Sushi To 大 For

(or, in Japanese, "Sushi to Dai For."  Get it?  Haha.  Oh, I'm a cut-up.  Like the fish!  Pow- I'm on a roll!  No, the fish is.  Yuk-yuk.)

Aaaaanyhow.... Japan, for many tourists, is all about monkey-staffed izakayas, maid-served mcnuggets, and a miracle fruit that turns a lemon into a peach.  But, surprising to some, there's a little more depth to this country's epicuriousity.  They've got sushi, here!  Buckets of it!!!  And I've been doing my best to research this wild raw fish craze that's sweeping the island nation.

Early Tuesday morning, on barely three hours of post-monkey-bar sleep, I rolled out of futon, pulled on some clothes, and groggily hailed a cab.  "This had better be good," I thought, as I asked the driver to take me to Tsukiji Fish Market.  Damn, it was.  

Now first, Tsukiji Fish Market is a sprawling maze of warehouses.  I didn't get a map, and had no idea where to go -- Japanese men in boots and bloody aprons ran left and right.  They jumoped out of the way as tiny trucks and massive crate-lifters ploughed through, honking madly.  4:30am, and everyone was in a crazed rush.  I didn't know what to ask for, so just followed the first white person I saw, running down an alleyway, dodging workers, to catch up.  And as they entered a huge warehouse, filled with rows of massive tuna, I knew they were on to something good.  Cos I love tuna!!!

Dudes in jumpsuits were marching up and down the aisles, spraying the frosty fish with water, then painting huge red numbers and scrawls on their bellies.  A gang of old fellows followed, scrawling in notepads, crouching down for a peek, a sniff, and sometimes even slicing off a thin slice, discretely taking a bite.  Real nice, old dudes.  I wanted some.

Finally, at about 5am, the bidding started.  A smiley, rosy-cheeked fellow stood on an upturned crate and shouted real fast, rolling like a Kentucky auctioneer on too much jank, while a crowd of old guys discreetly made bid signs.  It was Sotheby's for tuna.  It was awesome.  

After the first round of auctions, I couldn't take any more.  Watching these old guys sneak those tastes of o-toro had me hopping mad -- mad for sweet raw fishy meat.  So I walked a block, paced a line of sushi shops, and saw that most were empty.  Not too surprising -- it was 6am, after all!  But outside one stood thirty hungry people.  This was "大 Sushi."

"I waited for two hours yesterday!," one foodie proclaimed, "And I'm back today!"  "This is the freshest sushi there is...  I've been dreaming of this meal," Natalie piped in.  All I could think was "I'm having sushi for breakfast?"  

A Japanese woman walked outside, asked if we wanted to pay $30 or $50.  "$50," I boldly proclaimed, as she walked back inside, leaving me in line for another hour. Finally, I was able to enter 大.

And it was amazing.  Worth every minute of the wait.  Toro from the heavens.  Sawara of the gods.  Ama-ebi that puts hair on your chest and a smile on your cheeks.  And then there was Uni.  A fish I abhor.  An ugly hack-colored food of Satan.  This uni?  This uni made me love uni.  This uni put Nobu to shame.  This uni I adored.  

(Note: I was far too mesmerized and sushi-mad to take a photo of 大's uni.  But this, from a meal a few hours later, is a rough approximation)

Now, not every piece was amazing.  The anago was so terrible that instead of butter, it tasted like burned rubber.  The below piece, a pile of baby shrimp, was interesting, but not tasty.  When 大 succeeded, though, it was (some of) the best sushi I've ever had.  

A second contender for the "best sushi ever" award was a few hours later, at Midori's Ginza branch.  (Ginza Subway, Exit C1, walk through the food court, and it's sitting under the JR line tracks.)  Natalie, who I'd met that morning, urged me to go, and, judging from Midori's 30-minute queue, outside in the pouring rain, the Japanese liked it too. 

Again, uni that made me gaze lovingly at the sushi chef.  And ローストビーフ?  Maybe not entirely traditional -- but a slice of raw beef, roasted atop the rice in front of you -- definitely worth it.  And the taste?  So fresh and bloody and juicy.  Mmmmmm!

 

Mostly, though, I found myself on a dark tuna rampage.  Over the meal, I ran through every tuna on the menu.  I didn't even think to take photos as I plunged into the maguro, the "tuna pickled soy sauce," the broiled fatty tuna, the broiled medium fatty tuna, the "best of medium fatty tuna," and even the "best of fatty tuna."  And a half-dozen others.  It was like an orgy of tuna on the table, as the chef handed a piece over, I picked it up, flipped it with my fingers, dabbed it lightly in (wasabi-free) soy, and popped it (whole) into my mouth, savoring and smiling and offering a grand "thumbs up" or two to the waiter.  "Oishii desu ne," I would call out when my mouth was free.  I loved it.  In Beijing, sushi was inedible and frozen.  Here in Japan?  So perfectly fresh.

The most divine piece, though, was something I've never seen before.  I found it in Hakone, a small mountain town.  (Across the road from 7-11.  Sliding slat door, with no windows.)  Maybe the piece was called Namaji Rasu, and maybe it's called Shirasu.  But either way, it was incredible, deliciously sweet, and so unbelievably weird.  Tiny fishies, with big eyes, piled into a rolled piece of nigiri.  So entirely straight-from-Star-Wars, and so one-of-a-kind.  The chef had passed it to me as a gift, after seeing my love for his work, and once he discovered I wasn't Russian. 

Oh, I do like the food here....