Exploring Hokkaido: Otaru

Otaru is a lovely coastal town in Hokkaido, and an easy day trip if you're located in or visiting the Niseko area. It's not huge so it's the perfect place to visit for a just a day or two. I've been a handful of times, and I keep going back. I suppose for me, there are a couple of things that I really like about Otaru. I love being by the sea, and being able to walk right up to the edge of the island and take in the view. There's something really calming and restorative about looking out at the water, even more so when you're spending a lot of time in the mountains here, where everything turns completely white for a good few months of the year. The second reason I keep going back to Otaru is because it's a really great place to go on a food crawl. There are lots of places to eat and drink, especially if you love fresh seafood. Below are a few of my favourite places to visit in Otaru.

Sankaku Market

This is a great place to start your trip to Otaru, because it's right next to the station. Exit Otaru station, turn left, head up some stairs and you'll soon see the entrance to the covered Sankaku Market. It's predominantly a fish market, but some shops sell other Otaru and Hokkaido delicacies as well. Even if you're not planning on buying anything, it's a great place to wander around and take pictures, as there are lots of odd-looking things on sale: everything from fish cheeks to live clams that occasionally squirt water at you! 

There are lots of dried seafood products for sale too, which are ideal for tourists due to the relatively long shelf-life. I've bought the dried salmon and dried scallops before, both of which are delicious as beer snacks, but you can also get more creative and use them in cooking. If you want to buy something fresh (for example a live crab) a lot of the traders have restaurants opposite their stalls where they can cook whatever you've bought for you.

I usually eat at one of the restaurants that serves seafood donburi. The best one is about halfway down the market, on the corner of where the public toilets are (doesn't sound like the best location for a restaurant, I know). This place is always really busy, but you can write your name on the list first and then wander around the market until they have a table ready for you. You can choose whichever seafood toppings you like for the donburi. Often they have a few daily specials as well. I recommend having a late breakfast / early lunch here and putting your name down by 11.30am. Often they stop taking reservations later during the service, or sell out of certain popular items (such as uni, sea urchin).

The Sea

If you keep walking downhill straight out of the station, you eventually come to the port, where you can look out over Ishikari Bay. There's nothing down here apart for a parking lot and a government building, but I always wonder why there isn't a hotel here as the view from a few floors up would surely be spectacular on a clear day.

I just like to spend a few moments here, take in the view, enjoy the fresh sea air and of course take a few photos!

The Canal

The canal is another really attractive part of Otaru. During the winter months the waterside is also illuminated, making it even more beautiful after dark. You can take a cruise down the canal on a boat. On the side of the canal, there are lots of old stone warehouses and Victorian lamps, giving you a sense of what the town looked like in past times.

Sakaimachi Street

This attractive shopping street is the perfect place to pick up souvenirs, or simply admire the local products. Otaru is well-known for glass-blowing, and many of the shops sell gorgeous little figurines. Music boxes are also produced in Otaru (one of many of the city's European influences) and you can marvel at these cute little boxes, each of which plays a different tune, which can be anything from classical music to the latest pop song.

LeTAO

Towards the end of the Sakaimachi street you can find two LeTAO shops, one opposite the other. LeTAO is a famous Hokkaido brand whose shops are a sweet-lovers' paradise, selling everything from cheesecakes to chocolate truffles. The shops are usually pretty generous with samples too! On my last visit I managed to try their Niagara Chocolate (grape flavour white chocolate), Royal Montagne (chocolate truffle) and Premier Maalu (crunchy wheat chocolate) all for free. After a few hours of wandering around Otaru, I like to sit in the LeTAO cafe on the top floor of the main shop, for coffee and cake. If you want to go all out, you can sample three of their famous cheesecakes in one plate. If you try just one cheesecake, make sure it's the Double Fromage: the base is a rich baked cheesecake, and the top layer is a smooth fresh cheesecake.

Otaru Brewery

This beer hall with on-site microbrewery is a great place to finish your day in Otaru. You can sample the authentic German-style beers (pilsner, white beer, dark beer) and enjoy a picturesque canal-side view. The quality of the beers here is really good, as they use organic ingredients imported from Germany alongside the high-quality Otaru water. Prost and Kampai!

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Restaurant Review: Matsusakagyu Yakiniku M, Osaka

Since coming to Japan, beef is something that I eat quite rarely. It's pretty expensive to buy in the supermarket, and when eating out you're less likely to come across it on menus than you are pork and chicken. This is why when I choose a special meal out, I'm often tempted to opt for steak rather than something more traditionally Japanese like sushi. Eating steak definitely feels like an occasion here, whereas something like sushi is so ubiquitous that it can be found everywhere from your local convenience store right up to your michelin-starred restaurant. So when it came to having a meal on my last night in Osaka, I chose to eat at Matsusakagyu Yakiniku M. 

