A Local Wholesale Market in Niigata

[Hiroyuki]

While talking with the chef of this sushi shop, I told him that I wanted to visit the wholesale market that he goes to every business day to get fish and other seafood for use in his shop. He informed me that a festival would be held there on November 11. What a good opportunity to visit the wholesale market!

So, here is a report.

The festival was held from nine in the morning until noon. I arrived there around 8:30. People were still making preparations, and there were few visitors yet.

The main building of the market:

Stalls in front of the main building:

Kombu, herring roe, cod roe, migaki nishin (gutted, beheaded, and dried herring), among others

Salmon, shirasu (baby sardines), sujiko (salmon roe still in the sac), ikura, among others

At the entrance, they sold taiyaki, anbo, sasa dango, and other sweets.

Inside the main building, they sold:

Trimmings of tai(?) (sea breams) and buri(?) (adult yellowtails)

Boiled octopuses

Kamasu (barracudas)

Meji maguro (young bluefin tuna) (left), buri (adult yellowtail) (right)

Inada (young yellowtail)

Kama (collars) of hon maguro (bluefin tuna)

Left: Ayu (sweet fish) with roe in them

Middle: Ma aji (Japanese jack mackerel)

Middle bottom: Seashell (what is it?)

Right: Shirako (sperm sacs) of madara (Pacific cod)

Left: Kinpachi (English name?)

Right: Inada (young yellowtails)

Left: Madara (Pacific cod), very expensive, 5,000 yen!

Right: Cod

Fresh salmon

Left: Fresh cod roe

Right: Madara hiraki boshi (Pacific cod opened and dried)

Sorry, not a good photo.

Left: Ama ebi (sweet shrimp)

Right: Aranami (what does it mean?)

Zuwai gani (queen crab, snow crab)

More photos to come!

[Domestic Goddess]

Wow! Nice pics Hiroyuki. Can't wait to see more of the market.

[Hiroyuki]

One of the major events on the site that I wanted to see:

Maguro kaitai (= dissection) show

80-kg bluefin tuna lying on the long two cooking boards.

The box on the floor contains a bigger one, weighing 100 kg.

I had to wait until the show began at 9:30.

I went to the fruit and vegetables section of the building.

Nameko mushroom. In Japan, almost everyone likes nameko.

Cauliflower and nozawana (often pickled)

Daikon (sorry, blurry)

Other vegetables

Posters on the wall

Fruits in the world. What are they?

Here they are:

Durian:

Shinko nashi (pear)

I sampled all of the four or five varieties of apple:

I liked the Sun Jona Gold (the leftmost one) the best. It was sweet and a little tart.

I also sampled all of the four or five varieties of mikan.

I forgot which one I liked the best. Probably the Arita mikan.

Flowers and other plants

I returned to the fish section.

Boards showing different species of tai (left) and ebi (shrimp and prawn):

Salmon and trout:

Maguro and katsuo (bonito):

Still more to come.

[Hiroyuki]

Before the maguro kaitai show, anko tsurushi giri (hanging and cutting) show was held at 9:10.

Anko (monkifish) hanging on a bar:

One thing you must be aware of is that anko is highly valued in Japan.

Belly side:

Anko soup, 500 yen a bowl:

200 servings only.

I just had to have one.

More anko flesh than I imagined!

The show began.

He was like a comedian, entertaining the spectators as he proceeded.

Skin:

Towards the end

The final cut

Needless to say, none of it will be discarded.

Clam and sanma (saury) tsukamidori for 300 yen each

What they grabbed once with their hands was what they got.

Bananas and pineapples

They were very generous, providing huge amounts of free samples.

Some more to come.

[melonpan]

hullo,

thank you so much for sharing. its a nice slice of a different world...

looking forward to more that you share.

[Hiroyuki]

First the apologies: I don't know why, but most of the tuna photos came out rather blurry. Posted here are better ones than others.

The 80-kg bluefin tuna being cut by the master:

The bigger one, 100-kg. Even the five professionals had difficulty placing it on the cutting board.

The master used three knives to cut it: the long one that looks like a Japanese sword, the smaller one, and the serrated one used to cut off the fin.

He showed a back side cut.

The back side also had some fat in it.

They gave the spectators all the nakaochi (flesh on the backbone). They were very generous! And the nakaochi was super tasty.

(Sorry, not a good photo)

The belly side:

O-toro!!:

I wanted to buy some tuna, but the long line of people was quite daunting, so no tuna for me.

Crabmeat soup, 100 yen per bowl if I remember correctly:

This is all that I bought at the festival:

Top: Amaebi, 500 yen per bag (very inexpensive!)

