After taking one of the last Shinkansen trains from Kyoto, then crashing first on a lobby hotel in the glamorous Imperial Hotel (and then for a few hours on the floor of a swanky room in the Imperial Hotel), oversleeping the tuna auction, I shuffled groggily out to join my friend Kavita, who was serendipitously in Tokyo on a business school trip, and some of her classmates for some breakfast sushi at Tsukiji Market.
I didn’t pick Sushi Zanmai, but I suppose it qualified also as a cultural touchpoint, since the Tsukiji restaurant is the original location of one of the more chained-out sushi joints in Tokyo. Disregarding my regret about not waiting in line for Daiwa or some other Tsukiji options, Zanmai was actually quite good (I would imagine because of the proximity to such amazing fresh seafood), and certainly value-for-money (the meal you see below was about fifteen or twenty bucks, in total).
Five variations on tuna:
Nigiri, toro to maguro:
Sea eel, sweet shrimp, and salmon:
House of Hao's 