The restaurant name is quite a mouthful, so let me break it down for you. Matsusakagyu is a type of beef (gyu meaning beef in Japanese eg. wagyu which means Japanese cow/beef). These black-haired cows come from the Mie region of Japan. The lucky cows are fed beer when their appetite fails and are treated to regular massages. This results in a meat that is a grade higher than even Kobe beef (meaning the marbled beef has a higher fat to meat ratio). Yaki Niku is basically the Japanese term for barbecue - so it is a restaurant where you cook the meat yourself at a grill on your table.

I ate at the restaurant's Dotonbori branch, which was not only a convenient location but also has a sake bar underneath, the restaurant's Sake Bar M300, which seemed perfect for post-dinner drinks.

The restaurant itself is found on the second floor of a building directly by Dotonburi canal. The seating is divided into Japanese-style dining booths, so that each group is afforded some privacy from the next. The restaurant also had incredible ventilation, which seems an odd thing to praise a restaurant for, but I have been to so many yaki niku/yakitori/genghis khan restaurants that are so poorly ventilated that you come out reeking of smoked meat. Then you have to throw all your clothes in the wash as soon as you get home and have an exceedingly long and soapy shower to rid yourself of the scent. Luckily this didn't happen at Matsusakagyu, so I didn't offend the entire carriage on the train home with the scent of barbecue beef - definitely a bonus!

We opted for the Premium Set Menu which promised a selection of appetisers as well as of course a selection of beef, followed by dessert. We also went for a couple of local beers courtesy of Minoh Beer, because, you know, it would be rude not to.

Minoh Beer: Pale Ale & Pilsner

The appetiser selection interestingly enough didn't include beef. It was relatively tasty but didn't exactly set my taste buds on fire, just got my appetite going for the meal: which I suppose is the point of an appetiser.

Okra, sweet potato, omelette, chicken

The next prelude to the main event was the short rib beef with garlic sauce. This one definitely set me salivating!

The short rib with sauce, plus some fat to oil up the grill

Cook-it-yourself

Next in line was beef sushi... which I was really hoping I would like, but it just didn't do it for me. In fact I think it would have been fine without the wasabi on top but that kind of dominated everything. As you can see from the photos, it's quite a large dollop of wasabi for each piece, given how strong the flavour of it is. It should have worked in theory because it is essentially the classic beef and horseradish combination, but sadly it didn't live up to expectations.

Beef sushi

Luckily when the main course of various cuts of beef arrived and we started cooking and tasting each piece, it became clear that we'd made the right choice to eat here. The beef had a really great depth of flavour, and was very melt in the mouth. I think the fact that the restaurant only buys whole cows is a massive benefit, as not only can they guarantee the provenance of the beef, but it also means that they can offer a more interesting selection of cuts. This means that you get a real sense of the spectrum of flavours from different parts of the cow, from the leaner, gamier parts, through to the richer, fattier pieces.

Flap meat and Haneshita (loin/back)

Today's special (sirloin) and Kyukyoku (prime rib)

Dessert was a delicious yuzu ice cream. As delicous as it was, I always feel that getting an ice cream as your dessert in a set menu is a bit of a cop out from the kitchen -  I mean, I have ice cream in my freezer at home. I would prefer to get something a little bit more interesting: perhaps a slice of matcha roll cake or something along those lines.

The main star of this restaurant, the beef, is truly excellent, so I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to try some wagyu in Osaka. I would recommend skipping the set menu and simply ordering whatever beef and sides you want a la carte. The restaurant is really reasonably priced as well (in comparison to a lot of restaurants I've looked at that serve Kobe beef), so it's a good way to try some great quality Japanese beef without completely breaking the bank. I also thought that the beef tasted much better than the Kobe beef I'd tried. Admittedly the only Kobe beef I've tried was at a market stall in Kobe during Golden Week and wasn't what I'd call expertly prepared... but then again we cooked the Matsusukagyu ourselves at the table and we're not chefs, so I think the fact that the result was more delicious is certainly a result of the quality of beef. It just had a much more interesting flavour, and the cuts with the rich, melt-in the mouth fattiness were just amazing!

The sake bar downstairs is also not to be missed - you can try a range of different types of sake from around Japan for just 300JPY a shot! The menu also helpfully advises you as to how sweet/dry each sake is, and the knowledgeable staff are also on hand to explain the sake to you. All very helpful if like me you like sake very much but don't know the first thing about choosing one.

