About food in Japan

Ramen Dojo (ラーメン道場), Chitose Sapporo Airport

 

Ramen Dojo(ラーメン道場) in New Chitose Airport(Sapporo) is an amazing street devoting to “Ramen”.

Ramen, which is one of the icons in Japanese food as many of you know, is also known as one of the local specialty of Hokkaido. So that the popular local specialty can be enjoyed by as many tourists as possible and until the end of their travel in Japan, Ramen Dojo is created in the largest airport in the region.

Ramen Dojo is on the 3rd floor of Domestic Terminal of New Chitose Airport. Several Ramen restaurants, including some with high reputation, stand along the street. The location is close to a connecting bridge to International Terminal. So even if your flight is for international destination, it won’t be difficult to go as long as you have enough time.

 

 By the way, “Dojo” represents “training hall”. So Ramen Dojo can be a place to learn about Ramen even for those who are not yet familiar with Ramen.

 

They have English menu with some photos as well.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

We visited  the one called “Yuki Akari” (the name meaning “Snow Light” in Japanese) in Ramen Dojo. It provides “orthodox” style Sapporo Ramen with chicken bouillon and stock soup taken from local Hidaka Kobu.

 

 

 

What I chose is No.1 popular menu, Butter Corn Miso Ramen. Those 3 ingredients are perfect match with Ramen noodle. Typical topping, pork char-siu, memma (bamboo shoot pickles) and leek are for the regular version.

 

 

The standard and good quality Ramen will surely provide a good opportunity to understand what is good for Ramen for the beginners.

If you have not tried Ramen in Japan, even if it is just before your departure from Japan, Ramen Dojo must be a good “Training Hall” to learn the popular local specialty. For those loving Ramen, it can be the last bowl in Japan!!

 

By the way, this is also the end of our Hokkaido series blog post!!

Thank you for your reading!!

 

Restaurant: Yuki Akari, Ramen Dojo (雪あかり、ラーメン道場)

Address: 3rd floor, Domestic Termina, New Chitose Airport, 987 Bibi Chitose-city, Hokkaido 

Chocolate park in Sapporo-Chitose(千歳) Airport

It’s more than a couple of weeks passed since we had an article last time. We still have a couple of reports for Hokkaido to end the series. These two are about ways to enjoy food at Sapporo-Chitose Airport, the largest gateway in Hokkaido from major cities in Japan as well as some cities out of Japan.

 

How can we expect this kind of amusement facility at airports?

Roy’s Chocolate World includes Museum, Factory and Shop, being located on the 3rd floor of “Connecting path” between Domestic and International terminals of Sapporo-Chitose Airport.

As some of you may know, Roy’s is one of the most famous chocolate producers in Hokkaido. It offers Chocolate World as a place deeply to know about chocolate, to find the latest production facilities (the real one is in the Airport ! ) then to bring some of them back to your home as souvenir of Hokkaido.

 

The welcoming entrance, made with fake chocolate,

makes us more exciting with Roy’s Chocolate World.

Let’s see from the museum part.

 

The Museum shows us the history of chocolate.

  

How it is made traditionally.

 

And many attractive chocolate package from the world.

 

You could find one you had in your childhood.

 

Conytrary, on the next part, Factory shows us the latest way to produce chocolate.

A real factory in the airport!! , being operated to make some chocolate

between 8h30 to 17h00. 

You can find these chocolate products sold at the Shop next to the factory.

 

At the end of Roy’s Chocolate World tour, we reach to a boutique selling various Roy’s chocolate, including the most popular fresh chocolate.

That is the most normal part as a facility to be found at an airport. Some items are exclusive at this Roy’s Chocolate World shop. 

 

 

 

One of the most significant product by Roy's is "Poteto chips with CHOCOLATE" whichi is also also available at this boutique.

 

 

We recommend that you take around 30 minutes to visit Roy’s Chocolate World from the Museum, the Factory and the Shop to go through all 3 parts. 

 

It’s really fun to find such facility at airport. We want to come back even if we once visit.

 

Name of place to visit: Roy’s Chocolate World

Address: Connecting Path 3F, New Chitose Airport, Chitose, Hokkaido

Official Homepage: http://www.royce.com/contents/english_rcw/

 

Seicomart, local convenience store chain in Hokkaido

When you travel in Japan, probably you will find that Seven-Eleven and Lawson are two dominant players as a convenience store in many places of Japan. However in Hokkaido, a local chain disturbs these two giants making such situation in their land.

