Inside Tokyo's Legendary Fish Market!

We're in Japan at the world-famous Tsukiji Fish Market, one of the biggest food markets in the entire world. This place is a culinary playground, a food lover's paradise. There are hundreds of vendors to choose from and they're serving everything from the freshest fish to the highest quality wagyu. We're gonna take you through the market and show you some of my favorite bites and we're joined by a special guest, a two-time Michelin star chef with over 27 restaurants and 13 omakase bars, Chef Philip Franklin Lee. This is like one of my favorite markets in the entire world. I've been buying fish here from over a decade. I'm gonna show you all the dope spots. Well, you heard it here folks. Let's go eat. Let's go. We talked with locals about how the Tsukiji market isn't the spot where the big fish auctions happen anymore. That part moved to a newer, shinier building across the city. Still, walking through these narrow alleyways, you realize the energy didn't leave with the forklifts. The vendors are still slicing crazy fresh tuna, stacking trays of uni to the sky. There's fresh produce everywhere and that feeling that even though the official auction moved on, the real flavor of Tokyo stayed behind. As we explore deeper, we stumbled into vendor after vendor with food that looked too good to ignore. Now, before we start to eat, one thing you should know about me is my absolute love for sushi. I came to Japan to experience this. Well, more of a weakness for sushi. I could eat sushi for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This isn't a game to me. If there's good sushi to be had, I will find it and I will eat it. That's why when we stumbled upon this hole-in-the-wall sushi vendor run by an old Japanese couple, I knew I had to go nuts deep. Sushi counter only has three seats. This is the smallest sushi bar I've ever seen and I'm a huge fan of it. First order of business, whole Japanese beer spoons. So, we discovered this tiny hole-in-the-wall sushi counter with only three seats. They buy the fish directly from the market and they serve it to you here. This is kind of like an ode to Anthony Bourdain. I feel like this is something he would discover and just fall in love with. I find myself saying this a lot, like this is the reason I came to Japan, but moments like these are really the reason I came to Japan and this is really the reason I made content. You can't get this anywhere else in the world. This is something that you can exclusively only find and experience when you can and it's also tiny. You actually have to duck to walk in the entrance here. Dude, it's so awesome to be here. Any restaurant that you have to duck to get into is gonna be good. Should I get fatty or medium? Medium. Can I do one medium, one fatty salmon? This is steamed monkfish liver. Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. This is what they call foie gras of the sea. It does taste like foie gras of the sea. You know, at first I was like, I don't like that. No, it's killer. So, hamachi is typically farm-raised. Only in the winter you can get buri. Buri is essentially if hamachi is caught wild over a certain size. It's kind of like how a pig becomes a hog. Whenever it's feral over a certain size, actual characteristics start to change and so that's what we're having here. This is buri. This is why you invite a Michelin star sushi chef in Japan because he will explain the intricacies of the fish. See, it's a firmer texture. It has more of a meaty flavor, a little bit more musk to it. Dude, I could actually shed tears of happiness right now. I want to sit here for six hours, eat as many pieces of nigiri as I can and drink as many beers as possible until I pass out. Ask him if the uni is fresh and good today. Oh, okay, okay. Good. Good? Okay. Well, that was the least surprising response of all time. So, he said no sauce, no wasabi, straight up ready to go. Chef, where's the uni from? Hokkaido? I've never seen uni prepared like this. I have, but this is, I'm excited. Let's go. Love you, brother. I think that's the best uni I've had. Very good. Wow. Arigato. So cold and sweet. Cold, sweet, super springy. The right amount of vinegar on the rice really balanced the sweetness of the uni. It's a good call, no soy sauce, no wasabi. You don't need it. Yeah. Oftentimes, when they say no soy sauce, no wasabi, that's because they've already put the right amount on. This one, he didn't put any on. He's just like, yo, you like uni? Don't put anything on it. Just the uni. The freshness of the uni is here for itself. Whenever you're eating sushi, you don't want to dip the rice in the soy sauce. The reason is the rice is already seasoned with vinegar. The rice is a complete product. It is a flavor profile. The fish, you want to season with soy sauce. You want to eat seasoned fish with vinegared rice. You don't want to dip the rice in the soy sauce because then all you're getting is soy sauce flavored rice with unseasoned fish. Yeah. Arigato, Chef. I'm in love. I'm in love with Japan. I'm in love with Tokyo. I'm in love with this three-seat sushi bar. That was just everything I dreamed of when coming to Japan. And sitting there, eating sushi directly from that dude's hands with Phil was one of the best experiences in my life, honestly. Incredible. Just