This post is a part of the 2015 New Beer Every Day Beer Diary Challenge, #ottbeerdiary. Over the course of 2015, I will be trying a new beer every day. Please read the background in the link above, and enjoy reading about the most recently tasted beers below. If you’d like to join the challenge as well, let me know in the comments below, and be sure to check out Grown-up Travel Guide and his #grownupbeerdiary, where Andy Higgs came up with the diary format in use below. You can catch up on all of our posts as part of the challenge under the tag ottbeerdiary.
Day 313: November 9, 2015
Diary entry:
No late start today. We set the alarm for 3:00 AM to ensure we made it to the Tsukiji Fish Market well before 4AM so we could get in to see the auction.
We were approaching the sign-up area round 3:45, when we already saw people walking towards us. Uh oh!
Turns out that 4:00 AM is no longer good enough if you want to see the auction. Both groups were already fully ticketed by 3:40 AM today!
Rather than take defeat as a kick in the teeth, we decided to take our auction failure as an opportunity, and headed over to Sushi Dai to have some of the best sushi in all of Tokyo. We got into line around 4:15, and were already around the corner, almost crossing into the next block!
But what the heck. We’re already awake and there, and the line will only get longer when the metro starts running again, so we decided to stay in line vs. go back for more sleep.
We wound up being in the day’s fourth seating, entering the restaurant around 7:15 AM. There are 14 seats, with the first seating at 5:00 AM, and each seating takes around 45 minutes. If you get there and are wondering about your potential wait, you can use that to do the math…
When we got into line at 4:15, there were only two people in line for Daiwa Sushi, two doors up from Sushi Dai. Daiwa is also very well-known and respected, so if you’re not fully set on Sushi Dai, you can consider Daiwa if their line is still reasonable. By the time we were seating at Sushi Dai, the Daiwa line was also quite long.
After our outstanding sushi breakfast, we wandered the fish market for a while, then headed back to our AirBnB for a much needed nap.
Refreshed, we went on to continue our food journey through Tokyo. We went for a late lunch at Kagari, one of the best locations for ramen in Tokyo. A tine shop with only eight seats, we’ve heard of 3+ hour waits for lunch there, but arriving a bit late in the lunch window, we only had to wait around 45 minutes. Again, well worth the wait!
Our post-ramen adventure took us through a series of Japanese prefecture satellite shops, which are located around the Ginza / Yurakcho area. The original idea was to go on the hunt for different ice creams, but this was expanded into seeking out some beers from around Japan as well. I was amazed at the selections!
We hit Tokyo Disneyland for the after-six passport to Tokyo DisneySEA to pick up some Christmas merchandise and see the new shows for this year, and then finished off with an Izakaya dinner at Warayakiya in Roppongi.
The Beer:
Name: Okinawa IPA
Style: American IPA
Producer: Nanto Brewery
Alcohol content: 5.0%
Bottle size: 0.35 l
Purchased from: Washita Shop – Satellite store for Okinawa Prefecture in Tokyo
Okinawa IPA by Nanto Brewery. From the Washita shop of Okinawan products in Yurakcho. A very decent bitter IPA. Surprisingly good. By far the best from Okinawa I’ve had.
