Sunrise sashimi

A Japanese food blogger’s fish-market breakfast

By Liz Crain

March 25, 2008

Breakfast comes in many shapes around the world. In the West, traditional breakfasts include cereal, bacon and eggs, and toast. In Central America, breakfast often incorporates rice and beans, tortillas, and plantains. In Africa the meal frequently involves various grain gruels, while in Russia, blinis are often on the menu.

In Japan, plenty of folks consider tea, miso, and rice the best way to start the day. But not always. Chika, of the Japanese food blog She Who Eats, recently enjoyed an early-morning fish-market breakfast at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. Her morning menu: medium-fatty tuna sashimi, salmon roe and sea urchin on rice, and a bowl of miso soup with clams.

Chika admits that if she’d had it her way, she would have enjoyed her fishy breakfast as a wind-down treat after an all-nighter out on the town. But by eating the fish first, she had more stamina for wandering the market — and shopping for a take-home lunch.

Is there a breakfast you’d consider waking up before dawn and traveling an hour for?