Most of the fish is housed under one gigantic roof that runs seemingly forever. There are hundreds (thousands?) of stalls, most themselves mom and pop operations, that have about 100-150 sqft of “retail” space; and a very tiny office, usually large enough for just a chair and a cash register. The stalls and aisles are generally organized by type of seafood.

You will obviously see a lot of blood and death – not to mention corpses being hacked by knife and power saws. The seafood runs the entire gamut of possibilities – from the familiar to monstrosities straight out of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It is fascinating to think of all the permutations of shrimp and fish – and it certainly provides ample excuse for repeat trips to Tokyo sushi spots.

For me, despite salivating over fish and anticipating my upcoming sushi meals, the logistics of this daily operation were one of the most impressive things I saw in Japan, if not ever. Fish is caught around the world, somehow making its way to Tsukiji, all of it finding its place within this gigantic warehouse by 5am. And it is all packed up by 1pm. I don’t think there is a real central planning agency; the whole spectacle makes a great case for bottom-up organization – let people work and they will get things done. (If one wanted to get fancy in their ethnographic, economic, or social studies, there is a lot of material here to play with the ideas of emergence in a social / economic setting.)

It’s a Holiday week so I will leave you with some pictures. If you would like to read more serious pieces about Tsukiji, there is an article and book I will recommed:

If you Knew Sushi by Nick Tosches for Vanity Fair – an excellent overview of the market and its players. Recommended for everyone.

Tsukiji – The Fish Market at the Center of the World by Theodore Bestor – this is an ethnographic study of the market, its history, and how it manages to work. The book is full of interesting facts and figures, but it is an academic study so it can be (quite) dry at times too. Only recommended for the die-hard.

One of a few parking lots

Whale meat / blubber anyone? Despite the moral issues, this stuff looked seriously tasty.

Chopping turtles – yum yum

Cutting tuna

The remains of some fish

Some sort of miniature eel

A random stall selling random things

An octopus for every size

It might be alive

Some tiny fish

Dried squid

It’s definitely a must-do for anyone that has a passing interest in sushi – just be careful – you can get seriously hurt. Some people recommend the sushi restaurants within Tsukiji but the lines were ridiculously long (I can’t stand lines) and I heard that, while excellent by American standards, the sushi did not compare to the best places (two of which I would later eat at.) But the whole affair, my third day in Japan pre-sushi, made me crave sushi. I managed to snag a same-day reservation later that day at Kyubey (Ginza) for lunch.

That story will have to wait.

- chuck

They were only labeled as “Sea Scallops”, not “Diver Scallops”; I presume they were fished by dragging nets on the sea floor instead of by underwater divers. A side effect of this fishing method is age – they might be less fresh than a diver scallop. However, I’ve also read that scallops need to age a touch (to develop flavor) so this may not be the worst thing.

Stick the knife in, work your way around the side muscles, and the shell opens right up. It’s vile inside – muscle, mucuous membrane, & meat – all in one. An intersting question – Does anyone know of any interesting recipes for the non-meat parts?

Pull away the muscle and membrane, some say don’t wash (I did to remove the grit), and salt on the ends. The salt will dry out the moisture and, theoretically, create a better sear. I also slow-cooked a small basket of morel mushrooms (they are coming into season here.)

The end result

Sweet, not as seared as I’d like, but tasty nonetheless. The morel and scallop pairing (mimicking something I had at Quince the other night, proper review some day) works quite well – earth and sea.

- chuck

I was at the local chocolate shop (which happens to be a news store) when I spotted the bar. I’m always willing to give something new a try so I picked it up. I plucked it alongside the two Amedei bars on the counter. The store manager asked me if I had tried it yet. “Nope.” “Hmmm, it will be very interesting for you to compare these 3 bars in a tasting.”

What? How is that possible? The Amedei Porcelana and Chuao bars are the two best chocolate bars known to man – they are without peer – even my favorite fine chocolates in the world are made from Amedei. How could this American upstart be considered in the same league? Somehow, I managed to finish all of my shopping without ripping into the chocolate.

It appears as if The Art of Tasting Chocolate got the initial scoop but there’s not much of a review there (but you can find one here.) I’m not very experienced with wine nor chocolate tasting notes, both definitely an art; but I scratched down my initial reactions as I ate the bar:

“Very rich, almost espresso like upfront, an extremely satisfying texture that thickens as you chew it, red berry at the end, lots of chocolate overtones throughout, balanced acidity with absolutely no bitterness.”

