Tsukiji Sushidai Honkan / すし大 本館

The three omakase sushi lunches I’ve had during this Tokyo trip were all great for their respective price points ($50 Ginza, $35 Tsukiji, $23 Aoyama), with the Tsukiji Sushidai Honkan / すし大 本館 meal falling squarely between the other two in terms of number of courses, rice quality, and overall experience. The fish quality at all three lunches was high – the differences were more about variety and creativity.

Frankly, I was astounded at what you get for $35. Unless I counted wrong, it was 11 items (consisting of nigiri, maki and tamago) plus miso soup, with one of the maki being an option between uni and ikura (my companion chose the sea urchin – I went with the fish eggs), and a final nigiri where the master gives you the option to choose any fish – mackerel lover that I am I asked for sanma (too early in the season) and settled for a beautiful piece of saba. My buddy went with a gorgeous piece of fatty tuna.

Since this shop is right outside the old Tsukiji market, the freshness and quality are high, and each piece had all the flavor and appropriate texture you could hope for. Tsukiji Sushidai Honkan / すし大 本館 is a huge tourist attraction and luckily I was able to find the correct one on Google Maps – there are a few places with similar names.

After our Turret Coffee experience, my pal and I headed over to the sushiya and arrived just after their 10:30am opening to find that we’d missed the first seating. However, there were only two groups ahead of us, and we were seated within 10 minutes. The somewhat nondescript restaurant has three levels, each with a sushi bar; we were shepherded to the basement, where two spots were waiting for us at the counter. Nearly all customers were foreigners – and they are catered to with English menus.
Service was friendly, and they do have some English, but if in doubt, just point at the menu. When we left, there was a line down the block.