Today, we spent the entire day gorging and stuffing ourselves with endless culinary delights, and shopped to our hearts' content. Tokyo, a place where I have my limitation in their spoken language and yet I feel so 'HOMEY' and comfortable with everything else. I can be quite efficient in finding my way especially places where I could shop and eat! Hahaaaa...because both of these are definitely my forte!
The first thing we did in the morning was to have sashimi breakfast at none other than the World's biggest fish and seafood wholesale market. Yes! I am talking about the Tsukiji Fish Market. It is located in Tsukiji, the central part of Tokyo. With no intention to visit its tuna auction, we didn't have to tumble out of bed before 5 am. For those who are interested in the tuna auction, just a reminder, the visiting starts as early as 5 am and it's limited to only 120 visitors each day, with first-come, first-serve basis. The market is closed on Sundays, public holidays and some Wednesdays. The interior wholesale market is opened to public after 9 am. Most of the shops will close at 11 am. However you can visit the exterior market where you can find numerous stalls ranging from fresh vegetables, kitchen utensils, spices and dried seafood, to sashimi eateries which are opened for business at 5 am.
To get to Tsujiki Fish Market, alight at Tsukiji Station on Hibiya subway line, and exit at Exit 1. When you are out from the station, turn to your left and walk on until you see this building, walk further in and you will soon see the market.
Some rules and regulations to abide....please bear in mind, traffic in the interior market is very busy with turret trucks weaving in and out their way along narrow aisles.
First of all, we stopped by at a must-eat sushi eatery, the Daiwa, which is featured in many Japan travel guides and even in Lonely Planet. Looking at the 'snaking' Q outside Daiwa *it's only 8.30 am! Gracious ME!*, we possibly had to wait for 2 hours. To save time, we chose other sushi eatery just located at the end of the stretch. Anyway, I had my fair share in Daiwa a few months ago during my spring holiday when I visited Tokyo with my mum. But poor hubby, he missed out the GOLDEN opportunity to taste such a great Daiwa's sashimi breakfast.
So this was it, the place where we had our sashimi with shorter Q, but nevertheless we still had to wait in line for 20 minutes or so. Please visit their website at www.ichibasushi.com
The gentle and soft-spoken old man who took down our Q numbers. Met a Singaporean family who just happened to Q behind us, and they helped us to take a couple snapshot. So sweet...
A glance of sushi chefs serious in work, serving their customers. Don't be surprise, most of the eateries in Tsukiji are very congested and narrow, just like the picture below. So please do come early if you wish to eat at Tsukiji without having to wait for long.
After settling ourselves at the sushi bar seating, we looked at the menu and started to order our breakfast. Some eateries offer omakase sushi where the sushi chefs will serve you dishes and sushi based on his own creativity, and in short you will get to eat something which is not even in the menu, and you may be surprised that some creativities are really amazing and taste so good!
The same old sushi chef greeting us at the entrance, busy cleaning and de-shelling the ark shell, akagai, which is my favourie sushi.
Fresh oysters, dressed in refreshing sweet and sour citrus juice.
Woke up to the freshest sashimi in Tsukiji Fish Market...some tuna (maguro) and fatty tuna belly (toro).
My favourite ark shell sashimi (akagai)
Had a bowl of chirashi which was basically steamy sushi rice topped with heaps of sea urchin (uni) and salmon roe (ikura). Unknowingly, we ordered extra uni and ikura set served alongside with tamago. That's a bit too much of uni and ikura!
Had some nigiri sushi of extremely fatty tuna belly, medium fatty tuna belly and tuna. Also tuna maki. You can see that we just love to have that fattest slice of sashimi, the tuna belly especially! If you are sharp enough, many sushi eateries in Tsukiji hardly sell salmon because to them salmon is the lowest grade sashimi among others. And it was said that people who admire the art of eating sushi would not order salmon! oh....now then I know!
Never fail to take a self-shot picture of us, in the crowded sushi eatery.
