Eating in Sapporo and Hokkaido Prefecture
One of the reasons we came back to Japan after only being here 3 years ago is to eat. I’m not kidding. We had such a fantastic time eating our way through Japan last time around that we wanted to do it again (and see some of the sights we missed the first time around). These past four days were spent in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands.
We spent our first night staying in Hakodate, which is the third largest city in the prefecture and is known for its port. Surprisingly, we decided to skip fish for our late lunch/early dinner and went to Lucky Pierrot. The restaurant, fashioned after a 1950’s American dinner with a touch of Japanese, was known for an unusual burger called the Chinese Chicken Burger. It basically was sweet and sour chicken on a bun with some lettuce, a soft boiled egg, mayonnaise, and some house-made sauce. It was fantastic. I’m hoping that Chick-Fil-A branches out and gives this a try some day because they will sell like crazy.
After our meal, we walked around the warehouse district which seemed to cater to tourists. It was rather small but “cute,” as Amanda said. We walked the entire district and decided to head towards the ropeway (essentially a large cable car) so we could see a view of the city on top of the aptly named Mt. Hakodate. By chance, we timed our ascent to the viewpoint right as sunset was occurring so we were able to see the city flip on the light switch.
We ventured back to our hotel after the ropeway ride back down and called it a night shortly afterwards.
The following morning we decided to get up a little earlier, grabbed our bags, and headed to the fish market for some breakfast (fish for breakfast, yeah, it’s a thing here). We saw some people fishing for squid (similar to fishing for lobster, but with more squirting ink). This area is known for their sea urchin, or uni, so we stopped at a booth and had some uni BBQ’ed for Amanda while I enjoyed some salmon sashimi.
We headed to the train station shortly thereafter and got on an earlier train for Sapporo, the largest city on the island. After a short 4 hour train ride, we immediately went to enjoy what ended up being our favorite meal of our trip to Hokkaido….pork butadon (butadon translates into rice bowl, so this is essentially a marinated pork rice bowl). Don’t let the simplicity of the dish fool you. It was phenomenal. We’ve found that a number of restaurants in Japan tend to serve only one dish with minor variations. This is a good sign. It means that they’ve perfected the dish so much that they don’t need to sell anything else. This may be terrible for picky eaters but great for people looking for the best of the best of a particular dish.
Once we ate the delicious pork dishes, we made our way to our hotel to unload our bags. We made a quick turnaround and headed to the Sapporo Beer Museum and Garden. The museum, which is supposedly the only beer museum in Japan, wasn’t anything impressive and the best thing we taste tested wasn’t one of the three beers they offered in the tap room but instead, the apple juice. The rest of the evening was spent walking around the city and people watching along the way.
The next morning we went to the town of Otaru, which was sold to us as a romantic day trip only an hour away. There’s more romance in an Applebee’s sadly. Their canal wasn’t too impressive (even if you haven’t been to Amsterdam) and there wasn’t much else to see there. However, we did take the opportunity to try a fish butadon (if you remember from earlier, it’s a rice bowl, so in this case… a fish rice bowl) in a quant eatery near the port. Amanda had a mix seafood bowl while I had a salmon fish bowl overrun by roe. Since it wasn’t too filling, we also visited a fishcake factory and bought one to quell our curiosity. I doubt I can find a better tasting fishcake. It had a weird sweetness to it with an underlining fishiness to it. Odd but definitely worth a try (and cheap too)!
With Otaru being a short visit, we wanted to drown our disappointment in some delicious chocolate at the Ishiya Chocolate Factory. Unfortunately, the only thing that wasn’t disappointing there was the chocolate cookie they sell (and that alone made the trip worth it). The place had an overpriced tour and then an oddly cute but somewhat sad outdoor park area that felt like a Japanese Willy Wonka. Back to the cookie; The chocolate cookie can be purchased with either milk chocolate or white chocolate filling between two “langue de chat” cookies. I encourage everyone to buy some Lange de chat at your local store, melt some chocolate, spread it between two cookies, let the chocolate cool, and enjoy. You can thank me later.
Anyways, we bought a substantial amount of chocolate cookies (they won’t last until we get back, sorry) and decided to head back to Sapporo. We took a short break in the hotel and then headed out to find some soup curry (yep, that’s correct, soup curry) at the restaurant Garaku Soup Curry. You may think you know what soup curry tastes like it but I assure you that you are wrong (unless you’ve had it). It was delicious. It’s basically a soup with curry flavoring and some pork and vegetables and served with a side of rice. But it tasted differently than any curry dish I’ve ever had before. Again, another place that serves one item with minor variations. Basically if you find a place in Japan with a menu like the Cheesecake Factory, run to somewhere else as they probably aren’t great at anything. We waited in line for about 30 minutes and it was well worth it.
With a trip of this much traveling around, I scheduled an extra “decompression” day in Sapporo with no plans. Amanda and I spent the day working out at a park across the street, walking around the city, enjoying a repeat visit to the pork butadon place, and sitting on a blanket in Odori park. It was a nice change of pace (not really needed at this point but rather have too many of these days than not enough). We ended the day eating at a ramen shop in the ramen alley (visited by Anthony Bourdain). We had Char Siu Miso ramen which we ordered out of a vending machine inside the entrance. After dinner, we finished the night by grabbing a delicious cone of ice cream where the cone was made of lengue de chat. (interesting tidbit: Hokkaido is the primary supplier of dairy for all of Japan. The area is known for their cheese, dairy, and ice cream).
We are now en route back towards Tokyo where we will head south over the next few days. In conclusion, Sapporo was a worthwhile visit for the food alone, but should not be ahead of Tokyo, Mt Fuji, Osaka, or Kyoto on people’s Japan travel destinations.