Seicomart is local convenience chain born in Sapporo in early 70’s when even major convenience stores had not demonstrate strong presence yet. We can say that Seicomart is one of the oldest convenience stores in Japan. Seicomart has over 1000 units in Hokkaido and cover almost 100% area in the north-most big island. When you travel in Hokkaido, surely you find the orange logo with crane around train stations or roadside.

As one of the unique points, Seicomart provides at its units products offering as “HOT CHEF.” It is a series of hot cooked food for take-away. The product line-up covers from katsu-don (tonkatsu, fried pork on rice), onigiri (rice ball), fried potato etc, which will be suitable for lunch or snack before or after dinner. As you may know, Hokkaido is the north-most land of Japan. In Winter in some places of Hokkaido, the temperature goes down to around 10 degree BELOW ZERO. In such severe weather, hot food served as “HOT CHEF” is really appreciated among local people. Even in summer, HOT CHEF series products will help you with taking energy to survive in heating climate.  

One cold evening on April, we tried fried chicken from HOT CHEF corner.

 

 

Chicken pieces were flavored well with blended spices like ones at KFC. The taste is much better than what we expect for food at convenience stores. We enjoyed a good evening at a hotel room with a canned beer and HOT CHEF fried chicken.

 

Seicomart offers original brand products in addition to HOT CHEF. They include tea and other soft drink.

 

Also it focus on introducing imported good quality of wine bottles at reasonable cost!!

 

Seicomart also provides  even "croissant" as a HOT CHEF product, which is made from igredients imported from France and baked at the location. That will be appreciated not only by local people but also by international tourists.

 

 

 Don’t forget an option of HOT CHEF for quick lunch or refreshment during your trip in Hokkaido!!  

  

Our blog series Hokkaido will continue a bit more to talk about some interesting spots at Chitose Airport. 

 

Shop name: Seicomart (convenience chain)

Official website: http://www.seicomart.co.jp/english/our_network.html

 

 

 

Omiyage sweets in Hokkaido

On our last post under current series “Hokkaido”, we introduced one of the most popular Omiyage (お土産, souvenir gift), Shiroi Koibito (白い恋人). Following it, today we introduce other three interesting Omiyage products found in Hokkaido. 

In Hokkaido, we can find many attractive Omiyage products every souvenir shop, supermarket, department store etc. They are just only a tiny part of them though.

The first one is “Oranda Senbei” (オランダせんべい) which is a local specialty of Nemuro city(根室).

 

 

The word “Oranda” represents “The Netherlands” in Japanese and Senbei means “cracker.” So Oranda Senbei is “Dutch cracker”. It reminds some of you especially those in Europe “waffle” known in the Netherlands’ neighbor Belgium by it. Yes, it is!!

Actually Oranda senbei is considered coming from the Netherlands via Nagasaki, South part in Japan, where international trading was allowed only at its post in Edo period. It’s really amazing that the specialty in a country in Europe had traveled far away to this land of truly Far East, one of the north-most places, Nemuro in Hokkaido. It may take long time but the style remains very similar with the original waffle.

As for the taste, it is rather sweet as cracker. The texture is a bit soft and the taste is better when it is a bit heated. The taste is not so strong and it is also well matched with fruits jam or honey maybe.

We found the sweets shop which has produced Oranda Senbei exclusively for over 40 years. Only a few shops still produce and sell this interesting product but others already stopped or had gone unfortunately.

Shop name: Hashiya Kashiten (端谷菓子店)
Address: 2-11 Chishima-cho, Nemuro-city, Hokkaido
Website (only in Japanese): http://olandasenbei.com

 

The second interesting Omiyage product is called “Yama Oyaji”.
This is sweet cracker with the icon of a bear holding salmon. The product name Yama Oyaji (Mountain daddy) comes from a bear in this region which walked around freely in mountains. Yama Oyaji is produced by a local sweets producer, Senshuan, who was founded almost a century ago based in Sapporo. It is one of many products made with Hokkaido’s local ingredients by Senshuan.

