Takamaru Sengyoten (fresh fish!)

Seafood Rice Bowls in Shinjuku.

Kaisen Don! If a food has "don" in the name it typically means it's something served on rice in a bowl. Kaisen Don is a seafood rice bowl. The guys at Takamaru Sengyo Ten are not messing aorund, either. They are serving up some seriously fresh fish. They have 3 locations in Tokyo and they all operate out of their stall at the Tsukiji Fish Market. So prices and types of fish will vary from day to day. Usually not toお dramatically but they'll vary.

Which means...

...that the menu is hastily written on paper and then slapped onto the wall. So nope, you're not going to find English here.  They MAY have an English menu but it might be inaccurate as the prices and types of fish change day to day.

Don't worry about it. I've got some advice for you.

This is the Maguro Set (tuna). It comes with some massive slices of some of the fattiest, softest maguro you will ever have. They also serve it with minced maguro with green onions on top. The fish in this set comes served over fine cut daikon radish. You can pour some say sauce into that small soy sauce bowl then dip your sashimi and then top it onto the rice bowl yourself. This is ALWAYS delicious. If you want to try sushi but are not super seafood adventurous this is your meal. You're going to love it. It comes with a massive bowl of Miso as well.

Next up we have the 3 Color Seafood Bowl. The 3 colors is a reference to the 3 different colors of fish that come with this set. Today's mash up had salmon, tuna and yellow tail. This one is also a great go to if you aren't super into fish but want to give this a try. If you ARE super into fish you will still love this. 

Hokkai Don! Hokkaido style donburi! Why Hokkaido? Because it's full of salmon, salmon roe (eggs) and uni (sea urchin). All of which come from the seas way up north. Sea Urchin is so freaking weird. It's taken me a few tries to learn to like it but now I'm hooked. Well, as hooked as you can be, it's not the cheapest. Small portions like the one in this donburi are manageable though. This one is for people who are pretty seafood adventurous.

There is Takao and our friend Ball, he's a chef visiting from Thailand. He runs a bar in Pataya called Looby's. If you're ever in Pataya stop by and say hello. He really wanted to eat some Uni while he was in town so we brought him here and luckily it was on the menu. Anyway, see that case of food behind them? Take a peek in there when you get in. If you see Oysters in there then you're in luck!

If they're in the case up front they'll be available. Just say "kaki fry" to the staff and the best deep fried oysters EVAH are going to show up. Homemade tartar sauce and all.

We were ridiculously full at this point but Ball came all this way so we got one last round of sushi. We got tako (octopus) and one more round of Uni. I dont know how to describe Uni. It's like butter that was made in the ocean inside a spiky little monster. The sushi menu changes daily and one piece is 300 (2.50 USD or so) yen.  Not the cheapest but not yet expensive for what you are getting. Come here for the rice bowls! Get the sushi if you have room left. I'll take you to some other restaurants for sushi soon enough.

Some quick notes on the soy sauce. The 3 on the left are just 3 different brands of Soy Sauce. The one with the green cap is Yuzu Soy Sauce. It's Soy Sauce with a hint of citrus flavor in it. Very good on white meat sashimi (not for the maguro). Last up the Bull Dog Sauce is a type of sweet Worcestershire Sauce. That's for the fried oysters.

I constantly hear people complaining about the lack of English menus here. I get it. It's frustrating BUT may I draw your attention to all of that red writing at the bottom? That says "himawari menu".  That means kind of like a daily specials menu. They don't have an english translation because they don't have a standard Japanese menu. That menu is probably thrown together and shoved into that plastic sleeve as soon as they know which fish they'll have that day. That's why it tastes so freaking good. And also why they don't have time to translate it into English every morning. So don't let me catch you complaining about it.

One more uni shot. So weird looking!

Enjoy!