All in all I was happy with my choice of Matsusakagyu Yakiniku M restaurant to celebrate my final night in the city of Osaka. I doubt I'll have the chance to eat beef that delicious again for quite some time!

Have you tried wagyu beef?

The (Fukuoka) Ramen Diary

As a big fan of ramen, the fact that Fukuoka is the birthplace of tonkotsu ramen made spending a couple of weeks there an attractive proposition. Tonkotsu broth, where pork bones are boiled for hours to create a rich, creamy broth, is definitely my favourite kind of ramen. Back in London there's been an explosion of ramen restaurants in recent years, many of which serve the tonktosu-style dish (such as Shoryu Ramen) but of course when I came to Japan, and specifically to the Kyushu region, I simply had to try the real thing.

Ramen restaurants are popular all over Japan as a quick and easy place to grab a bite to eat: and it's one of the cheapest meals you can get. A bowl of filling ramen for 600 JPY (around £4) is not uncommon. In London I think you'd struggle to find a bowl for under £10. As I stayed in Fukuoka for the last couple of weeks of my holiday between winter and summer jobs, when my bank balance was starting to look less than healthy, ramen was a great go-to option for a cheap meal.

Below is a run-down of the ramen I tried in the Fukuoka area. I only wish I'd had the time to try a few more!

Kanada-ya
When researching ramen in Fukuoka, I'd read about a place called Ramen Stadium, located in Canal City, a shopping mall in Hakata. This seemed like a good place to start my ramen journey, as it has a variety of different vendors serving ramen from around Japan, including quite a few from the local area. The ramen 'food court' is a convenient way to have a variety of choices all under one roof. The day I went it was raining torrentially all day, so going to a shopping mall and eating ramen seemed like a sensible option!

The entrance to Kanada-ya, with vending machine to buy your meal ticket

After looking at a few of the different Kyushu-based ramen shops, I gravitated towards Kanada-ya, mainly due to the promise of a broth made from 100% black pork bones, which I'd never had before. I did immediately wonder if it was the same Kanada-ya that can now be found in London. And it turns out that it is! Kanada-ya was actually one of the ramen shops in London I never got around to trying, so it was great to try it for the first time, in situ in Japan.

Original ramen topped with charsiu pork, spring onions, nori, wood-ear fungus, soft-boiled egg

First up, this was definitely the most delicious broth I've ever had in a ramen. It was ridiculous rich and creamy, unctuous with the fattiness of the pork and full of the savouriness of those long-boiled pork bones. I could drink the broth alone for days. The noodles, which I ordered hard (I find if you order them regular or soft they simply don't have enough bite as they continue to cook a little in the hot broth) were cooked to perfection. The boiled egg was a bit too strongly flavoured for me. It was one of those eggs that is marinated in a soy-based sauce. I prefer an unseasoned boiled egg in my ramen so you can just enjoy the texture of the soft boiled egg as it soaks up the main flavour of the broth. But all in all an incredibly satisfying bowl and one that I would order again and again.

Ippudo
Ippudo is one of the most popular ramen chains in Fukuoka, and I visited the branch in Hakata station. It's actually in the huge commercial complex attached to the station, Amu Plaza, whose 9th and 10th floors are dedicated to restaurants: a good destination for the hungry traveller.

Although we did have to queue for a seat, the queue disappeared quickly and we were served in the hasty style you expect from a proper ramen joint. I went for the Shiromaru Classic for 720 JPY, the original tonkotsu ramen of the brand. The broth is cooked for 18 hours and then left to infuse for a further 24 hours to enhance the flavour.

Although the broth was very flavourful it didn't compete with the smooth richness of Kanada-ya's (although it did have a greater depth of flavour). The plain soft boiled egg was much more to my liking although a little on the runny side, so that the yolk escapes immediately into the broth upon delving into the egg, never to be seen again. It was a solid bowl of ramen, but not particularly memorable, nor one I would bother queueing for again. Given that Ippudo is hyped as one of the best ramen restaurants to hail from Fukuoka, and with its first branch opening in 1985, before I was even born, it was slightly disappointing. Like Kanada-ya, Ippudo is now a chain with branches around the world.


Manichi Gold Label
This ramen restaurant is actually in the city of Kurume, a stone's throw away from Fukuoka, which apparently is the original birth place of the tonkotsu ramen. Manichi is also a long-established brand, originating in 1953. The branch I went to was in Kurume station. Ramen restaurants are often located in stations, I suppose because it's something you can eat quickly in 10 minutes before catching your train.