That’s the information that’s supposed to guide your mouse to order this $6 bar from Amano’s web site. I still rank Amedei Porcelana #1, but this Amano Ocumare is my new #2, pushing the Amedei Chuao back to #3. I have to run back on Monday to buy their other bar – the Madagascar Single Origin bar.

What makes these bars so special?

First, like Amedei, and unlike most chocolate bars (and truffles) you buy, Amano makes the chocolate themselves – from bean to bar. They purchase the beans directly from the farm and use their own artisanal techniques to create a chocolate, and taste, they want.

Second, the bars are made in small batches. Like all artisanal products, there are rarely enough raw materials to make mass quantities of an item. When you purchase mass-produced food items, you’re buying a compromise between quality and quantity.

Third, Art Pollard (the founder), thinks the altitude of Salt Lake City plays a great role in the final flavor of his chocolate. I emailed him for a further explanation of this point and he replied with:

“The altitude plays a couple of important roles. Higher altitudes give a different flavor to the roast compared to that of lower altitudes and in my opinion create better flavor development. The high altitude allows the cocoa beans to be roasted for both a shorter period of time as well as at a lower temperature than they would need at lower altitudes. Since roasting is one of the important steps for flavor development, this can have a significant impact in the final flavor.”

“Similarly, during the conching of the chocolate, the conching may be accomplished at lower temperatures and it proceeds quicker than it would at lower altitudes given the same temperature and conditions. One of the primary roles of conching is to allow various volatiles to escape enhancing the flavor of the finished chocolate. With the lower the vapor pressures at higher altitudes, this happens more rapidly and at lower temperatures.”

“Chocolate is very sensitive to the conditions in which it is made. A factory may be moved only a few miles and the final flavor of the chocolate for a given recipe will be a little bit different. I believe that the high altitude where our chocolate is made plays a key role in the flavor development of our chocolate.”

You can learn more at Amano’s web site in the FAQs section.

- chuck

PS > With this post, I’ve created a Chocolate / Candy section.

Herme has an extensive collection of desserts that have been well documented by many. The store itself probably has a homing device that draws in anyone with a sweet tooth. On every visit to Paris, I’ve allocated a lunch at this hot spot. To date, I’ve limited myself to the macaroons but after reading SweetNapa’s pilgrimage to Pierre Herme, I will put all of the desserts on the to-do list.

While Herme’s macaroons are always decadent, they are inconsistent. They are generally too sweet for me (which means I can only eat 2-3 in a sitting instead of 4-5) but one visit during this trip yielded perfectly-sweetened specimens. Their texture is a touch mushy – I’d prefer my macaroon to not yield so quickly. Nonetheless, their flavors are always intense. The rose will envelop your mouth like a great perfume, the olive in the middle of the olive/vanilla will decisively cut through the vanilla’s sweetness, and the caramel in fleur de sel will burst in your mouth. The flavors are as bold as the man and his methods it seems.

I had tried Laduree’s macaroons once here on American soil. Their memory was one of a perfect macaroon – a firm texture with an acceptable sweetness. After Pierre Herme one day, we ventured to Laduree the next. The lines were just as long for these more traditional macaroons.

On this day, there were some hits and misses. The macaroons generally had a firmer texture (re: preferred) than their Herme counterparts but the flavors were not as explosive. The rose was more subtle, the fleur de sel didn’t burst with caramel richness, and the lemon was more bitter than sweet. It’s a more subtle, traditional approach. If one could somehow harness the impact of Herme’s flavors without using so much sugar and stick them into a Laduree macaroon for texture, they too might have lines snaking around their storefronts.

They also differ in sustainability. After a few days, the Pierre Herme macaroons will get very soggy and mushy while the Laduree will get rock hard. I wouldn’t suggest bringing any back for your friends unless you’ll see them (and they’ll eat them) the minute you step off of the plane. As for recommendations – I think they’re too subjective and you’ll have to fly to Paris and try them for yourself. I will probably visit both on any future trip.

- chuck

Pierre Herme Official Site: http://www.pierreherme.com/

Laduree Official Site: http://www.laduree.fr/

For now, here’s a tease of some of the best truffle dishes (in no certain order):

1. Ledoyen (very thick, crunchy, & tasty)

2. Relais d’L'Auteuil (best bang for your buck)

3. Les Ambassadeurs (best dish of the trip – insane truffle quality)

4. L’Arpege (don’t let the quantity fool you – this was heady stuff)

Reviews should start sometime this week beginning with Les Ambassadeur – the best meal of the trip.
- chuck

There was a small crisis in the SF food community earlier this year – Hoffman opted to stop selling their chickens at the Saturday Farmer’s Market. If I were prone to waking up before 11am, I would have been sounding the alarms too. Unfortunately, Hoffman was always sold out of chickens before I arrived and the Hoffman lady wasn’t too keen (nor consistent) with saving a chicken for this late sleeper.