when Jack thought things couldn't get any better, out of the shadows emerged a tuna vendor unlike any other. The fattest, most succulent tuna you've ever seen, freshly caught every morning. I mean, holy ****. Have you ever seen such ridiculously dank tuna in your entire life? We're at the Tsukiji Fish Market right now in Tokyo. We just hit up the most popular tuna spot. Look at how insane that tuna looks. We got three different types. You ready? Give me the soy sauce on that piece. Oh my god. Look at that. Bottles. Killer, killer. No, it's bad. Ready? Bro, that **** is insane. That's the best tuna we've had in Japan. The soy sauce is bomb. Dude, you need the soy sauce. So check this out. That soy sauce, as good as it was, that's the free soy sauce you get with your sushi at takeout here in Japan. The stuff that we get in America, the Kikkoman, I mean, look, that's free soy sauce and you just said it's the best you've ever had. That was the best soy sauce I've ever had. It's really good. It was a different style though. It's a sweet soy. Yeah, yeah. This is the type of soy sauce that inspired the soy sauce that I make from scratch. It has a bit of sweetness to it. It has brown, umami, earthy. Liam and I kind of prefer that Asian sweet flavor. Yes. It shouldn't just be Japan gets a lot of hype for its sushi and yeah, it deserves every bit of it. But that's only skimming the surface of the incredible culinary scene here. This place is stacked with dishes that prove why Japan is one of the strongest food cities on the planet. As we kept exploring the market, the smell of something warm and comforting drifted through the crowd. We followed it to a tiny old school vendor tucked between stalls, the kind of spot locals line up for without thinking twice. So we jumped in line with them ready to see why they've been coming back all these years. We discovered this two seat counter restaurant. They have been cooking the same beef organs in this pot for 17 years straight. 17 years. 17 years. Yeah. Wow. It hasn't stopped boiling. That's 17 years of flavor. Now, apparently this is one of the most traditional meals you can get in Japan. So what it is, is it's cooked down beef organs in this stew on a bed of rice, top of the raw egg, and then mix the egg in here. So it creates this sauce with a stew and the rice. I'm obsessed with a counter culture in Japan. All of these small restaurants with different counters, you don't really have that here. But I love the feel of being right in the action, right in front of the chefs cooking the food. It's something that is very unique to the Japanese culinary scene. That was? Yeah. Got the egg yolk on there. A nice fatty piece of the intestine. That's great. Dude, this looks, it's so good. It's so fatty. So this is tripe. It's like the lining of the stomach. I mean, huge in Mexican cuisine and a lot of cuisines, but it gives like chili vibe. It's the Japanese original chili. I love organ meat. I love tripe. There's some heart in here. It's just so good. In Florence, one of the most famous sandwiches there is the tripe sandwich topped with chimichurri. And it's always cool for me to experience the same type of food in different cultures. Totally. So to see the Italian style of this dish, to see the Japanese style of this dish, the Mexican style of this dish, Chinese. And it's the same ingredient, but it tastes so different. The craziest part is the whole bowl is only six bucks, which is an deal because that will fill you the **** up. That'll fill an entire family. I mean, it is so good. I mean, you can see how long they've been boiling this for and you can taste all that flavor. The side of the pot, it's like caked on with years of sauce. When you think about Japan, you typically think sushi, but apparently this is one of the most traditional meals you can have. And it's also way cheaper. Definitely don't sleep on the stewed organ meat. It's legit. Don't let Next up, we have Sola Tsukiji. This stall immediately got my attention with their giant assortment of fresh seafood and king crab legs on display. Here's how it works. You walk up, select what you want to order, and they cook it up right in front of you. Although the market can be viewed as a bit of a tourist trap, the price of the crab legs were still good value compared to the U.S. I mean, this is a big king crab, so 40 bucks. You wouldn't get that in a restaurant for 40 bucks. And I mean, look at just how much meat you're getting from this. Look at that piece. It's not that sweet in a good way. It's super salty and your teeth just cut right through it like butter. That was insane. How was it? It's really good. Killer, right? I can tell. That's really good. And they cooked it perfectly. Yeah, it's so tender. It's like almost medium rare, which is f****** unbelievable. You'll start to realize a common theme in this market is walking by a vendor, seeing some really delicious food, and immediately wanting it. That's exactly what happened with these torch sea scallops. I love scallops. One of my favorite foods. So this was an auto lock as a stop. I can't wait to try this. The scallops almost sweet, but that's the money right there. You got to drink the sauce out of the shell. Very good. Let's go. That's so good. Money. It's almost like you got to shoot it with the sauce. The sauce makes