I ordered the ramen bowl with spicy miso and black garlic oil. I love a plain ramen but sometimes it's nice to throw in some toppings with a little kick, to counteract the richness of the tonkotsu broth. These toppings did just that without overpowering the entire dish with their flavours. The bowl arrived with the toppings adorably assembled to look like a smiley face.

The restaurant served the best charsiu pork I've had in a ramen: beautifully melt in the mouth and rich in flavour. However, there wasn't very much of it (it's barely visible in the photo above! I think it's hiding under the miso. There was a misleadingly generous amount of pork depicted on the photo menu, as always). The soft boiled egg was the perfect texture, so I could enjoy the yolk without it disappearing into the broth. The only downside I have for this ramen, and it is a big downside, is that there was simply not enough broth! One of the primary reasons to have ramen is the broth, and I love the moment when you have finished the noodles and can simply savour the remainder of the broth. But there was so little in this bowl, that it was pretty much absorbed by the noodles by the time I was finished. I'm not sure if this is common in this restaurant or whether my server was being particularly stingy. Nonetheless, it was a memorable bowl which I thoroughly enjoyed... I just wish it had lasted longer.

That's it for my delving into the world of Kyushu's regional tonkotsu ramen, in Hakata and Kurume. For ramen lovers such as myself, I strongly encourage further reading in the form of Lucky Peach's Guide to the Regional Ramen of Japan.

How do you like your ramen? Do you have a favourite broth or topping?

NISEKO: Where to Eat

After nearly 6 months of living in Niseko-Hirafu, it is now time for me to leave. Although I'm sad to say goodbye, the time is right, as the town changes from a bustling ski resort back to the sleepy village it was when I first arrived in October. Besides, the snow has now turned to rain, and if I wanted rain, I would have stayed in England!

So in typical Foods for Thought fashion, I'm writing a post to look back on some of the meals I've had during my time here. There are so many great places to eat in the area that I could easily write a whole series of posts on my favourites. Maybe I will, when I return to work a second season here this coming winter. As I was working as a concierge this season, it's been part of my job to know where to eat, and I've been lucky enough to also dine at some restaurants through work. I've had too many delightful meals to be able to mention them all, but I've listed some of my favourites below.

Ebisutei
This tiny izakaya in lower Hirafu was one of my favourite discoveries this year. I was particularly interested to go there as I knew they served oden, which is a Japanese dish I had never tried despite holidaying in the country a couple of times previously. Although I've eaten a lot of Japanese food, there's still plenty I haven't tried yet! The oden was wholesome and satisfying in its simplicity. I was impressed by the quality of the other dishes on the menu too, plus Ebisutei is a bit cheaper than many other restaurants in the area, which is always a plus.

A selection of sashimi

Deep fried oysters with tartare sauce

Teriyaki chicken

Oden: tofu, daikon radish and fish cake

Squid tempura

Sessa
There's something really comforting about a hot pot dinner when it's cold outside! Sessa specialises in sukiyaki and shabu shabu of wagyu beef. The broth of your choice is simmered on a tabletop gas stove, and you add the vegetables and beef to cook to your liking. I personally really enjoy the sweetness of the sukiyaki broth and think it compliments the beef really well. With sukiyaki, you also traditionally dip the cooked meat into a raw egg before eating it. Although initially a bit odd, I actually quite like the texture the egg 'glaze' creates when covering the meat, but in terms of flavour I don't think it adds anything. Once only the broth remains, you can add udon noodles or rice to the pot to soak up the broth and finish your meal.

Sukiyaki broth with raw vegetables added to cook

Cooking the slices of wagyu beef

Yo (Hurry Slowly)
Yo is a great place to have a traditional Japanese set menu in a cosy, intimate setting. You have to choose the set menu you want to order when you place the reservation, and can choose from options including meat, seafood, vegetable, shabu shabu or irori (cooking over a sunken hearth).

I chose the meat set menu when I went. As well as the main course, which consisted of marinated beef and vegetables which you cook yourself over a gas stove at the table, the meal also included appetisers, salad, chicken kamameshi, chawanmushi, thinly-sliced rare roast beef, slow-cooked pork spare ribs, tonkotsu ramen and dessert. Altogether quite an epic meal!

Meat main course: cooked by the diner over a flame at the table

Hanayoshi
This restaurant is definitely one for lovers of seafood. They source their fish from both local fisheries and Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, and serve an impressive quality of sushi and sashimi as well as other seafood dishes. They take pride in presenting their dishes very attractively too, so the table is always a feast for the eyes (and the camera!). The below dishes were all served as part of the set menu, and I actually lost count of how many dishes they brought to the table...