The interior market...
Look out for the fast moving turret trucks used for transferring goods to the market. Bustling unloading activities around the market.
Japanese ceramic kitchen ware and sushi knives on sale.
Bought plenty of nori or seaweed sheets for maki and also seaweed for soup. Nori sold in Singapore is nothing compared to the one I bought from Tsukiji, in terms of the quality and grade.
Around noon, we traveled to Ginza on Hibiya line, which is only 2 stations away from Tsukiji. Ginza, the cosmopolitan of Japan, which is known as the World's most expensive area to shop and dine. Ginza is lined with sky scrapping buildings of department stores, high end boutiques, and costly fine-dining restaurants. If you are a shopaholic or foodie, this place is a paradise. But do make sure to bring along enough cash or equip yourself with credit cards...LOL!
Ginza main streets are closed to traffic on weekends. So shopping and walking around was such a pleasure that we didn't have to worry about the oncoming traffic which was usually congested on weekends. You can see from the picture below that barriers were placed at a section of the street to cut off the traffic. It was drizzling on that day, people were just wandering around the street with brollies in hands. And this had given me a chance to see so many attractive rainboots of many colours and designs, cute and trendy. With that of course sparked the shopping mania in me to get a pair too!
Off we went for a shopping spree. Bought a pair of light brown leather boots which cost me almost SGD 400... @__@ Bought a few Ralph Lauren for kids at home, never did we know that Ralph Lauren cost cheaper in Singapore during year end sales for the same items we bought! But some designs were not exactly available in Singapore, due to the four seasons in Japan but not in Singapore. That's why boots, sweater and jackets are worth the money spent in Japan....because they have a wide range of those, from classy, sweet, to demure! Remember to get your tax refund for the goods that you've purchased. Bring along the passport with you all the time if you are going to splurge on branded goods in Japan.
Then, it was a perfect time for us to rest our soles after shopping and shelter away from the rain. Went to The Darjeeling cafe in a shopping mall *oops...forgot what's the name of the mall* for afternoon tea. As the name Darjeeling implies the wide arrays of finest tea available from Darjeeling.
Each of us had a cake set which came with a selection of a slice of cake and a cup or pot of tea.
Here goes mine....Mille Crepe of Tea.....light to the tastebuds who prefer less sweet dessert, with hint of milky and yet soft texture between the layerings. I wished it came in a bigger portion!
And Tea with Soymilk, brown sugar, sesame and kinako. In case if you are wondering what's kinako....it's actually finely ground roasted soybean into powder form. That's how wonderful Japan is, Japanese really take pride in the food prepared and served....salute their creativity and art in culinary. I tell you, I truly love their cakes, pastries and tea which are very creative in a way that they taste amazingly NICE too!
Hubby had Chocolate Cake with Tea and Orange, with dollop of Fresh Cream.
...which went with Tea Milk of Chocolatier
We virtually skipped our lunch as I had reserved online for a lavish kobe dinner in Beef Steak Kawamura at 5.30 pm. It is located at Ginza 6-5-1 (Ginzanishi 5), GINZA MST Building 8F, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
Took a picture in front a full length mirror with hubby holding all the shopping bags...hahaaaaa
Kobe Beef Kawamura serves top notch kobe beef and this is what they have claimed in their web:
We are serving the highest grade Kobe beef. Only a certain group of cattle among Tajima Beef Cattle which have passed strict requirements are recognized as the best of all Japanese Black Cattle, can be called 'Kobe Beef Cattle'. The Highest Award Winning Kobe Beef, 1-3 quality award winning Kobe beefs, 4-5 excellent award winning Kobe beefs are selected in each auction market (competitive exhibition/fair) from among cows and bullocks of Kobe Beef Cattle and the others are non-title Kobe Beefs. Beef Steak Kawamura is serving with always persistence in Kobe Beef Cattle and its quality.