it. Scallops fine. The sauce. It's butter and soy sauce. Yeah, thank you. Arigato. Delicious. Very good. This is my Super Bowl. Like literally my f****** big Super Bowl. This is why I wake up every day. This is why I get out of bed. This is what I do. I do. This is why I love food. It's to experience these kind of moments. Now the boys need a little energy, so we're going to get some matchas. You know Looney Tunes when Michael Jordan has his special sauce drink? That's essentially what matcha is for people in Japan. It's like their special drink. Gives them powers. Let's include this. Yeah. What's your thought process on including it? I think we include it because Japan is known for matcha. This looks like the most dank matcha shop. There's a line out the front. There's a dial team in there just matcha-ing the f*** out of it. All right, we got our iced matcha. You can't do a trip to a Japanese food market not get a matcha latte. This looks beautiful. I love the color of the milk and the green together. It's not sweet, which I think is a really good thing in Japan. You don't want your matcha too bitter and you don't want it sweet. I'm still trying to figure out like what makes matcha elite in Tokyo. I think I'm getting closer, but to be honest, I have absolutely no idea what makes matcha really good, but this tastes great. All right, this matcha from Matcha Stand Maruni Tokyo Tsukiji, killer. We walked around and we could not find matcha that wasn't pre-sweetened. They do it right. So you get the hot matcha, not sweetened, with water, not a latte, not any of this bulls***. And it comes with the fresh mochi stuffed with the red bean paste. So you basically bite, sip, bite, sip, and it's unbelievable. A fun part about traveling and eating foods in different countries is you get to try things you've never had before. Japan has that, but on steroids. And our next vendor was a perfect example of this. This is like maybe the most insane stall or thing I've seen in Japan. It's a cracker. They put a whole shrimp in and then they press it down. Thank you very much. Oh my God. This is maybe the craziest thing I've ever seen in Japan. It's a prawn stuffed and smashed inside of this cracker. Holy s***. What the f*** is this? How did they think of this? And I don't get how the prawn gets so smushed. Look at how thin it is. This was a whole prawn. It just tastes like a really good rice cracker with the shrimp flavor. I'm actually surprised with how much of the prawn flavor you get because I think it smushes down and you get it kind of spread throughout the rest of the rice cracker. These are pretty good. Definitely the weirdest thing I've eaten on my trip so far, but I'm a fan. In Japan, it becomes obvious fast that tradition is the backbone of everything. You see it in the craftsmanship behind their world-famous knives, in the care that goes into every ceremonial tea, and in the way the country's rich history shows up in even the smallest corners of the market. So, tamago yaki is like a super, super old traditional dish. It's actually the way that guests would decide which sushi chef to dine with because it shows so much technique. Literally, back in the day, you would go in and ask for tamago first. If you didn't care for it, you didn't eat that guy's sushi. Damn. Because it meant he cared that much. So, it's basically a test of a good sushi chef, which is crazy because it's not even sushi. It's now become the sort of quintessential dessert after a proper omakase. Got it. Look at how many layers of egg you got. It was crazy. The dude's flick of the wrist with the chopsticks was very impressive. Oh my god, that's incredible. It's so warm and sweet, and it's so thick of just egg. It's so fluffy. Yeah. Wow. I'm a huge fan of this. Wow. Another incredible culinary experience in Japan that's a common theme that Japanese don't miss when it comes to food. This market was amazing. It was probably one of my favorite markets in the world next to Borough Market. They're very different. Honestly, part of me prefers this one, but maybe it's just recency bias. I'm also a big fan of fish, and they had a lot more fish and sushi options. I've had things here that I've never tried before, and it was amazing. Now, we're on the way to one of the best omakases in Tokyo, and I cannot wait. We haven't had any omakase yet. No way. We just got a yes chef in the wild. That's insane. No way. I don't think I've ever seen that. No way. I like your hat. Oh, my guy. Let's go. Let's go, man. That's awesome. Yeah, man. I saw your story. I don't think I've ever seen a yes chef in the wild, so I appreciate the support, man. Seriously. Whoa. That was sick. Random fish market in Japan. That was so cool. We're in Tokyo, Japan right now. Some dude is rocking a yes chef hat. We're at the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo right now, and I saw some dude wearing a yes chef hat in the wild. This is the first time I've ever seen that. I'm going to go gift him a hat. So, if I see you wearing a hat, I got you another hat. Yo, I got you another hat. Oh, I appreciate it, man. Nice to meet you, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good job. Damn. Let's go. This is awesome. Let's go. Great meeting you, man. Yeah, have a great trip. If I see you in the wild with a hat, I will give you a hat.