Tsukiji Outer Market, Sushi Making and Kagurazaka - Oct 6

We both rise early from having gone to bed early.  Breakfast, which is included, doesn’t start until 7:00.  By the time Judith gets downstairs for breakfast, around 7:15, there’s a wait.  However, when I come down about 20 minutes later, Judith is already seated at a table.  This buffet is pretty extensive with a wide range of foods catering to both Japanese and western tastes.  The night before, I advised Judith to take the shopping bag that the guide had given us yesterday to bring to breakfast so she could take some items to have at a later date.  

After breakfast, we retuned to the room and calculated that we would need to walk about 20 minutes to meet our guide at Tsukjiji Outer Market.  We were a bit early and explored some nearby shops.  Judith feels a cold coming on so decides to buy some face masks.  

We meet up with our guide, Haruko Asakura and she’s lovely. The plan is to explore the Tsukiji Outer Market.  The market used to be significantly larger and was once the largest fish market in the world.  It used to supply restaurants throughout Japan with the freshest fish possible.  These wholesale operations were known Tsukiji’s inner market and operated between 1935 to 2018.  Aging infrastructure resulted in the government building new expanded and upgraded facilities in Toyosu and the most of the wholesale operations moved there.  

The remaining businesses at Tsukiji is mostly the outer market and represents sales to the consumer.  There continues to be some wholesale fish trade, to supply the local market.  Those sales start early in the morning and end before 9:00am.  A walk through the building finds many vendors selling all types of seafood, produce and related products including prepackaged soup stock ingredients which we got to taste.  We came across a vendor selling all types of legumes and I bought a package of snacking black beans that had been sweetened by boiling in sugar.  It reminded me of something I have eaten in my youth, so I bought some to bring back home with me. 

Besides the many stalls of vendors selling seafood and wares, there are many eateries serving up every type of street food imaginable.  While most were selling seafood such as king crab legs and sashimi, meet skewers (beef, pork, squid, etc), a tasty smelling stew,  sweets, pastries, fresh fruit, Japanese comfort food, etc.   The lanes are narrow between the vendors who encroach on the walkway to display more of their goods and to grab your attention.  I didn’t find the smell of seafood very strong and this is probably due to its freshness.   

A sample of one of the many aisles inside the Tsukiji Fish Market building.  So much fresh and processed seafood!

Street scene.  The vendors’ displays encroached on the sidewalks.  The street food looked and smelled great.

In the market area is a fibreglass figure of a restaurant entrepreneur who now owns a chain of well known casual sushi restaurants.  Judith wants her picture with the dude.  He’s Kiyoshi Kimora and apparently the figure has been made to scale.  I think only in Japan can you put this figure outside.  In most other cities it would have been disfigured long ago.  

Right across from the seafood market was a temple dedicated to fishermen and associated activities.  The Namiyoke Inari Shrine was originally opened in 1657 at the water’s edge but is now about 75 meters inland due to land reclamation.  The God Namiyoke Inari protects the market and its traders against misfortune and helps people to overcome turmoil.  

The courtyard has many memorial plaques and carvings donated by trade groups in the marketplace. We see some from the shrimping association, seafood wholesalers, market unions and trade groups.  Also in courtyard are two giant lions heads.  I hear that every three years these heads are hoisted and paraded though the local streets in a mid June shrine festival.  The male lion head weighs about 1000kg and the female lion is 700kg.  Three years is probably necessary for the shrine revellers to recover from such a mammoth exertion.  

We cross a busy street and there is a crossing guard wearing a vest that is somehow ventilated.  What an interesting invention.

We walk through more streets filled with store front shops and then take a taxi to the sushi restaurant where we will take a nigiri making course.  We’re on the street that has all the designer shops so it’s interesting to see all those storefronts that appear to cost more than my house to build out.  The restaurant, Sushi Kuro is a few blocks away in the Ginza Inz building.  When we enter the restaurant, we are greeted by the sushi master and instrucor, Kohey.  Judith feels that with a cold she should not make any food so she doesn’t take the training and just watches.  It could have been an excuse as cooking isn’t her thing—in all the classes she arranges, starting with ceviche making in Peru in 2016, it’s just been me alone taking the classes.  The chef/instructor Kohey takes over Judith’s spot and makes her batch.  