And they were pretty good chickens. Their best feature was the ease with which they cooked – plop them into the oven for any reasonable time and you were guaranteed a juicy roast chicken. So consistent these chickens were, I failed to see why any native would spend $40 on a Zuni chicken – you could do it yourself for $8. The taste was better than your average supermarket variety but they did fail to come close to a Bresse chicken from France.

No doubt sensing a market opportunity, Prather Ranch began carrying Heritage Chickens. The chickens are Dark Cornish Chickens, shipped frozen from Kansas. They are a tad pricey at $5.99/lb but they are also quite small – these are not mass-produced chickens from calculated breeding techniques that consider yield the most important attribute of a breed. They are humanely raised and organic – a happy chicken is a tastier chicken; a happy chicken eating good food should be tastier yet.

Ethics aside, how do the birds taste?

Remarkable, for an American chicken.

The first thing one notices is the texture – it’s not unlike a Bresse chicken – the meat is firm and toothesome. The chicken does not flake apart with a fork – it takes a bit of effort to cut it. And then you notice the taste – it actually tastes like something – “chicken” for lack of a better adjective. It’s a slightly gamier taste but, really, it’s just a more concentrated chicken flavor. The skin crisps rather nicely when roasted.

No contest – I actually get a bit upset when I miss a shipment of these birds. Far better than the Hoffman birds ever were.

I use a pretty basic recipe:

• Massively salt the exterior the night before
• Pour olive oil between the breast meat and its skin; stick rosemary in there if I have any
• Stick an orange in its cavity (I’ve found this tastes better than a lemon)
• Salt, pepper, and olive oil the outside again
• Cook @ 425 for 45 minutes

Go buy one now.  For more information, you can read the following articles:

• Meet the Farmer – Frank Reese
• KSU profile on Frank Reese

- chuck

This wasn’t as fatty as the beef I’ve had @ Urasawa (LA) or Sugiyama (NY) but, ironically, I may have liked it more. Yes, there wasn’t that overwhelmingly fatty taste nor melting in the mouth; instead, it had some bite with a nice beefy taste (granted, it had nothing on the 40-day dry-aged wagyu @ Morimoto.) And this was only aged for 18 days – I can only imagine if I could age this for a few more days and get an even more intense beef taste. (If you’re interested in experimenting to create a more flavorful and tender beef product, you can learn how to dry-age beef in this article.)

I had a pound, I cooked half for dinner (need something for lunch tomorrow.) A thoroughly enjoyable time (and dinner!)

The Meat

The Cross-section - it has some marbeling but it’s certainly not that fatty.

10 seconds/side on a hot pan w/ sea salt & pepper – seared outside, just a touch warm on the inside, near perfection.

Boiled for 20 seconds & finished w/ sea salt & pepper – this preparation allowed the taste of the beef to shine through (as opposed to the crust from searing.)

A thicker piece, 20 seconds/side – should have cooked it longer, still cold in the middle

Golden Gate seems to be carrying the meat on a fairly regular basis. My next experiment is to ask them to age it for 10-20 more days (for as long as they’re willing to) to see how much it impacts the taste.

- chuck

Yesterday, I was buying an excellent Heritage chicken (a write-up will be forthcoming) from Prather Ranch when serendipity must have led me across the hall into the fish store. I usually bypass it without a hint of feeling guilty about what I may have missed.

I walked in and immediately noticed the fresh Santa Barbara sea urchin sitting in the counter. Was I feeling lucky?

The Specimen

Close Up

The Rather Scary Interior – I have no doubt H.R. Giger has used the sea urchin for inspiration.

A Single Piece – notice how it resembles a tongue? The better it resembles a tongue, the better your chances.

The Final Yield – a 1lb sea urchin ($10.99) yields about 5 pieces. I have no idea if this specimen was typical but that’s a food cost of ~ $2/piece. Factor in a bulk discount, add some labor time, rent, and employess; suddenly the price of an uni nigiri doesn’t sound so unreal.

The Taste – I ate the uni raw. Unlike most foods, I find uni tastes better colder. After refrigerating for a few hours, the uni was creamy with the requisite brininess but it lacked sweetness. Nonetheless, a very strong example – I’ll buy this in the future.

Any Recipes? – Anyone have interesting recipes for uni?

- chuck