Matt’s trip to Japan

There’s not much that will wake you up quicker than a visit to Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji fish market. Arriving at 5.30 am, bleary eyed and sake damaged, warm can of sugary coffee in hand, to witness the tuna auction take pace, you’re very much taking your life into your own hands as you dodge the carts that, seemingly carelessly, dart around the thin isles running between the endless rows of fish stalls. The driver’s happy to slap the heads of any foreigner ignorant enough to be standing in the way. The excitement’s already taking the edge off and the sight of the auction room buzzing with commotion and wall to wall fresh and frozen whole tuna makes you come to your senses doubly quick. 

The stalls themselves seem calm as they await the arrival from the auction. The huge wooden boards covering the chest refrigeration will soon be covered with sides of tuna to be portioned and sold to the thousands of sashimi restaurants scattered throughout Tokyo, before then though things have started to heat up as gradually the hand pulled carts start to arrive with the new catch from the auction room. Groups of men start pulling the fish around by large hooks and onto the wooden boards they use to transfer them onto the chopping bocks and the more elderly, wordy looking gentleman (and there always is one) sets about expertly removing the filets from the fish, using at first what can only be described as a serrated samurai sword, to break the tough skin, once through a smooth bade is used to work through the flesh, following the bone, with next to no flesh left on the carcase. The fish is rolled back onto the wooden board and slid back onto the chopping board to work on the next portion.

Once the fish is stripped one of the group makes good use of a large clam shell to scrape off any remaining flesh from between the bones, there really is nothing left to waste. Behind him someone’s started portioning up a whole frozen tuna using an enormous saw, the type usually reserved for timber mills.

After wandering around for another hour or so, more canned coffee and some polite conversation with the locals about the raw whole baby squids you enjoyed for dinner the previous evening, the appetite’s returning and it’s time to join the queue outside one of the market’s cafes for the freshest sashimi breakfast on the planet. Starting to look forward to those ‘chicken innards’ Yakitori skewers I promised myself for lunch…