Tsukiji; Sushiko; Tokyo

I had a chance to go out to Tsukiji this weekend.   By chance, the new landlord's office was located in Tsukiji and we needed to go there to sign the paperwork.   For those of you not familiar with Japan's rent system, you often need to pay around 3-4 months of rent just to move, and often this includes 1-3 months of money as "gift" money to the landlord.  You don't get back any of the gift money.  Luckily, ours didn't require any gift money, but there was a 2 month deposit plus half a month as a guarantee and one month to the real estate agency.  That is a lot of cash just to get the apartment.

Back to Tsukiji, Tsukiji is the most famous fish market in the world for sushi.  Freshly caught tuna is brought in and auctioned off in the wee hours of the morning.  Quite a few tourists go out there at 5 in the morning to see the auction, however, I've never done it.

The station area has become known as a place where you can get fresh fish and great sushi too.
  

You can see the homage to the tuna as seen by this giant tuna indicating the shotengai area.

Here is the remainder of our scaled friend Charlie (it's the one on the right).  The little one is a huge maguro (tuna) fan and we always end up donating our maguro sashimi and nigiri to her.

You can get crabs too at the Tsukiji shotengai.

And piping hot tamago (as shown below) too.

This one was quite yummy, the sweet tamago.  Never had it freshly cooked like this.

Sushi donburi can be bought there as well.  Really fresh.

Since we had two kids in tow and the shotengai area was too congested to bring a stroller around, we ended up eating at Sushiko, one of the sushi shops a bit away from the Tsukiji shotengai.  Yeah, I know that Sushiko is a chain, but this is where the shop originated in (I think).

 

They have quite a selection of sushi.

They have some pretty good lunch specials too.

Here are the sushi maestros in action.

Here's a kid's sushi set. 

Here is a Hokaidon donburi.  The ikura was the freshest I'd ever had.

Here is my sushi set, the "Sushiko."  It was awesome.  I'm used to eating cheap 100 yen sushi at those kaiten sushi places, so this was quite a treat.  The unagi was to die for, still warm.  The salmon melted in my mouth and the toro was awesome.  The set was well worth the 2,000 yen price tag (a bargain compared to the States).

Our lunch was not cheap, 5,000 yen (about 52 bucks at the current rate), but it was well worth it.  If we come back here without the kids, we'll definitely try one of the stands located in the shotengai.  But for now, Sushiko hits the spot.  I give it 5 nigiris out of 5 nigiris.