 

The taste of Yama Oyaji cracker is rather simple like homemade cookies and is pure made from milk, butter and flour. It is appreciated by many from kids to elder generations and Yama Oyaji has known widely as a souvenir sweets of Hokkaido for long years. However in the era of 21st century, more and more other attractive sweets like Shiroi Koibito, or Rokkatei butter sand, were launched after Yama Oyaji. Now we have less chance to find the sweets cracker which is sold only in limited locations.

 

 

 

Shop Senshuan units are mainly located in Sapporo city including one in Chitose Airport and several are across Hokkaido.

Senshuan (Flagship store)
Address: Nishi 3chome 17, Minami 3Jyo, Chuo-ku, Sapporo-city
Website (Japanese only): http://senshuan.co.jp

 

The last one is a new type of Omiyage sweets which we found in many souvenir shops in Hokkaido. 

Hokkaido matrioshka; as we told on our post of Hokkaido introduction, in some parts of Hokkaido, Russian territory is close and less than 50km distance. Respecting and demonstrating friendship to the neighbor country, a sweets box is produced as “Hokkaido Matrioshka”.

The cute package obviously attracts Japanese girls and ladies travelers. Five pieces of small cakes are in a box and those 5 matrioshka dolls hold each different local specialty of Hokkaido. 

They are Crock tower in Sapporo, lily of the valley flower, bear (here again like Yama Oyaji), salmon and snowman in my box. Much more variations of Hokkaido specialty such as corn, potato are available and they are different box by box!!

 

The egg-like shape cake has “sweet-berry honeysuckle” paste in the center and it is coated by white chocolate. Sweet-berry honeysuckle or Hascup(ハスカップ) in Japanese is also Hokkaido’s unique berry fruits like blue berry.

 

Hokkaido matrioshka is available major souvenir shops across Hokkaido.
Official site of the product maker, Hase Confectionary Company (in Japanese) : 
http://www.hase-seika.co.jp/blog/2010/03/post-11.html

We will continue Hokkaido series post and a few more posts will be uploaded.

 

Hokkaido Omiyage, Shiroi Kokobito (白い恋人)

As a part of our series of blog post “Hokkaido”, we are going to talk about omiyage (お土産, souvenir gift) sweets for a while. Hokkaido is one of the most popular travel destinations for people in Tokyo and other parts of Japan. Then at everywhere in Hokkaido, we can find huge selections of sweets or snacks to be purchased as “omiyage” (souvenir gift). Hokkaido is a land of agriculture and daily farms in addition to fishery industry. That helps Hokkaido with offering wide variety of souvenir products. Milk, cheese, potato, Yubari melon as our previous post, and other ingredients considered as local specialty of Hokkaido are often used and can be found in omiyage product line-up.

Among the huge collections, firstly we introduce one of the most popular Omiyage sweets, Shiroi Koibito (白い恋人), along with its rival, “Rokkatei products” we introduced on our blog in the past.

Shiroi Koibito is biscuit-sand with a piece of white chocolate, a kind of cookies called “langue de chat” in Europe. The rich creamy white chocolate is an icon of daily products from Hokkaido, which attracts us so much!! Once you take a piece of Shiroi Koibito, you will understand why it is so popular. It will be available at major souvenir shops in tourist spots across Hokkaido and some variation in size are offered from 9 to 54 pieces per package depending on your needs and demand.

  

 

Most people or at lease those in East Japan can recognize Shiroi Koibito with this package. On this trip we came to know about the mountain depicted on the package for the first time.

 

This mountain covered with snow is the one called “Mt. Rishiri” or “Rishiri Fuji” located in Rishiri island (利尻島) in Hokkaido. The 1721-meter height mountain has beautiful shape like Mt. Fuji. The island is about 25km away from Hokkaido main land. It takes less than an hour by air from Sapporo Chitose airport or less than 2 hours by ship from Wakkanai port. 

 

 

Luckly we could find the mountain from the main land of Hokkaido around Wakkanai, as the weather was very fine.

 

Does it look like the package?

 

 

The view of Mt. Rishiri reminds us Shiroi Koibito on the way of driving in Hokkaido.

It was nice to know deeper about the most popular souvenir sweets.

 

On the next post, we will introduce other Omiyage sweets in Hokkaido.

