Sushi for breakfast?
My friend Dave is the one who said I should go and check out Tsukiji, and he tipped me off to the other great thing about this excursion: Daiwa Sushi. This place is gradually becoming more known, and during a big holiday time the wait for the restaurant can top 3 hours. I brought a book and was fully prepared to wait, because in Dave’s words: “Your reward will be the freshest and most expertly prepared sushi you will ever eat. Ever.”
The good news, I guess, is that either some folks slept in or were still watching other parts of the auction, and when we hit the front door of Daiwa at 6:15am, the line was short. To my utter surprise, I didn’t even get a chance to say a proper goodbye to Nakamura-san and Yoshino-san before one of the staff came out and asked if there was a party of one. Bing! I was in the door with a 5-minute wait!
As Dave had warned me, they do not speak English at Daiwa, but they’re used to foreigners and are extremely friendly. I’ve cobbled together just about enough Japanese in the last few days to be able to apologize for not speaking it, and to ask for very simple things. Dave’s advice was to show a ¥5000 bill and say “setto” for “set menu”. In fact, the chef had a laminated sheet with the various types of sushi, and also with a set menu item for ¥3100 or so. So, I just went with that and figured I might order some additional.Wow. It was really good. I don’t know what half of it was, but I know for sure there was toro (fatty tuna), uni (urchin), ebi (shrimp), hamachi (yellow tail), tamago (sweetened cooked egg), unagi (fresh water eel), a small maki roll with (I think) tuna and green onion, a small roll with salmon roe, and then we get into the things I didn’t recognize but that were yummy anyway.
I noticed that Japanese patrons seemed to be getting slightly different (and more exotic) stuff, but really I didn’t care. I don’t know if perhaps I had indicated that I wanted to spend ¥5000 I might have gotten something more elaborate. In any event, the fish was delicious (and so was the miso soup!). I even liked the uni, which is generally not something I go in for. But it was great and I’m so happy I didn’t spend time with one of my phrase books memorizing “please, I don’t care for uni”!
Having finished the set course (which the chef pointed out with “course through”) and a smile, I ordered a few extras. I tried to get sake (salmon), but they did not have any, so I got katsuo (bonito). Best katsuo ever. Wow was it good. I got a piece of delicious toro, and then had to get another katsuo, which got an appreciative smile and a laugh from the chef. This is definitely the area of Japanese where my vocabulary has the most depth!
At that point, feeling rather full and conscious of the now very long line outside (Daiwa is a small place!), I called it a breakfast and made my way to the register. ¥4780, so I came pretty close to Dave’s target after all. I went out the back door and then looped around to the front to see the line. I would estimate that the line was probably well over an hour long by then (about 7:00am — see the pic above!), but honestly I don’t know how fast it goes. I think one thing that saved me was being a party of 1.My tour guides, by the way, say that Sushi Dai, just two doors down, is also delicious and serves sushi made slightly more to the style preferred by the folks working in the market (smaller pieces, I gathered?). The line was probably 3x as long as Daiwa when I arrived, but they were looking pretty equal when I left.
Could I tell you how to get to Daiwa? Uh, probably not. It’s possible that I might find it again if I had to. Here’s my best recollection (see some pix of these landmarks on the Japan page!). Start at the Tsukiji Metro station. Walk up the street towards Tsukiji 4-chome, past the huge Buddhist temple, which will be on your left. Past Tsukiji 4-chome, you will come to a Shell station that services the vehicles used in the market. Turn left. A few streets down, you will come to a small shrine on your left. Turn right. You should now be walking along a little street with many alleys on your right with shops selling vegetables, oils, sauces and so on, as well as some seafood. Daiwa is down one of these. Look for the line.
Tuesday, May 2, 2006