Tsukiji Fish Market & Akihabara

 Tsukiji Fish Market

When i did a search on the best sushi in tokyo, Tsukiji Fish Market's Sushi Dai often came up.
The reviews read "sushi for breakfast" and mentioned 2-3 hour waits. For me- eating sushi at 6am doesn't sound like it would agree with me and waking up at 4am sounded even worse. But since i was in Tokyo, i might as well get the best i could!!! AND it was awesome!

We "slept in" and headed off to Tsujiki around 7:30am. The JR train does not take you to the fish market, so we took the subway Oedo line which was just around the corner from my hotel (Sunroute) in Shinjuku. The Oedo line took several stops and in less than an hour, we arrived at Tsukiji. exit. (If you're unsure if you're on the right train, if you see Roppongi, you know u're heading in the right direction!)

Exiting the fish market exit of the train station

u will see this sign. i love how there's a spot missing from all the finger pointing?

When we got there, we hadn't decided yet if which place we were gonna eat at, cuz there's quite a few options. But really it comes down to two places. Sushi Dai or Daiwa Sushi. Sushi Dai had two lines- one right outside the window of the restaurant that seats roughly 10 people TOTAL. and then the PART TWO line around the corner.

Daiwa had maybe a handful of people waiting.
I did a quick search on my rental iphone on which was better. Both have great reviews, but as one reviewer put it- For almost the same price, sushi dai has a longer wait, but gives you more.
Here's a pic i took of the Sushi Dai menu

3900 Yen, you get 10 pieces of nigiri sushi chefs selection, one extra piece you can choose, egg, a roll sushi and miso soup.


Compare it to Daiwa

It's 3500 yen but you only get a total of 7 nigiri sushi, one roll and miso soup.

 So we stood in line in the scorching sun for 2.5 hours at Sushi Dai. Luckily once we got passed a certain point, the head waitress came and gave us umbrellas to shield the sun. how sweet! We chatted with her about the trip and she was such a cool lady. We also chatted up some ladies who'd come before and they telling us it's worth the wait, but how she didn't know how much longer she can keep coming here to endure the lines. With all us foreigners reading blogs about how you should eat here, the locals can't catch a break!

Do everyone a favor and while you're inside and while everyone is staring from outside (they will stick their head under the noren to look at you

), and don't take forever taking pictures of your food. Snap shoot and be over with it and EAT!. that's why i loved my rental iphone4s. I could snap a picture quickly and the pictures came out pretty decent. There were bloggers in there who waited until all their sushi was made to take a complete shot of the omakase, and had to take like 10 different angles. No wonder the wait can be 3-4 hours!!!

My AWESOME chef

Yummy Soup

Here's all the delicious sushi my mother and i got to eat after waiting almost 3 hours!
We got one of the larger Omakase set at 3900 yen, and one smaller set for 2500 yen.

This is the menu you can choose your extra piece from:

My mother choose the baby shrimp sushi which she enjoyed

Everything was amazing and our chef made it even more wonderful with some funny chatter and tasty choices!


After lunch we were gonna make the trip to Akasaka to see the new Sky Tree building, but didn't get the chance. We did see it from afar. If you get a chance, you should try to check it out or go to the Tokyo Tower. I hear the that the skytree has a lot of cool shops there as well. Akasaka is a great place to check out the old temples and souvenier gifts as well in their bazaars.

I did want to check out Akihabara-"Electronic town". It was cool to check out, but it's geared more for techies. Here's a few pictures i took.

 To satisfy my love of desserts, i did see some very pretty sweet things right outside the train station at a shopping place called Atre2.

 For Gundam lovers, there's a Gundam Cafe near the train station as well!

Shinjuku

Shinjuku

I really enjoyed staying in Shinjuku for our Tokyo trip. *See my hotel review in my previous blog called 5 days in Tokyo.
You can spend a whole day just in Shinjuku if you wanted. Although there might be not a lot to do sightseeing wise, there's plenty of shopping and eating to do!!!
*I read you can get a view of the city in the skyscraper part of town at the Metropolitan Government Office observation decks.

