Gallery: Tsukiji 2004-01

Tsukiji Fish Market
aka Tokyo Metropolitan Central Market

The Tokyo Metropolitan Fish Market at Tsukiji is the largest fish market in the world.

It is located in the Minato-ku area of Tokyo, right by the Tokyo bay. It is a sprawling complex, immensely huge.

The fresh tuna auction in this page is being held in a large covered auditorium approximately a football field in size.

The frozen tuna auction is held next door in an equally large building. These are just two buildings in the entire complex of perhaps half a hundred.

NOTE: Effective May 9, 2005, the tuna auction has been closed to tourists and photographers. The outside stalls in the fish market remain open. For more information, see my blog entry.

All of the tuna are given a lot number as well as a sticker that indicates which fishing company brought it in. There is an inspection period before the actual auctioning begins.

All of the merchants carry small grappling hooks which are visible in some of the photographs. These are used for everything from inspecting the fish, dragging buckets of water, carrying ice, and moving anthropologists out of the way.

The tails of the fish are cut off and a small slice of tail area exposed. This allows the merchants to check the quality of the fish before buying. A deep red color indicates freshness.

The merchants also look for a degree of pinkness. This indicates that there is also a high level of fat content in the fish. Japanese buyers tend to like higher fat levels, which makes the taste fuller and richer.

Unlike the United States, it is illegal to use carbon monoxide treatment to make the flesh artifically redder.

If you buy nice red tuna at a high-end Tokyo sushi restaurant, you can be assured it was purchased that morning in Tsukiji and never frozen.

If you buy a nice red tuna sashimi in Minnesota, you can be assured that it was frozen and that it was most probably gassed when defrosted.

To see more photographs in this series, click on the next button to the bottom right.