I get on my sushi making attire, gown, hat and disposable food service gloves.  The ingredients are already presented for me, cooked sushi rice, slices of salmon, tuna and a butterflied shrimp and a small bowl of wasabi.  I learn how to shape the rice block, add a little dab of wasabi, layer on the fish slice press the package together to give a slight curve to the top of the nigiri, they don’t look as good as Kohey’s.  

My sushi making result. 

The next step in the sushi experience was to eat it, so we tucked in.  Kohey made a special vegetarian nigiri meal for Judith with avocado, pickled eggplant, and some other thing I can’t recall.   But she only ate the avocado selections.  We were given sushi making certificates that indicates we are qualified as a sushi chefs.  I don’t think anyone will believe that.  

It’s the end of the tour and we say goodbye to Haruko and make our way back to the hotel.  But there isn’t a lot of time to rest — we have an evening food tour to attend.  

We head out to take the subway to our meeting place.  It’s a bit confusing because we have to transfer subway lines.  We backtracked several times, wandered around station levels and generally lost enough time to be late for the meet up.  Added to this was a confusion about which exit to meet up with our guide which ended up doing a bit of online contact with the travel company.  This burned more time and by the time the guide finds us, its almost and an hour later than expected.  Ooops.

Our guide is a lovely woman, Nina K.  We walked around the area of Kaguragshi, learning about its history and importance to Tokyo.  There is a labyrinth of lanes that are cobblestone paved with many higher end stores and restaurants discretely hidden behind walls.  It’s a trendy area with many notable places of interest such as traditional Japanese hotels known as ryokans, a few geisha study and practice buildings known as kenbans near the historic Geisha Shindou, a narrow stone paved alley used discreetly by geishas to travel between their teahouses to avoid busier streets.  Some properties on the path are lined with traditional dark wooden fences that have been finished using a process of charring the wood with fire (shou sugi ban) which makes it very weather proof.   I had learned all about this process many years ago in my fine furniture course and it was really pleased to see an authentic application of it. 

Typical stone lane.  

We visited the 16th century Zenkokuji Buddhist Temple.  It was closing just as we were approaching and the caretaker monk seemed to waffle a bit before deciding to let us in.  The temple is home to a variety of festivals including one that includes a market for Chinese lantern plants.

The main building at the Zenkokuji Buddhist Temple.

We walk down a street where our guide casually points to her favourite donut shop and we go investigate.  Judith wants to try out a donut and so we all select one to try.  Judith ops for an apple crueller style, the guide has a cream filled one and I select a red bean cream filled one.  So very tasty but not a great idea before dinner unless you’re Judith who has to deal with her limited palette options.  

The donut shop.

We have a great meal selected by our guide in consultation with us.  There is an appetizer of crackers with smoked pickled daikon and soft cheese, an assortment of sashimi with fresh tuna, yellow tail and snapper and a cooking pot with pieces of sea bream fish on a bed of green onions over a miso paste.  All was so fresh and yummy.  

Our shared meal.  The cooking pot was topped with an aluminum foil covered plate.  The sea bream was cooked on top of a large tree leaf that we learned was part of the magnolia family.  

Seated beside our table was a group of 6 young adults who were obviously having a great time together.  Over the evening their laughter became louder due to the enormous amounts of saki being brought to the table.  The saki comes in large glass bottles that hold about 2 to 3 liters.  Flavours range from very dry to sweet.  The saki was being dispensed into smaller vessels (I think you pay by how many of these vessels you order and not by the bottle).  I wanted a picture of them to remember them so I asked the guide to see if I could take their picture.  They loved the idea and insisted that we be in the picture too.  

The group photo.

After we finished our dinner toured the streets a bit more and then it was time for our guide to take us to our station for the ride home.  I find the transit system very understandable and easy to navigate.  Every possible option is numbered from the routes, stations, subway cars, entrances and exits.  The stations have plenty of signage.  When you pull up a route on Google Maps, it lets you know the station, directions on how to get there, cost of the ride, platform to wait on, car to be moved on to have the most efficient exit or transfer route,  and then the walk home.  I think it’s pretty user friendly but Judith has a different opinion than mine.  

We head home, I’ve eaten lots, Judith not so much.