Jinja and Shoga: Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

Today we went to the fish market for brunch...which actually turned into lunch after we waited in line for just over an hour. The local market in Shimizu has a pretty famous donburi (rice bowl) and sashimi shop, and it's always really crowded. Seeing as today has been really rainy, we thought we'd beat the crowd and get there around 11....but everyone else had the same idea! Needless to say, we were both starving by the time we got our food, and they probably could've served us scraps without any complaints being proferred at that point. Still, it was definitely worth the wait for what we got! A rather pricey everyday lunch, but since we hadn't gone there in over 2 years and haven't been going out to eat very much lately, I figure that the ￥3500 (about $35-40) price tag was justified. Especially when you consider the amount they serve!
The sushi 'chef' (do you still call him at chef at such a casual locale?) here was amazingly efficient and precise: he was the only one preparing fish, and every block of tuna that we watched him cut ended up in perfect identical blocks. He also looked like he could work as a very proper butler in some large mansion, but that may just have been due to the sweater vest he was wearing. Why a sweater vest in the middle of summer, I'm not sure, but he didn't appear to be overheated at all.
After we finished, we stopped on the way out of the market and bought our (much cheaper) dinner: 2 aji no himono. Aji is the name of the fish--I have no idea what it is in English? And himono describes how the fish is prepared: half dried and lightly salted. For 2 fish, we only paid ￥440. It should've been ￥480, but Yuki gets a ￥20/fish discount from this particular booth, since he's been going to them forever. They actually call him 'Sakana-kun', which means Fish boy. Apparently they remembered him because he'd go there by himself to buy fish sometimes, and not many single guys usually do so. When he showed up with me the first time, the ladies said to him 'Sakana-kun, you got married!' They're all really sweet and also have the best himono in the market, discount or no discount.


The Line



















The sushi master







Lunch: Yuki's sashimi set





My donburi



Some of the market selection











Sharks!



Our dinner: Aji no himono

I realized that it somewhat resembles a filleted bat, but it's really very tasty!