kuromon ichiba market

i've been to tsukiji market and nishiki market, so i figured why not go to kuromon ichiba market too? after all, we weren't able to go there the last time and we didn't have anything in our plan for the morning. we had dinner appointment that night, but nothing in the morning. so... to the market it is. husband also didn't want to eat a lot in the morning because he wanted to have his stomach enough for dinner. so i guess a little snack here and there would be perfect.

there were many entrances and this is just one of them

giant seafood dummy

and another one

so.. if tsukiji was a whole market without any shops and nishiki was a street long of food and another street long of shops, kuromon was something in between. though mostly it had food stalls, but there were some shops too. at tsukiji, there was some eating space. at nishiki, there was no dedicated eating space. but at kuromon, they provided the market maps, the market booklet (you could find out which stall sells which stuff) and even visitor space where you could sit and dine and go to toilet. and it was easier to find your way since they put big seafood dummy as marker. you just need to look up and find out which one you see, crab or lobster or something else.

the market map. see how big it is? all the colored dots were stalls

look how big those lobsters!

we decided to walk along the long street from the beginning to the end before deciding which one to try. if you wanted to get some ideas about what to eat, you can watch paolo's videos (just search paolo from tokyo in youtube). usually, his choice was appealing, but i didn't want to eat the whole shisamo fish, and i've tried korokke before so i didn't want to eat the same thing. so we ended up buying another grilled oyster. the one at kuromon was bigger than the one from nishiki, but i think the nishiki was juicier, but just a tiny bit. but it's more fulfilling eating once from kuromon, so price wise, it was cheaper buying just one for the two of us. then i saw the same stall sold scallops and octopus with quail. while we ordered them both, so while we waited the oyster to be heated, i bought the octopus. for the same price, i only got one in nishiki, but i got two in kuromon. but, visually, i could see that the one from kuromon was less red, and it affected the taste. it was less sweet than the one from nishiki.

fuqu fish

random flower stalls and it was fragrant!

we didn't get to buy oyster from nishiki, so we bought one from kuromon. we got three in a plate. i only had oyster in melbourne, so compared the one from melbourne it tasted similar. but i've tried the grilled butter one from tsukiji, and i think i like that one better. i found some stalls that sold fuqu aka blowfish, but husband told me not to eat that. he was afraid that we might get the poisonous one. then i bought some sushi. since husband didn't eat raw sushi (and unfortunately most sushi place in japan sold raw sushi), i didn't get the chance to eat any sushi yet.. so i decided to just bought the ordinary salmon nigiri one. the price was quite expensive, but even here sushi was expensive as well. and the last one i bought was cremia ice cream.

grilled scallops

oyster

i've seen cremia ice cream from anakjajan instagram. at first i thought what's the difference? ice cream would be ice cream. i've bought ordinary ice cream on the street and it tasted just okay. but out of curiosity plus it had chocolate option, so i bought it. and turned out it was different. the ice cream might taste similar, if not slightly creamier, but the cone was the one that make it different. it was crunchy but there was soft taste to it. not super crunchy like cracker, but like cookies. it was really nice. i never ate ice cream cone before since most cones were dry like crackers, but this one was different. i could finish one myself. totally worth to try.

octopus with quail egg

salmon sushi

okay.. compared from all three markets, tsukiji was the biggest but also most confusing. some of it was very wet and smelly since they sold seafood. not all stalls provide eating space too. while nishiki and kuromon were considerably slightly smaller and easier to walk around. nishiki was completely straight so it was easy to stroll around, and it was the cleanest among all. kuromon was somewhere in between. it was bigger than nishiki, and it had some wet areas and clean areas. it offered visitors lounge, and mostly you could eat in the stall. but the food was really similar to nishiki. some kuromon had it cheaper since it was bigger or comes in more amount, but it didn't always taste better. i like both the sushi and salmon bowl from kuromon and nishiki. but i like grilled scallops and octopus from nishiki better. overall, kuromon offered a lot of seafood options, more than nishiki. it also offered many traditional sweets and beef meat too.

cremia ice cream

i've seen people bringing their kids along. and just like nishiki, even though you could use strollers, i advise you just use your carrier instead since it could be super crowded and the alley was not that wide. and since most stalls offered raw seafood (well.. there were some fried food, but most seafood were raw), i think it's better to wait until your kids are older to go there. anyway, it was totally a good place to do some food fiesta, but again.. chose wisely since they sold it in pieces, so you might end up paying more than the meal you could get from restaurant.