Day 8 - Fresh Sushi at the Unexpected Place

Day Eight (Sun):	Shinjuku - Narita Airport
Breakfast:	Udon and Curry Rice Restaurant name unknown, Shinjuku
Lunch:	Very fresh Sushi and Chirashi lunch specials, plus Uramura Oysters Tsukiji Sushi Ko, Shinjuku
Dinner:	On the plane

Day 8. Sad sad Day 8. Oh well, all journeys must come to an end. Okay more sushi before we go!

Our plane would leave at 6:00PM, which meant we must make it back to the hotel at 2:00PM to take the Limousine Bus (no more cheap Keisei, as our luggage has grown heavy). This left us a whole morning to explore more of Shinjuku, and one more big lunch before we take off.

My wife wanted some Udon for breakfast (real Udon, not the instant stuff), and we didn't find any before having circled half an hour in the underground street. Yet another typical Tokyoite meal of Sanuki Udon plus curry rice combo for 600 yen. I should have taken a photo to warn fellow travellers since the quality was so bad; my local supermarket's Shirakiku frozen udon and S&B Curry-in-a-brick is much better. Anyway this place was at a semi-underground area coming out of the Shinjuku West Exit close to where the tour buses board their passengers. Beware.

For the entire morning we wandered around East Shinjuku, taking in the exotic sights one last time on that quiet Sunday morning. The alleys of Kabukicho were strangely asleep, except for the lineups of young men and women outside of Pachinko parlours. For the first time, we did not encounter one tissue-distributing marketer on the street.

While hopping between department stores and 100 Yen shops, we also kept a eye out for interesting Sushi restaurants. Towards noon we narrowed our choices down to two. One of them was a 100-Yen-Per-Dish Kaiten (conveyer belt) Sushi place with Manga-style octopus and sea urchin paintings on the windows, and hand-written paper signs that said "Cheap!" and "Safe!". We decided that it probably wasn't very safe.

The other place was a more mainstream Sushi restaurant right across from Isetan Mens, with Chefs working behind a clean wooden counter and patrons dressed in suits. There were also a menu on display outside the restaurant with lunch specials around 1000 yen. We walked into this restaurant without any expectations.


Gourmet Spot #15 - Excellent Sushi in an Unexpected Place, Tsukiji Sushi Ko, Shinjuku


This restaurant turned out to be one among a massive Sushi chain, with twenty something shops scattering over Tokyo and the main shop based just outside of the Tsukiji Market (see Day 3). It was a small shop with some private tables, but what Sushi fan would want to sit anywhere but the counter? We sat down in front of a younger chef and ordered a Lunch Tokujo (deluxe) Sushi set, and a Lunch Chirashi set, totally just a little over 2000 yen. Great price, but let's wait and see how the freshness turns out.



On the far side of the counter was a big dish of oysters on crushed ice, with the advertisement for these oysters right behind the chef: "Oysters fresh delivered from Uramura - 630 yen". We asked for one order mainly out of curiousity, as a comparison with the varieties available in North America.



Appetizer hailing from the famous oyster-producing town of Uramura on the Pacific Coast at Ise. Very sweet, mild and crispy at 210 yen each. Of course every oyster lover has his or her preferences, and mine craves a sweet but more complicated taste. Personally I still prefer the Malpeque from my home country's Atlantic Coast, as I found the Uramura to be more of a lady's oyster.



Both sets came with a delicious shrimp miso soup. The head probably belonged to the shrimp inside the meal.



Then my Chirashi set arrived. All ingredients were quite fresh, but not as fresh as those we had at Sushi Dai on Day 3. For instance the Ikura had a very slight fishy taste to it, not as fresh as Sushi Dai's, but still much better than any I've tasted in Vancouver (which ironically is a huge producer of Ikura). But for a price not much more than a McValue Meal, it was more than any Sushi fan can ask for.



What a deal! The 1280 yen Lunch Deluxe Sushi even came with Uni (and more pleasant surprises to come...), which is a 400 yen piece if ordered separately. This Uni was extremely fresh, even fresher than the box I bought inside the Tsukiji Market on Day 3. It was comparible in freshness to the Uni at Sushi Dai, but very different -- Sushi Dai's Uni had a stronger sea water taste, while this one was milder and melted like egg yolk. My wife, who is normally not an Uni fan, tasted the very first piece of Uni she thoroughly enjoyed.

The other ingredients, though not as incredibly impressive as the Uni, were excellent as well.



And this is the great thing about having no expectations! At the end of the meal we were surprised to receive the final, crowning piece of the Deluxe set -- a whole broiled Anago Ipponyaki. The sea eel was so disproportionally big compared to the sushi rice, and most memorable was the way the soft meat melted on the tongue. With the aroma of the sweet Anago glaze filling the palate, it was like fine dessert, a fitting way to end the excellent meal as well as the entire trip.

Bill for two persons:
Lunch Tokujo Sushi	1280 yen
Lunch Chirashi	870 yen
Uramura Oysters	630 yen
(apply 5% tax)
Total	2919 yen

At last, time to say goodbye to a great city with a great culinary
tradition. We took the Limousine Bus to Narita Airport and concluded our
trip with no regrets, considering our mission fulfilled. We're already
looking forward to our next Japan trip, although it will likely be several
years away (Italy is now higher on the list). Next time, it will be to a
totally different Japan -- the Greater Kansai.

Owari!