A Taste of Tsukiji

It was the first morning of my mom's and my long-awaited two-week adventure in Japan, and we were ready to hit the ground running!

I had booked a morning walking tour of the world famous Tsukiji Market, and we met up with our guide in front of the Tsukiji Starbucks (after a cup of morning coffee, of course) and set off on foot.

Before walking through the market, we stopped in at the Hongwan-ji Temple, a large and impressive Buddhist temple in the Pure Land tradition. There's been a temple on this site since the 17th century when it was built on a parcel of land reclaimed from the nearby Sumida River.

The original temple was destroyed during the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, after which it was rebuilt in its modern style, taking inspiration from the Buddhist architecture of India - unique among temples in Japan.

Tsukiji Market was the largest wholesale fish market in the world. I've visited before and was amazed at the activity as I walked through the warehouse-like market past fishermen delivering their daily catches, forklifts hauling boxes and blocks of ice, and people yelling, shouting, and rushing about to get the world's freshest fish where it needed to be. Visiting the market was an exciting but somewhat overwhelming experience. It was very much a working market.

In late 2018, all of that changed. The old market closed, and operations were moved across town to the new Toyosu Market. In the end, I suppose it's a good thing. I'm sure the crowds of tourists made keeping the market safe and clean a nightmare.

Today, the fish wholesale market is gone, but the Tsukiji food market still remains, and that was what we were here to visit. One of our big goals in Japan was to eat lots and lots of delicious Japanese food, and starting out at the market was definitely the way to go.

The first spot our guide, a Frenchman who studied Japanese culture and manga and who now worked as a translator and part-time guide, took us to visit was Yoshizawa's BBQ, a small shop which sold grilled wagyu beef skewers. We placed our orders and were told to come back to pick them up in about five minutes.

"Wagyu beef", we learned, is actually redundant as the word "wagyu" literally just means "Japanese beef". While it's promoted abroad as being something really special (and granted, Japanese beef does tend to be of very high quality), the real prize among wagyu is Kobe beef.

The beef was perfectly grilled with a nice flavor from the charcoal and was extraordinarily soft and tender. There were a few sauces we could try the beef with - my favorite of the options was ponzu, a vinegar and citrus-based sauce - but I actually think that it was just as good without any condiment.

Of course, the market is still best known for its seafood!

There were tons of options, of course, from grilled fish to sashimi, but we decided to try a plate of crab meat. It was a great choice! The crab was sweet, fresh, and juicy, and was served on a bed of shredded daikon radish alongside a cup of soy sauce and wasabi.

Next, we stopped to try unagi or grilled freshwater eel. At first, Mom was hesitant to try it. I think the idea of eating eel kind of put her off, but I convinced her to try a bite, and she had to admit that she didn't mind it.

The grilled eel wasn't rubbery or chewy at all, but soft, flaky, and tender like a good white fish. It was grilled with a sweet and savory sauce and was super flavorful. I could have honestly had several skewers of unagi, but I wanted to save my appetite for the rest of the day.

You can't have a proper food tour without dessert, and the last place we stopped at was a sweet shop selling daifuku, mochi (pounded rice cakes) stuffed with sweet azuki bean paste, dusted with sugar, and topped with a large, fresh strawberry.

We ordered two - one strawberry mochi and one matcha flavored mochi. They were so good that before leaving the shop, Mom and I bought a second helping, this time of strawberry and custard flavored mochi.

There's really no better way to get a foot into the door of a new country and culture than through its food, and I really enjoy going on a food tour whenever I'm traveling.

It was a great way to start our day with some nice food, a bit of walking, and some sunlight and fresh air after our long travel days getting to Japan.