The Tsukiji fish market — or 篔°Ã¥Å“°å¸”šÃ¥Â ´ for those of you in the know — is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. The market handles hundreds of types of seafood from sardines to 500lb tuna, from cheap seaweed to the most expensive caviar. I love the place, whether it be for purchasing cheap fish, enjoying a great sushi meal, visiting Honganji, or just enjoying one of Tokyo’s unique parts of town.
Here are some of my pictures from several trips to the fish market. Some of these photos are grotesque, so those with soft stomachs be warned (although I promise you no beating hearts this time!)
Fresh raw tuna for sale.
Piles of octopus.
Cutting up a tuna carcass.
More fish for sale.
I have nooo idea. . .
Octopus legs for sale.
One of many individual stalls that sell to small restaurants.
Mountains of leftover styrophome at the end of the day.
“Gasping fish,” also featured at Nichinichi. A fish that was swimming around just moment before is disemboweled, leaving only the tale, spine, and head. Although the heart is removed and the fish is dead, it still moves and breaths, stopped only by the wooden spike impaled through its body. A gruesome sight. . . but hey, it was very, very good.
I had heard that tourists were no longer welcome – were there any scowls on your recent trip?
On my two recent trips in the morning I have had no problems. It appears that was just a scare from a bad source — honkies are still welcome.
The all-you-can-eat sushi I had earlier tonight here in NYC just doesn’t even deserve the name ‘fish’ after seeing those mouth watering pictures. I want…
Yeah, “Joe”:http://nichinichi.blogspot.com and I now have a weekly ritual to go and have dinner at Tsukiji. It is well worth the $25-30 per person. Next time you’re in Tokyo, you’re more than welcome to join us.
If that invite is for me, I might take you up on that some day. In the meantime, do you mind if I make that sea of fresh raw tuna my new laptop background?
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At Tsukiji last month we got no scowls, despite my camcorder and my mom’s digital camera. We saw dozens of tourists there, many taking pictures. As long as they don’t get in the way, which most seemed careful not to, their presence wasn’t minded.
Unfortunately, my mom (who was the most enthusiastic about going to Tsukiji) had gotten food poisoning from some bad sushi in Orange County a few weeks earlier, and the memory of that was fresh enough in her head that she just couldn’t bring herself to eat anything raw that day.
I ate fresh maguro. Totemo oishii.
We had read in our respective guidebooks that this was where virtually all fish in Tokyo came from, but we didn’t know it was the largest fish market in the world. Is there a list somewhere? I’d like to know where Seoul’s Noryangjin Market ranks.