Wagyu Skewers, Tamagoyaki and a Knife Shop on the Way

Tsukiji on your own is a maze of several hundred stalls with almost nothing written in English, and the usual outcome is that you walk it twice and eat at whichever place has the shortest queue. This tour removes that: six to eight guests, three hours, and five things picked in advance.

You meet at the main gate of Tsukiji Honganji, a temple that looks nothing like a Japanese one because its architect modelled the 1934 rebuild on ancient Indian Buddhist architecture, complete with a pipe organ inside.

The five tastings: wagyu skewers, grilled on the spot; tamagoyaki, the sweet layered omelette rolled one thin sheet at a time over a rectangular pan; satsuma-age, fish cake fried while you wait; seasonal fruit, which in Japan is a luxury category with its own grading; and a seafood bowl or sushi, depending on the day and the hour.

Along the way your guide covers Tsukiji's eighty years as Japan's largest fish market, how it came through the war, and what the shouting around you actually means. There is a stop at a knife shop if you want kitchen tools, and on days it is open you pass the small wholesale market to see the range of fish that arrives.

The wholesale market is closed on Wednesdays, Sundays and holidays, and on those days the omelette, fish cake and fruit stops cannot run because the shops are shut.

Guided in English. It leaves at the stated time exactly and cannot wait, and no refunds are given for late arrivals; go to the front of the temple, not the back, since maps send you the wrong way. Comfortable shoes. Minimum drinking age twenty, with an alternative drink for anyone younger. Vegetarian, halal, gluten-free and allergy requests cannot be accommodated, and if you do not eat fish, this is not the tour.