 

Where to watch FIFA World Cup games in Tokyo

It’s less than 2 weeks to the start of FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil. 

Breaking into the current series of blog post about Hokkaido, today we introduces recommendable sports bars to watch FIFA World Cup games in Tokyo.

Some of them will provide live broadcasting even for games not by Japan’s national team.

 

ONCE

It’s 5minutes walk from subway Nakameguro station on Hibiya line or is short distance by taxi from Ebisu or Shibuya. The area of Nakameguro may be unfamiliar for international tourists but for locals it’s a place where we can find nice and interesting restaurants and bars. Like ONCE, some restaurants and bar in Nakameguro remain open until late night even after midnight so those working hard and until late time can enjoy after-work time in the town.

What we love ONCE as a sports bar is that it provides “Mexican” food while many others are likely to be a British pub offering fish & chips etc.

 

Our favourite Chilli Cheese Fries

 

Another favourite menu

Enchilada (tortilla covered with cheese)

 

Of course it provides wide selection of Mexican alcohol

from Tecate beer to Tequila selections.

 

Add: 1-28-7 Aoba-dai, Meguro-ku, Tokyo
Official website: http://www.once11.net

 

The ALDGATE 

Contrary to the first pick ONCE, a Mexican bar, ALDGATE in Shibuya is an authentic British bar that British living in Tokyo appreciate. Even apart from football games broadcasting, it is a cozy bar with British-like atmosphere and nice music from the country. Their broadcasting schedule for World Cup is already published on the website. It offers video play on evening in Tokyo rather than live in early morning or late evening. So we can enjoy exciting games while having dinner or drinking after work.

Address: 3rd floor, 30-4 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

Website: http://www.the-aldgate.com

 

 Tokyo Sports Cafe

In the largest night entertainment spot of Tokyo with international atmosphere, Roppongi, it is located just out of the two main streets of town. As long as you can find and enter into this bar, no worry even you do not understand Japanese. Here you will be able to have fun and to be relaxed. Rather Japanese who don't speak English well could feel unconfortable with unexpected environment where many of staff and guests are non-Japanese.

Address: 2n floor Fusion bld., 7-13-8 Roppongo, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Website: http://www.tokyo-sportscafe.com

 

 

Footnik (Ebisu, Osaki, Nakano)

Footnik has 3 units in central Tokyo.

They are a type of sports bar where ordinary Japanese football fans feel more comfortable compared with the first 3 our recommendations. It means that Footnik more focuses on Japanese football fans and they will be full or over capacity for games when Japanese team play. 

Well, still it will be good for non-Japanese to enjoy other football games. Among their 3 units, especially Ebisu branch has much more international guests. When the World Cup was taken place in Japan in 2002, a British TV broadcasted and reported from this bar in Ebisu as a base of football fans in Tokyo.

 

Website: http://www.footnik.net

Ebisu branch

Address: 1-11-2 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

 

Osaki branch

Address: Ground floor ThinkPark 2-1-1 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo

 

 Nakano branch  (Closed, updated on 14 June 2018)

 

 

 

Hokkaido's specialty, the most expensive melon, Yubari(夕張)

Hokkaido's local specialty is not limited to seafood. Here we introduce probably the most expensive "melon" in the world. 

Some of you may know that you can find many pricey fruits sold in Japan, especially in Tokyo. These fruits are supposed to be sent as a gift. Yubari melon (夕張メロン) is an icon of such gorgeous gift fruits. 

 

How much is it ?

On 5days ago, the first auction for 2014 season was taken place at Sapporo Central Wholeseller market.  

 

There the highest bidding price was recorded...

at 2.5 million yen(25,000 US dollars) for a pair of Yubari melons.

Here we have a web article

"A PRICEY PAIR OF CANTALOUPES"

http://www.ntv.co.jp/englishnews/society/a-pricey-pair-of-cantaloupes/

 

Of course, not all melons won't cost over 1 million. But still the price around Yen5000 per piece is very expensive compared with other fruits including other brands of melon. 

 

At least we could watch the farms and green houses of Yubari melon on our trip in Hokkaido. This is what we want to share on this post.

 

Just we could imagine the luxury fruits are inside the houses...

    

Wishing we can eat Yubari melon as much as we want some days in future, so far we only enjoy the flavor through processed products that are sold at more reasonable prices...