Alot of the shopping can be done just around Shinjuku Station.
At the south of the station there's Lumine1 where u can find Dean and Deluca

 beautiful Laderee (besides macarons, u can get pastries, hot chocolate and frozen yogurt!)

Lumine 2 is on the east side of station, where you can find more trendy clothing spots and a few eateries.

Inside the station there's a few convenience stores and a NYC treat Doughnut Plant on the southside!

But i didn't find the creme brulee donut, which is on my bucket list.


***ALICE IN WONDERLAND CAFE

Northeast of the station, u will find the Odakyu/HALC shopping center along with BIC camera.

One the bottom floor of this center was the Alice and Wonderland Cafe which my friend recommended to me and i loved! It was almost like a secret world with their sliding door that leads to a beautiful cafe of Alice theme. Here's their entrance

Door Opens

Awesome fake food displays outfront

 Fun interior!!!

 Love the hearts chandelier and cute alice outfits worn by the servers

 Beautiful story book menu!!!

 They charge you about a 500 Yen cover charge, but they give you an appetizer for free.
We got a cute cup of ratatoulle which was delicious! I took home their cute coasters

 Got the Carbonara Pasta plate

 And Cheshire Cat dessert.

The food wasn't too pricey. The dishes were good and very cute, but nothing amazing tastewise.
Their hours that were posted on the back of their flyer: October 2012.
Lunch 11-3pm
Cafe Time 3pm-5pm
Dinner 5pm to 11pm



***TAKASHIMAYA SQUARE

Another wonderful meal i had in Shinjuku was at Takashiyama Square at the tonkastu specialty place called Katsukura. My friend told me about how they have a pork cutlet that melts in your mouth delicious!
Takashimaya Square is just a bit south of the Southern exit of shinjuku station. It was about a 10 minute walk from my hotel (Sunroute Hotel). Exiting my hotel, i just had to head right and cross the bridgewalkway by  and it lead us directly to Takashimaya square.
To work up our appetite, we shopped around first- they have a HUGE Tokyu Hands here where i found a bunch of cute stuff:

***KATSUKURA


Katsukura is located on the top floor of Takashimaya with several other restaurants.They specialize in pork cutlet "Tonkastu".

 My friend recommended to get the Toen Tonkatsu which is their specialty.

 I got the smaller size Fillet and my mother got the smaller Sirloin. Her sirloin was actually just as good as the fillet and might have been a little juicier than mine (i think mine was done a little too long). The meals come with a ridiculous amount of sides, so the smaller cutlet size was plenty for us.

 Three sauces. One is the salad dressing (yuzu flavor) and there's a regular tonkatsu sauce and one that is sweeter.

 Side of tofu and you grind your own sesame seeds! Loved this touch!

 Add your tonkatsu sauce after.

 Yummy miso soup! More than just a piece of tofu floating around like u find in LA.

 MY AWESOME MEAL!

This was the most fanciest Tonkatsu meal i've ever had. It wasn't crazy expensive either. It was very elaborate and really delicious!!! Katsukura is a chain, so if you run into one in Japan, i would highly recommend you try it!!! (I spotted one again when i was at the Kyoto train station, but didn't get a chance to eat it again)

***MACARON HEAVEN!!!


On our last day in Tokyo, we did a little more exploring of Shinjuku. We hadn't yet ventured east of the station and there, we found even more goodies. If u walk a few blocks east, you'll find some cool department stores, Isetan being a big one with all the fancy stuff. But the JACKPPOT i found was the DESSERT MECCA at the basement of Isetan. It was full of DESSERTS GALORE, including quite a few places that had MACARONS, which seems even more popular in japan than in the states. Japanese love the French!!! The downside was that Isetan DOES NOT ALLOW PHOTOS. You can probably play dumb and snap a few, but they really frown upon it. And it killed me, cuz it's a photographers DREAM. Everything looks pristine. Cakes are perfectly decorated, cookies are beautifully packaged, beautiful colors everywhere. And did i mention that Tokyo is full of beautiful people too- perfectly make up'd faces and stylish (although some funky) clothes. There's also a savory foods section and even their piles of salads and pastas and fried stuff are perfectly stacked.

If you love desserts, ISETAN's confectionary floor is a MUST!!! I'm sure i could come here everyday for year, try something new and love it =)