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A sushi odyssey in Tokyo (Jaime Ee)
Stop 1: Tokyu Supermarket (Shibuya Station)
Tokyu supermarket retains its original frenetic self complete with fish vendors trying to out-shout each other to attract customers to their displays of gleaming red slabs of tuna and other freshly cut seafood. The prices are amazing - fat slices of fish on rice can be had for around 980 yen (about S$13), while roughly cut tuna sashimi went for about 900 yen.
Stop 2: Sushi Daiwa, Tsukiji Fish Market
YOU may have long given up on the idea of ever getting into this tiny little restaurant that is as famous as the fish market itself. There isn't a single foodie website that doesn't recommend it, which means long lines for sushi breakfasts as early as 5 am. If you're not able to wake up in time with the rest of Japan's tuna, take a chance and go there at around 1 in the afternoon. The market itself would have closed by then but if you're lucky, it will be almost closing time at Daiwa and hardly anyone will be lining up to get in.
Stop 3: Midori Sushi, Ginza, 7-108, Ginza Korida-dori 1F.
Tel: 5568-1212
LISTED in the Luxe travel guide, Midori is located in the trendy Ginza Corridor, joining a long row of restaurants just below the train tracks. Long queues can be expected, but they thin out closer to the end of lunch time (one thing you notice about the Japanese is that they eat lunch and dinner pretty early) and boasts some of the largest slices of fish or eel on smallish balls of rice one has ever seen.
Set meals can be had for as low as 2,190 yen - a large platter of mixed sushi which includes tuna, sea eel (anago), sea urchin (uni), yellowtail (hamachi), salmon roe, shrimp and omelette (tamago), and a small chawanmushi and crab liver salad. Sure, it's value for money but not value for your palate. But where mass market dining is concerned, this is definitely one of the better places.
Stop 4: Seamon Sushi Restaurant, Sakaguchi Bldg. 6F, 5-5-13, Ginza, Chuo-ku.
Tel: 03-5537-0010. www.seamon.jp.
Lunch sets are affordably priced from 2,940 yen to 6,825 yen. Try the 4,725 yen Seamon set lunch for a delicate and delicious peek into what the restaurant offers. The set starts off with a seaweed and vegetable salad and a homemade sesame tofu square topped with a tiny wafer of dried fish and wasabi. A super fresh oyster is served in its shell with a well-tempered soy vinaigrette, followed by the prettiest shrimp sashimi - sliced thin and fanned out on a rock slab, served with julienned slices of kelp which you roll with the shrimp and squeeze a drop of yuzu juice on. The head of the shrimp is deep fried to a crunchy crisp that you eat whole.
Stop 5: Sushi Nakata, Mikuni Ginza Building. 5F, 6-7-19 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: 03.3571.0063.
Branch: Imperial Hotel
The sushi here is large, so large that the chef kindly cuts each piece into two for easier eating. There was blood red maguro, squid, clam, sardine, grilled anago, and some lovely broiled toro sushi. It wasn't a lot of sushi, and a bill of S$300 for two left a lump in our throats. But the quality was definitely top notch, which you can tell from the sweetness and odour-free uni, which you only get at restaurants of this level. Lunch here was a far sight better than the average quality sushi at the Imperial Hotel branch, which serves to show that so long as one restaurant has branches, it's always best to go to the original.
Stop 6: Sushi Kyubei,
8-7-6 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: 03.3571.6523
Super milky chutoro sashimi, a beautifully bouncy/crunchy slice of hirame, silky shiroko (whale sperm) so fresh it just needed a light dressing, crunchy deep-fried sea eel bone and mind-blowingly tender steamed abalone . It's the quality of the rice, the temperature of the fish, the way they parboil shrimp to perfection and the expertise of the chefs that make it such a fine dining experience that's well worth the $300 price tag.
Stop 7: Sushiko, 6-3-8 Ginza, Tokyo.
Tel: 03/3571-1968
Like most restaurants of this ilk, there is no menu to speak of, and they literally feed you until you tell them to stop, probably at the $350 level. An interesting range of starters included a clean-tasting fresh crab salad, exquisite clam in sake, and an amazing melt in the mouth tuna sushi with absolutely no sign of veins or stringiness - if you have to scrimp on other meals, do so, because a meal like this you just cannot miss.
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