Sushi trip reports - starting w/ Kiss Seafood in SF

[M2d]

Three day Tsukiji sushi TR with cliff notes

As an airline employee travel has sucked this whole summer with record loads and the airline operating more efficiently (downsizing equipment, reducing extraneous flights, etc). good for the company, bad for the employee who wants to go somewhere. Starting labor day, though, loads got better and flights were clear. My wife and I decided we wanted to go somewhere, picked last weekend, and listed ourselves for a bunch of different locations, opting to choose at the last minute based on which trip would offer us the best chance at first or business. Tokyo won.

turns out, i have a few cousins from fukuoka (on kyuushuu) who i've never met, but who talk to my grandma and mom. one of their sons and one of their daughters moved to tokyo and the youngest daughter was also, coincidentally, visiting. They were really nice, excited to meet me and ended up spending the entire time with us. This long intro is to explain how i ended up in some back alleys in tokyo eating the best sushi of my life.

my cousin and his wife took the train in to tokyo (he lives near mount fuji, he said) and decided that he wanted us to go eat sushi. the fish market was closed on sunday since it was a national holiday, but a few restaurants were open. we ended up at sushizanmai, a multi-story 24 hour sushi joint (I think it was called "sushizanmai".

Shun did the ordering and he apparently wanted to impress his cousin. two orders of the tuna special (which was mostly toro), an order of assorted nigiri and a bunch of individual nigiri inclding kampachi, saba, shako aburi-gyu (seared sirloin), chive sushi, tamago and others. The fish was the freshest and most full of flavor that i've ever ever had. the rice was smaller than the standard here in the bay area and the fish pieces were much larger: about 4 inches long. Total for this meal including tax (no tipping in japan) was 130 including beers and a special shrimp miso soup that my cousin felt compelled to order.

Back at the hotel, my wife and i went to be early and woke early (about 6 am). we kind of looked at each other and said "24 hour sushi!!) we hopped the train and were back at Tsukiji in an hour and eating a breakfast of aburi toro (lightly seared bluefin toro), aburi gyu and kampachi.
we decided to walk around a bit and see if anything else was open to try. we found another open restaurant and tried a few aburi pieces (we're aburi fans in a big way). toro, kanpachi and bin toro. looking over the menu, I found a offering that i felt i had to try: aburi horse. I figured that i'd never have another shot at it so I ordered one. I'm glad I tried it, but i'll probably never have it again. really gamey is an understatement (from a guy who loves venison and other hunting products).

the next morning, same story (minus the horse, of course). this time, the market was open and all the vendor stalls were busy as well (the holiday was the weekend and monday, so it was business as usual on tuesday). this time, after the initial breakfast, we walked the stalls and found a guy grilling unagi and selling it at 6 for 500 yen (a little less than 5 bucks). I see now why my cousin (who's traveled a bit) refuses to eat unagi in the US.

Now, I'm ruined for sushi (and tempura) for at least a month or until the memories of these meals fade. it was spontaneous-cream-your-pants good.

cliff notes: m2d goes to japan for the weekend, eats sushi one night then returns the next two mornings for breakfast because it was so damned good. he also eats ultra rare seared horse sushi and it's not so good, but he's still glad he gave it a chance.