Alas....that is just a dream. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) for me, sleeping trumps eating. In reality, we arrived at Tsukiji Fish Market at 9 AM to find long queues already formed at all the famous shops.
Luckily, we were able to snag seats for our party of 10 inside the tiny Aiyo Coffee Shop.
Aiyo Coffee Shop is located right next door to Sushi Dai, one of the most well-known spots for sushi within the market.
There are only a handful of small tables and seats at the counter for maybe half a dozen people or so. Our group of 10 nearly filled up the whole shop!
Plain black brewed coffee
I originally wanted to have their Milk Coffee (brewed coffee with milk stirred in) but W accidentally ordered plain black coffee for us. That was ok though because the milk served on the side was super creamy and aromatic! It definitely "leveled-up" the plain brewed coffee!
Toast with butter and jam, coffee with milk added in afterwards
My mom and I also shared an order of their toast. I loved how they put strawberry jam on one half and plain butter on the other half, and then cut them into tiny bite-sized pieces! They do this for all their orders but I just think it's very thoughtful of them.
Nakaya Seafood Don
After coffee, our group split into two as some of us like to eat raw fish while the others do not. I was part of the raw fish-eating group haha.... Since all the popular shops still had really long line-ups, I recommended Nakaya as the line-up was not too bad. This shop specializes in rice bowls topped with various fresh raw fish.
Part of the menu (they have about 40 different combinations!)
#20 - Toro with Snow Crab Rice Bowl
W chose the #20. On top of sushi rice were slices of tuna, whole pieces of snow crab leg, and shredded snow crab meat. The menu said the tuna was toro, but it didn't look like the typical fatty pieces of tuna belly... The ample crab meat was sweet and succulent though.
#3 - Uni and Seafood Rice Bowl - served with miso soup, pickled radish and marinated baby clams on the side
The #3 was my choice. All donburi (rice bowls) came with tea, miso soup, and dishes of pickles and marinated baby clams.
Along with uni, my bowl also had sweet shrimp, scallop, salmon, toro (tuna belly), octopus, tuna, salmon roe, tobiko (flying fish roe), and shredded crab meat. I loved all the variety in my bowl but I would have loved it even more if there were more uni pieces in this namesake bowl :(
Grilled scallops with uni on top, doused with a sweet soy sauce
Afterwards, we walked out to the outer market for some street food! Immediately, the grilled scallops topped with uni caught my eye!! Creamy pieces of fresh uni were placed on top of 2 whole grilled scallops, then squirted with a sweet soya sauce. This was definitely a real treat to eat on the street (LOL rhyming much?).
W and I also ate freshly made tamago-yaki (sweet thick egg omelet), and for dessert, I ate a large strawberry wrapped with red bean paste and mochi (strawberry daifuku). Unfortunately, I did not take any standalone photos of these deletable eats...
One could seriously have a ball eating all the things the outer market has to offer! There were so many good eats but my tummy did not have enough room T___T
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