Bottom left: Nigiri, 500 yen per pack. I bought two of them.

Center: Chirahi, also 500 yen per pack.

Right: Cod roe, 1000 yen. Looks very delicious. I've never bought such big ones.

[milgwimper]

Hiroyuki, thank you so much for the photographs and explainations! It is so facinating and hunger inducing.

[Hiroyuki]

Thanks everyone for their comments.

Domestic Goddess: It took me hours to select and post all the photos, but my report is nothing to compare with your recent one on the rice festival.

[torakris]

Thanks for the pictures! The prices on some of those things are just incredibly cheap!

How often do they have these festivals? Is the wholesale market a place you can shop at any day of the week?

I have a huge ichiba (wholesale market place close to me), I need top see if they have festivals like this as well. Most of their business for the general public is very early on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I have heard the crowds are awful so I have never been. I have been there early-ish on weekdays though and haven't been too impressed.

Most places stop selling/are sold out by 10am and the ones that are open all day long have prices similar to any supermarket. Though the fish area is impeccably clean the rest of it isn't so much and the meat section just looks iffy.

It is a great place to go though when you are looking for snacks for 200+ kids though.

[Hiroyuki]

Thanks for the pictures! The prices on some of those things are just incredibly cheap!

How often do they have these festivals? Is the wholesale market a place you can shop at any day of the week?

I have a huge ichiba (wholesale market place close to me), I need top see if they have festivals like this as well. Most of their business for the general public is very early on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I have heard the crowds are awful so I have never been. I have been there early-ish on weekdays though and haven't been too impressed.

Most places stop selling/are sold out by 10am and the ones that are open all day long have prices similar to any supermarket. Though the fish area is impeccably clean the rest of it isn't so much and the meat section just looks iffy.

It is a great place to go though when you are looking for snacks for 200+ kids though.

←

Unfortunately, this is an annual festival, and is only the fourth this year, according to the flyer. I'm not sure if you can shop there any day of the week.

My city is quite small, with a population of about 62,000, and that reflects the size of the wholesale market.

No one has mentioned the absence of meat in the wholesale market. No meat there! (I'm sure there are some meat wholesalers somewhere in the city.)

[helenjp]

My city has two ichiba - the one furthest away from us was advertising a festival later this month, so maybe it's a nationwide initiative!

Snacks for the whole school - yes, that's about when most people I know go to the ichiba too. I have heard that it's a good place to get big bags of flour if you bake your own bread though.

Thanks for all the photos - by the way, Hiroki, did you try the NZ Kiwano? I've never been sure how to eat them, though most people seem to use them in salads and sunomono as a kind of cross between cucumber and pomegranate.

[Hiroyuki]

My city has two ichiba - the one furthest away from us was advertising a festival later this month, so maybe it's a nationwide initiative!

Snacks for the whole school - yes, that's about when most people I know go to the ichiba too. I have heard that it's a good place to get big bags of flour if you bake your own bread though.

Thanks for all the photos - by the way, Hiroki, did you try the NZ Kiwano? I've never been sure how to eat them, though most people seem to use them in salads and sunomono as a kind of cross between cucumber and pomegranate.

←

Sorry, Helen, the kiwanos were from the United States, not from your native country.

One of my regrests there is that I spent most of my time in the fish section, and I was unable to sample all of the fruits in the "Fruits in the World" section. (Probably they were not very generous in offering free samples because of the prices of these fruits.) I managed to sample two or three, but I found none of them very appetizing.

[torakris]

Since Helen mentioned a matsuri at her ichiba as well, I pulled up the homepage for the closest one (about 20 minutes from house) and sure enough they also had a matsuri in October. Here are a couple pages of pictures, it looks not much different than Hiroyuki's. There are just too many people there for me though, I think I will pass next year..

[Hiroyuki]

Since Helen mentioned a matsuri at her ichiba as well, I pulled up the homepage for the closest one (about 20 minutes from house) and sure enough they also had a matsuri in October. Here are a couple pages of pictures, it looks not much different than Hiroyuki's. There are just too many people there for me though, I think I will pass next year..

←

I agree. I don't want to go there, either. Just too many people. I hate crowd. I didn't when I lived in Tokyo, but living here in a sleepy little city will make you hate crowd.

[jean_genie]

Wow, thanks for the amazing photos Hiroyuki! The fishing town I lived in Noto-hanto (Ishikawa) last year had amazing food festivals like this one. Sigh, even though I am a big city person and love where I am now, your photos make me miss many things about the inaka (rural) that we don't experience in the city.

Edited November 18, 2007 by jean_genie (log)

[Hiroyuki]

I went to this festival again this year.

Photos can be found here.