Fish Market

 You have to see the fish market, Cindy kept telling me. So, we booked an interpreter and a taxi and headed for the Toyosu Market this morning at 4:30. The market is different from Cindy’s visit some 22 years ago with the tuna and swordfish sold in a new and separate facility and an outer market at which the tuna and other sea food have already passed through a chain of wholesalers, intermediate wholesalers, and possibly several other vendors before it is available to consumers.

I will try to take you through the presale and sale process. All of the frozen tuna are laid out on the floor of this massive facility at 3. The bidders (yellow card in hat) and assistance can then examine the fish for two hours to determine which the will bid on. A section in front of the tail has been cut off and this meat and meat at the base can be examined. The buyers use of a pick like gadget to separate a small piece they roll in their hands and may taste. The second video here shows the approach of one bidder who kept samples of the fish on which he wanted to bid.

The auction process appears chaotic as each individual fish is sold in only a few seconds. The auctioneer announces the fish and appears to announce a basic bid. The bidder use hand signals to respond (fingers to offer amount), the auctioneer makes a quick call, and they move on. As soon as a tag to indicate the buyer is slapped on the fish, helpers begin to drag the fish into collections that will be sent to the buyer.

There were a few sushi restaurant in the central facility so we decided to have sushi for breakfast. The upload and download time for this post are getting long so I will provide some images from the outer market in a future post.