Other than chirashi and sushi, there were also other options such as curry and tempura.

The line for Sushi Dai went all the way to the other side of the building out onto the adjacent lane. It seemed like a two hour wait at least.

This time, we picked Daiwa Sushi (大和寿司). Daiwa Sushi occupies two stores so we thought the queue wouldn’t be too long. We wouldn’t mind queuing for a while to have a chance to taste the fresh nigirizushi or hand pressed sushi (握り寿司) from Tsukiji Market.

At the door of Daiwa Sushi, a staff was responsible to monitor the queue and direct the entering customers when seats became available in the restaurant.

Through the window, we could see a senior itamae (chef) and his apprentices busy preparing nigirizushi for customers.

We ended up queuing for a little over an hour before finding ourselves sitting at the bar seats of Daiwa Sushi.

The interior was down to earth. We sat by the corner right by a photo depicting the catch of a huge tuna.

There was only one nigirizushi (握り寿司) set option to order. Nothing fancy about the sushi, but the freshness of the fish and the vibrant market atmosphere made all the wait worthwhile.

After the sushi breakfast, we hopped to Aiyo Cafe next door for a cup of coffee.

The interior of Aiyo revealed a strong vintage atmosphere.

The entire shop seemed frozen in time since mid 20th century.

The staff were very friendly and spoke some English.

We had a good time exchange a few words with them while taking a short coffee break. After all, we were a little sleepy after the red-eye flight.

At another lane there were restaurants that offered Western cuisine. We thought of trying but were too full after the sushi breakfast.

We walked by an interesting sliding door panel leaning against a low wall outside the row of restaurants that offered Western food. Was the move to Toyosu already underway for some restaurant owners we did not know.

Judging from the mini figure that actually moved continuously as if devouring a bowl of delicious noodles, the door might belong to a ramen restaurant. After the sushi and coffee, we decided to move on to Roppongi for a dose of design culture.