The moment the door lift opened at the 8th floor, we found ourselves immediately stepping into the front counter of Beef Steak Kawamura...which looks like this...
A friendly waitress greeted us with a polite bow and led us to our seats. Along the way, we saw many certificates of kobe cattle which they had won from the twice yearly auctions being framed and displayed on the brick walls.
The award winning kobe cattle.
The classy decor around Beef Steak Kawamura.
Our seats where we watched in amaze how our dishes being cooked by the chef, teppanyaki style.
Was a bit reluctant to get the most expensive set menu available....which cost 34,650 yen per person which is about SGD 436. Since hubby insisted on this, I just gave it a try....from the name of the set, I was convinced enough to try one!
First, we were served with fresh vegetable or fruit juice. And salad drizzled in special dressing.
A bottle of red wine cost 8000 yen...to go along with our kobe dinner.
Aburi or seared and lightly torched raw beef of the highest award winning kobe beef. The condiments served came with 3 distinctive flavours of wasabe, grated garlic with miso, and ginger paste.
Look at the slices of kobe beef sashimi with beautiful marbled texture. Those delicate pieces just melted in our mouths!
The clear oxtail soup....very refreshing and yummy. And our chef advised us to bite on the oxtail and savoured everything to the last bits. Indeed, everything was so good that we polished up the whole bowl which was elegantly served in front of us.
Wild Black Abalones which were still squirming when the chef pried open the shells. He explained to us that the outer shell of a wild abalone should be rough with other smaller shells and seaweed intact on it.
Our black abalone steak which were cut into bite size pieces and served on the abalone's shell, drizzled in a special sauce. If you are wondering what is the special sauce....it's actually the mashed up abalone's liver which was then cooked with melted butter. My verdict....the abalone tasted far far better with this! Sweet and tender abalone steak....
Thats the limelight of our dinner: The Highest Award Winning (Champion) Kobe Beef with lovely marbled texture.
We were honoured to have Mr. Hikaru Maehara san, the manager of Beef Steak Kawamura as our chef of the night. He was super friendly, chatty with fluent spoken English as he used to traveled to many places and willing to share with us more details of kobe beef and also his personal experience in this line. His family is living in Osaka though..
Our tastiest kobe beef ever, cooked to perfection! I literally took my time savour out the best moment of it, that I almost cried tears....ok, that's a bit exaggerating....but they were really, really worth every penny spent!
Our meal ended with a pot of tako (octopus) rice, which was very flavourful as it was cooked with seafood stock. It cost 2000 yen per pot. Sadly, we were stuffed to the brim, and could not finish the whole pot. After 1 bowl of the rice each, there was still leftover, that our chef wanted us to pack the remaining back to our hotel. Thanks but no thanks chef, after all the food, we just wanted our tummies to rest for the next foodie marathon! LOL.....
Fresh fruits to end the course.....sweetest rock melon, persimmon, grapes...
That's the 'papa', 'mama', 'ah gong', great grandfather of the cattle.....which produced the highest grade kobe!
Among the Tajima-gyu cows (daisy look-alike stamp on the right), only a few are chosen as the highest grade Kobe beef with the stamp shown on the left. To fit into the Kobe beef title, it must satisfied a strict quality criteria.
Our dinner bill which summed up to 87,780 yen (SGD 1,107)...by far, the MOST expensive dinner for two! But that was a satisfying kobe dinner, an experience that we would never forget!
Chef Hikaru san walked us to the lift and bid us farewell until we lost sight of him..when the door lift slowly closed shut in front of us. For those who are beef (kobe) lovers like us, interested in Beef Steak Kawamura, please do online reservation through their website www.bifteck.co.jp to avoid disappointment.
We felt so heavy and sleepy. It was still raining outside since morning. So, we decided to take a cab home. Look at this tech savvy uncle, who used his GPS system to navigate his way to our hotel.
Love reading your blog, especially after a bad day. It cheers me up and its very enjoyable to read.
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