My 3 hour wait for amazing sushi

Ever since I watched the documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, I have had my own daydreams about chewing on a big piece of fatty tuna sushi, slowly savouring the taste and texture.

Since Jiro's restaurant is a crazy expensive place to dine in, I decided to try another highly raved but reasonably priced sushi restaurant at Tsukiji market, Sushi Dai. The only caveat is that reviews online mention that queuing for Sushi Dai takes about 2 hours, on average.

The reviews did not mention that Tsukiji market is darn hard to navigate especially in the dreary cold rain. Since I got lost and was cold, wet and miserable on my first attempt at finding the place, I ended up at another sushi restaurant on the outskirts of the market with my travel companions for the day. It was a good platter of sushi, but I was hankering for the best.

Sushi, not from Sushi Dai

After checking the weather report for the following day, I decided that I will not leave Tokyo without eating at Sushi Dai, and promptly made my way to the market for a second time. This time I had the good sense to ask for directions at the information counter (that was closed the day before) and successfully joined the snaking queue for Sushi Dai.

30 minutes into the queue, I overheard the lady in charge of the queue telling someone that the wait would be approximately 3 hours. I died a little inside and had an internal debate on the possibility of leaving and eating at Sushi Daiwa instead. Eventually my crazy, illogical side won and I stayed in the queue with my trusty kindle for entertainment (since I, and only I was crazy enough to want to queue for this, I had no companion).

2 hours into the queue, the midday sun was out and the sweet lady came out with umbrellas for us. By then, quite a few had given up and left. I was famished and imagined myself passing out. And then the queue moved and I moved on to the queue that was right outside the restaurant and in the shade. This.was.pure.torture. We could see the lucky 12 happily enjoying their meal while we stood and waited outside.

Finally it was my turn to enter after waiting for 3 and a half hours. Once seated and served some delicious miso soup, the brutal wait flew out of my mind and it was my turn to eat some sushi! I chose the omakase chef set, which included 11 pieces of sushi chosen by the chef, plus one additional piece of my choice.

Fatty tuna (toro)

Sea bream 

Sea urchin (uni)

Horse mackerel (aji)

Egg (tamago)

Clam, so fresh it was still moving (hokkigai)

Lean tuna (akami)

Baby prawns (amaebi)

Tuna rolls

Baby squid

Everything was amazing.At the end of the meal, I chose to have another piece of toro. Oh and if anyone was counting, two pictures are missing because I forgot to take the picture of my red snapper and eel due to my hunger and eagerness to eat.