 

Such as ... 

Yubari melon cake 

(Price around just 1 US dollar at a local market)

 

or 

 

 

Yubari melon sherbet
(costs at 3 US dollars at a hotel's gift shop, still  resonable)

and others.

Yubari melon is available in markets during summer and are sold mainly at department stores or upscale fruits shops like Senbikiya.

 

Sushi Minato, Michelin 1 star, Asahikawa(鮨 みなと, 旭川)

During the trip in Hokkaido by the owner of About Food in Japan blog, she visited a Sushi restaurant with a Michelin star. Following a couple of last posts introducing seafood available in Hokkaido, today we report an upscale sushi restaurant in Asahikawa (旭川).

Asahikawa is the second largest city in Hokkaido, after Sapporo, the prefecture’s capital. Asahikawa city is known for Asahiyama Zoo which is located outskirt of the city.

As per the Michelin restaurant guide Hokkaido, a star is awarded to 8 restaurants in Asahikawa city. There is no 2 or 3 stars awarded in the city.

  

Among the 8 restaurants with the highest evaluation in the city by Michelin guide, we visited Sushi Minato, only one Sushi restaurant with a Michelin star in Asahikawa.

The restaurant is located central area of Asahikawa town. It is more specifically on “3 Jo (３条)” street, where restaurants and bars are gathered. 

The restaurant has a counter with around 10 seats where Sushi cook prepare sushi pieces in front of guests as well as some private rooms for small groups. Staff and cook are friendly and some speak English. They seem to be happy to welcome tourists from out of Hokkaido as well as the world. 

 

 

 

We do not like to take a photo at a such luxury sushi restaurant, while the cook is preparing sushi in front of us. So we are sorry we do not have a phot of sushi and what we had.

 

At the counter seat, we saw the sushi master preparing scallop taken from its shell and other fresh seafood ingredients. The quality of their seafood and sushi is excellent, while the price is really good value for money. Our check, around Yen 5000 per person for sushi and a few side dishes with sake, is surpriging even for Japanese, if we consider the price for sushi in same quality and offered in Tokyo.

 

 

If you have a chance to visit Asahikawa, Sushi Minato is truly recommendable. We also recommend that you secure the counter seat with advance reservation.

 

 

 

Restaurant name: Sushi Minato

Address: 5-Left 9, 3 Jo Street, Asahikawa-city, Hokkaido

 

 

 

 

Introduction of seafood in Hokkaido No. 2

Following our first post “Introduction of seafood in Hokkaido No. 1”, we introduce Hokkaido’s local specialty “seafood” with images showing how they look and how they are cooked as some examples.

On the first post, we covered a few ways to enjoy them raw, such as sushi, sashimi or don (in rice bowl), while on this second post, we show several other ways, cooking and processing.

Grill
“Shishamo” (シシャモ, Willow leaf fish)


The small and slim shaped fish is an icon of Autumn and one of typical dishes available at Izakaya.People in Hokkaido have had Shishamo for decades.

The best way to enjoy Shishamo is “Grill” like above. 

Shishamo in Hokkaido is much more tasty than what we have in Tokyo,

because what is available in Tokyo as Shishamo is actually a bit different species.

 

 

Steaming
“Kaki” (牡蠣, oyster)

     
A pot filled with steamd oysters had good smell. To be honest, I, the owner of this blog, personally… do not like oyster. But the perfume came from the pot made my feeling and I had tried a piece that was very good. 

 

Akkeshi (厚岸) is one of the best fisheries for Kaki, oyster.

We dropped by the town and found a fishery site.

On October, KAKI (oyster) festival is hold in Akkeshi.

 

 

Shabu Shabu

“Kani” (蟹, crab)

  

 

Beef Shabu shabu (food dipping in boiled water) is the most common but other food ingredients can be also enjoyed in the cooking way shabu shabu.
We tried crab shabu shabu on an evening.

It will be better to ask a restaurant staff

how long it should be cooked in order to have it at the best condition.

 

 

Chan-chan yaki
“Sake” (鮭, salmon)

Chan-chan yaki is not yet known even out of Hokkaido in Japan.

 It is seafood cooked with “miso” paste and is often made and had by fishermen.

