April 27, 2004
(Early) Morning at Tsujiki
6AM sushi and Asahi at Daiwa
Dragged Ling out of bed this morning at 3am, showered, and grabbed a taxi to Tsukiji fish market. It's the giant wholesale fishmarket I visited last July. It was as frenetic as last time. Took a lot of photos. We'll see how they turn out -- very low light and serious color skew conditions. A few things I've learned/done differently this time.
- Started out at the far left end of the market, where the tuna commerce occurs. By 5am the inspection period is nearly over and the auctions occur. The auctions take, max, twenty minutes. Snooze and lose.
- Ignore the "Entry by Authorized Permission Only" signs -- just go right in the door into the fresh tuna section. No one protests.
- I pushed my Provia 100 to 200. Wondering if I should have pushed it to 400. It probably it would have worked.
- There are stairs and fire escapes all over the place -- they turn out to be great vantage points as well as refuges to reload film.
Afterwards we went to Daiw Sushi, as recommended by Roger. Daiwa is along one of the middle rows of small shop houses closer to the main road than the tuna market, nearer the side where all the styrofoam cartons are being recycled. Before you go, look at this photo of the store, transcribe the two-character title, so then you can show it if you really have a problem finding it.
The photo shows a huge queue outside. We went at 0615 and there were a few free seats. The sushi was as good as promised. What did we have?
- Fatty Tuna (toro)
- "Semi-Fatty" Tuna (chuu-toro)
- Yellowtail (buri)
- Horse Mackerel (*)
- Sardine (*)
- Salmon Roe
* The horse mackerel and sardine, not normally considered excellent sushi, were in fact excellent. They were served with some finely sliced chives and ginger. The garnish was a nice flavor enhancer and I presume hid any of fishy smell (there was none).
The premium cuts were excellent, of course, and huge. Not suprising, they come from giant tuna pulled from the sea not 200m away. A 500ml Asahi was unusually refreshing considering it was 0630.
Posted by Nils Blutig at April 27, 2004 06:51 AM | TrackBack