Sushi Dai, Tokyo

I had been adequately warned about the super long queues at Sushi Dai prior to heading to Tsukiji Market, and was advised to get something to eat prior to embarking on that venture. No better place then, than at the market itself. This gyu don shop along the main street was full of people, who ate quickly and left promptly without lingering.  

They had a cow guts don, filled to the brim with tripe, intestine, and goodness knows what other offal, topped with finely sliced negi, which we ordered to fuel us for the long road ahead. The name, I learnt, was hor-mon don. 

Goodness in a bowl. 

Everyone stands up to eat.

A closer look at all the guts, half of which I couldn't identify. It was a case of just eat, think later. 

Best eaten with beer, even at 10 in the morning. 

There were chewy parcels of konnyaku that soaked up the beefy flavour so well. It was even better with chilli pepper powder. 

All fueled up and ready to begin the long wait. This was the front of the queue.

So we turned the corner, and found the rest of the queue

And obediently got into line with everyone else

Two long hours later, we finally made it close enough to photograph the sign above the door

Yup that's where we were all right

2 sets available, one for 2500Y, the other for 3900Y

They have instructions in English. After queuing for 2 hours, it was a no-brainer that we would get the 3900Y set. 

So close you can even smell the food

FINALLY WE MADE IT INSIDE. And got seated. 

All the stuff on display inside

The excitement of being ushered inside and told to sit down had to be managed, in the super small space 

The view I had 

And we were off! First up, it was otoro seasoned with soy sauce which was pretty orgasmic. 

The miso soup was so tasty, no idea what they had in there

This was tai, or sea bream

Followed by a tamago yaki which was super smooth and moist and sweet

Our super friendly sushi chef

Then kinmedai, or golden eye bream. 

Then uni came out

It doesn't get any fresher than this

Then it was another serve of maguro, also marinated with soy

Followed by this clam that was folded by the chef to unfold in front of us. Nice and crunchy.

The sister had a sanma sushi instead of the clam, since the unfolding gave her the creeps

Then it was saba, with some seaweed on top

Followed by ikura - ooh those sweet crunchy balls

There was also aji. 

And maki to end off with

Before you end off, you're given a choice of your favourite seafood for your last piece of sushi, as well as this menu to choose anything separately. 

This sweet and moist anago was to die for.

And for my last item, I chose awabi. This was divine.

Pretty much the perfect sushi meal, but not quite. There was still room for one more. 

So I ordered a hotate off the a la carte menu. 

It was absolutely perfect. Sweet, succulent and super fresh. 

This sounds so cliched, but Sushi Dai gets my vote for best sushi ever. I've never thought it was worth the money to pay for Jiro or his 3 starred counterparts, when you can get such good quality for less than 4000Y. Besides, my uncultured tongue can't tell the x10 difference between a 4000Y and 40000Y meal anyway. Sushi Dai wins hands down. 

http://www.tsukijigourmet.or.jp/22_sushidai/index.htm#02

Midori Sushi, Shibuya Mark City, Tokyo

No visit to Tokyo is ever complete without a stop at Midori Sushi. This time, we got there around 11.30am and only waited for about half an hour for a table. It was a record!

But I've never managed to get a counter seat :( Imagine having this view during lunch.
We ordered the usual sets - this was the 2100Y set with an amazing variety of seafood.
I had 2 sets - this was under 1000Y but I can't recall how much exactly.
I also had the aburi set for 840Y. Incredible value for money.
This was excellent - it had salmon, squid, prawn and cheese, toro or otoro (cant tell which but it was fatty tuna!) and another white fatty fish. These were lovely after being blowtorched. Easily the best aburi platter I've had.
The queues were super long when we emerged from the shop. I've just discovered from their website http://www.sushinomidori.co.jp/tenpo.html that they have a few other branches around Tokyo as well. Directions to the Shibuya outlet are in the earlier blog post.

Oedo Sushi at Tsukiji Market, Tokyo

We landed in Tokyo on the morning of the very same day the worst typhoon to hit Japan since 1959 chose to land in Tokyo. I was warned by the sister not to go out, but we had been planning the sushi breakfast from the day we booked our air tickets. We were then advised to take an umbrella, which we grumbled about but took heed of. The sister has now moved from Roppongi to Shibuya, and we got to Tsujiki via the Hibiya line, instead of via the Toei Oedo line which would have deposited us at Tsukijishijo right outside the market proper. It's a bit further to get to the market from the Tsukiji station.
Notwitstanding the distance from the market, there are a lot of stalls that I suppose have capitalised on the Tsukiji name and have set up near the station.
One don stall along the main road looking very popular
We saw a side alley filled with stalls and decided to turn in. Seafood galore without the stuffiness of the market.
They had a huge variety of stalls there, including vegetables and pickles
It was extremely crowded - if I were the shopowners I would seriously be annoyed with the tourists like me who were snapping photos and not buying anything.This guy was slicing up his tuna
The kid was only interested in his snack
Selling fishcake-like stuffMentaiko galore
There was just too much to look at. The crabs looked fascinating
Biggest. Clams. Ever. After all the food porn, the husband and I decided to head to the small row of stalls outside the market which we had eaten at during our last trip.We remembered a stall with a super long queue, and since the queue wasn't as long this time, we decided it had to be worth a try.
The shopfront of Oedo - I take it the words above in red mean "seafood don"
Where Oedo's customers queue. It was getting colder and windier - this was around 1130am.Finally we made it to the shopfront, where we put in our orders with the chap standing next to the menu board.
It was both heavenly and agonising looking at the pictures and deciding what to have. This was the board below...
And this was the board above. Too many choices sometimes are not a good thing
From the outside looking in. There were maybe 10 counter seats in totalFinally after just under an hour of queuing, we made it inside. And our orders came almost immediately.
This was my mixed don with amaebi, kani, ika, hotate, ikura and some tuna for 1800Y - just about S$30. Another view of the bowl against the backdrop of the kitchen - this was absolutely fabulous. Everything was super fresh, sweet and succulent. It has been very difficult to go back to eating sushi in Singapore after tasting this.The husband had a mixed tuna bowl with different degrees of fattiness. I can't identify any lean part except maguro, and all I know is chutoro has an in-between fattiness and otoro is the fattiest. Leslie Tay has posted a guide on his facebook page differentiating the different tuna parts - akami being the leanest in the middle of the fish, chutoro in the middle, and toro is the outer fatty part that insulates the fish against the cold. I suppose the largest pieces must be akami.Another look at the tuna don rotated - it's so easy to understand why the Japanese love tuna and why salmon is so looked down on by them. The negitoro was my favourite part. This was also 1800Y.
And the story of how we survived the typhoon? We went shopping in Ginza after that, and because we took our own sweet time, we ended up back in Shibuya right in the middle of the storm. The wind completely massacred our umbrella rendering it useless, and we were soaked by the time we got home, no thanks to losing our way enroute. A most memorable start to our trip : )