Fish Market Tour

The chef showed his disbelief when seven of us carried around 20 catty (or 12 kg) of live seafood to his restaurant just round the corner near the Ap Lei Chau market in an afternoon. “I doubt you would be able to finish all of them…” he said, and at the end, he might be right, but we all had a great time travelling to that part of town for some unusual catch, and rest assured all leftovers (not a lot of them) were carried home and didn’t go to waste.

Tuna Lunch at a Fishing Port

It’s a pity that this time we couldn’t stop by the Katsuura Fish Market to witness the famous tuna auction that happened in weekday mornings – we were way too late for that by the time we drove over from Shirahama plus the market was closed on Saturday. But that didn’t stop us from making a pit stop at this small coastal town for a seafood lunch right by the fish market.

Kinmedai no Yuanyaki

It’s an impulse buy when I picked up a whole kinmedai (goldeneye snapper) at the Kagoshima Fish Market in the morning just before I was taking the return flight home that afternoon. I was there to check out the shokudo there for a quick breakfast early morning, then after the meal I saw this beautiful fish lying on the bench at one of the market stalls. Since I was going to cook something for the potluck dinner back home the same evening (“with any goodies I found from the trip”, as I told the host P and S), I bought the fish, asked the fishmonger to separate the head and tail from the body and wrap everything nicely in an icepack, and I then put it in a stainless steel box in my check-in luggage.

Making your own Nokke-don

After spending the night in the town of Aomori, we decided to walk over to Furukawa Market just a block away from our hotel for an early breakfast. The Furukawa Market (古川市場), officially known as Aomori Gyosai Center (青森魚菜センター), is where locals shop for fresh produce (Gyosai means fish and vegetables) with rows of stalls selling mostly seafood but also shops selling other grocery products. In addition, working like a co-operative, they also offered something called "Nokke-don"(のっけ丼) for people who want to "dine in".