 

For our lunch, the restaurant's master cooked our chan-chan yaki on an iron plate.

We could take salmon as well as a lot of vegetable (mainly cabbage).

 

 

Dried 

"Hokke"　(ホッケ, Okhotsk atka mackerel)

Hokke is (probably) never served raw.

In most cases it is served after dried and cooked.

By making fish dried, shelf life is extended dramatically.

We guess,

that must help a lot the life of people in north regions with heavy snow for centries.

The salty taste goes well with rice or sake.

 

On the way from Wakkanai to Asahikawa, we could see how fish is dried. 

In plain near the Okhotsk ocean, they were hung from wooden shelves for dring.

  

 

 

Cooked in pot

“Kani” (蟹, crab) again...

 It's a good idea to cook crab legs in any kind soup,

as the juice can also be enjoyed in the soup.

 

For example,

we found it in Miso soup for lunch

 

or hot pot

    
Finally it was cooked with egg and soup.

 

Here is the end of our second post about Seafood in Hokkaido, which shows how much they vary in term of type of creature as well as cooking way.

 

The series of blog post "Hokkaido" still continues and will talk about seafood a bit more on next post as well.

 

 

 

Introduction of seafood in Hokkaido No. 1

One of the best local specialties in Hokkaido will be “seafood”.

 

The land of Hokkaido is surrounded by three major oceans, Pacific, Okhotsk and Japan Sea. In the north-most land of Japan, the fishery industry has been flourished for over centuries.

 

 

 

Even for locals, Japanese people, to take fresh high quality seafood can be a good reason to fly to and stay in Hokkaido. While the owner of About Food in Japan traveled in East and North of Hokkaido for five days on April, she could enjoy variety of seafood in every city visited, then almost every time lunch and dinner. On this series of blog post with the theme, Hokkaido, here we introduce what kinds of seafood can be enjoyed there.

 

 

Two top fishery products in Hokkaido are “Hotate”(帆立, scallop) and “Sake”(鮭, salmon). "Kani"(蟹, crab) is also known as must-try iteam in Hokkaido by locals, especially in winter.

 

 

The variation of fishery products in Hokkaido is vast from luxury items “Uni” (ウニ, sea urchin) and “Ikura” (イクラ, salmon roe) to casual ones often found in Izakaya, "Shishamo" (シシャモ, “willow leaf fish” local species) and "Hokke" (ホッケ, Okhotsk atka mackerel). Not only fish and shells, " Kobu" (or kombu, 昆布) kelp made in Hokkaido occupies substantial share in the market.

 

Here we show how they look and how they are cooked as some examples.

 

Sushi or sashimi

As many of you know well, for many seafood, the best way to taste them is

to make them remain "raw" and served as sushi or sashimi. 

 

 

Found Sushi counter with skilled chef even at a tourist point, Cape Nosappu.

Top left - sea urchin, Bottom left - grilled salmon,

Bottom middle - Tsubu-kai seashell, Bottom right - Squid 

 

 

Sashimi plate

Top - trout, Bottom - scallop

 

 

 

  

Sashimi plate, both "Hokki-kai"(北寄貝,Sakhalin surf clam)

A part of shell meat becomes impressively red color, when it is cooked.

 

 

Don(donburi)

Don (丼) is a casual way to enjoy some ingredient on top of rice.

Seafood is one of the best ingredients for Don. 

 

Ikura-don (Salmon roe on top of rice)

For some people, fish eggs look strange and unfamiliar.

Ikura, Salmon roe, is very much appreciated by local Japanese.

If you try high quality fresh ones, you will find the unique taste.

It's also called "red caviar."

 

 

Kaisen-don (海鮮丼, seafood on top of rice)

At Cape Nossapu, near to Nemuro (根室) where the most amount of seafood is dealt at the port.

We were so happy to enjoy the TOP 3 seafood in a bowl; Scallop, crab and salmon roe.

Ingredient of seafood for Kaisen-don varies

by restaurants and time depending on availability and each restaurant's recipe. 

 

 

Fresh seafood available even at souvenir shops in tourist points.

     

 

Introduction of seafood in Hokkaido continues to our next post. 

 

At the end, we would like to share some photos even not directly related to food, as we were enough luck to watch sunrising from Okhotsk Sea at the Port Monbetsu.