Tsukiji Itadori Uogashi Senryo

As we were walking the Tsukiji market, the wife saw a sign with pictures of different dishes with fish roe and caviar. She loves it, so we had to stop. She got a big bowl of the stuff while I had a couple of tuna pieces. I did not try hers, but the tuna was good. Not quite as good as other places I have tried in Tokyo, and there a slight fish taste, but compared to what you get in the US it was very tasty. Prices seemed reasonable and service was friendly and helpful. I think that this place is a solid choice if you want to eat sushi or sashimi while walking the market area.

During our trip to Japan, my husband and I were strolling through the Tsukiji fish market’s outer market and stumbled across this restaurant entirely by accident. Only later did we learn that it is pretty famous for one of its dishes, and has received rewards and media attention for it.
The dish in question? Ganso kaisen hitsumabushi. It looks a lot like chirashi-​don (basically, sashimi over rice in a bowl), but you have to eat it following a specific three-​step process. Fortunately, there are instructions provided in the English menu, and the waitstaff also kept an eye on us and helped us with each step.
When you’re served this bowl of wonderfulness, it looks like a large wooden bowl of rice topped with chopped up seafood — octopus, salmon, roe, and tuna were the most recognizable. On top of all this is a healthy dollop of creamy orangish-​yellow sea urchin (uni).
Step 1: push sea urchin to one side of bowl. In a separate small bowl, mix wasabi with soy sauce and pour it into the rice bowl. Eat about a third of what’s in the rice bowl.
Step 2: the waitstaff take the bowl and mix the sea urchin thoroughly into the rice until everything is creamy. Now, you eat about half of this.
Step 3: the waitstaff pour hot dashi broth over whatever’s left in the bowl and you eat it like a rice soup.
This was seriously one of the best dishes I ate while in Japan, and I can only pray it makes its way over to the U.S. someday. Not likely, I know, given the hands-​on assistance and complexity, but a girl can dream, can’t she? In the meantime, I just have to save my pennies so I can get back to Tokyo to eat this again.