Sashimi platter

Hairy crab

Blackened cod

Seafood salad

Sushi platter

Seafood miso soup

Ichimura Soba
This restaurant on the outskirts of Hirafu is a great soba alternative if you fail to get a reservation at the famous Rakuichi. Ichimura Soba make their own soba freshly each day and are only open for lunch. When I visited I ordered the Kamo Seiro, which is cold soba noodles served with a hot duck and spring onion broth. I prefer to order cold soba noodles as they retain their texture better if they're not submerged in hot soup! You can then dip each mouthful of soba noodles into the soup to soak up some of the broth as you eat. The soba noodles had a wonderful texture here, and the soup had a surprisingly rich, gamey flavour. 

Kamo Seiro lunch set

Other notable mentions in the Niseko dining scene go to The Barn (mouth-watering French-style food made with local produce), A Bu Cha 2 (lively izakaya), Asahikawa Ramen Tozanken (hearty ramen with 100% Hokkaido wheat noodles), Green Farm Cafe (great breakfast/lunch/brunch spot) and Graubunden (continental style sandwiches and delicious cakes).

One of the things I love best in Niseko is the amount of great restaurants. There are far more (and better quality) restaurants within a mile radius of where I work in Niseko than there are in the neighbourhood where I used to live in London - and London is known for its foodie scene. I'm just glad that there's a mountain where you can ski off all the food, or I would be leaving significantly heavier than I was when I first arrived!

Do you have a favourite restaurant in Niseko? Have you been to another ski resort with an impressive selection of dining spots?

Sapporo Beer Museum and Biergarten

Whilst visiting the Sapporo Snow Festival a couple of months ago, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit the Sapporo Beer Museum, dedicated to Hokkaido's most famous brew.

The red brick building dates back to 1890

The museum is about the history of Sapporo Breweries and beer brewing in Japan more generally. There are good quality English-language leaflets available so you can actually learn quite a bit about the history of the company as you walk around the displays, even if you don't speak Japanese. The attractive building which houses the museum dates to 1890, and was originally the factory for the Sapporo Sugar Company.

A view of the building's tower, which can be seen from miles away!

The museum has a series of really cool animated models on the 3rd floor, which display the different stages of the brewing process. There is also a timeline of the history of the company, including where the brewing technique came from. A member of the company went to Germany in 1873 to learn the craft, and returned as Japan's first brewing master: which probably explains why the beer tastes so good! 

One of my favourite elements of the museum, which continues down on the 2nd floor, are the displays of the packaging design and posters from previous eras.

Yebisu beer bottles from the early 1900s

Interesting choice of brand name...

Some of the company's non-alcoholic beverages

A range of rather artistic designs for beer cans

The museum itself is free to enter, but you have to pay for the samples at the end. You can get a tasting set of three beers (Sapporo Black Label, Sapporo Classic and Kaitakushi Beer) for 500JPY, which is pretty good value I think. You also get a free snack of cheese or crackers to go with your beer!

The tasting set goes down well!

Next door to the museum is the Sapporo Biergarten, where you can go on to have a few more beers if the tasting set wasn't enough!

You can enjoy draft beer in this nostalgic beer hall, as well as one of Hokkaido's best-loved dishes, Genghis Khan (Jingisukan). The dish consists of mutton and a selection of vegetables (cabbage, beansprouts etc), which are all cooked by the diner on a metal skillet at the table. It is well worth trying, although be warned that you will leave smelling of grilled lamb!!

You start by melting some fat onto the skillet...

... and then grill away to your heart's content!

The Sapporo Beer Museum and Biergarten are definitely a fun way to spend an afternoon in Sapporo! If you visit Sapporo and visit just one place, you can't go wrong with the a trip to the Beer Museum.

Have you tried any Japanese beers? How do you think they compare to European or American beers?

Update from The Land of the Rising Sun

I arrived in Japan on 29 October 2015, over 5 months ago... and I haven't written a blog post since. So, the most inconsistent blogger of the year award goes to yours truly. Sorry!

Within about 10 days of arriving in Japan, my iPhone, which I'd used to take photos for my blog previously, broke. It may or may not have fallen victim to an alcoholic soaking during a drinking game. I'd had it for a few years already, and had to have the screen on it replaced, so it was on its way out anyway, but I think being doused in fluid was sadly the final straw.

Without photos to show I didn't really feel motivated to blog. Plus, I got distracted with daily life, living and working in this resort, and getting waist deep in powder snow in my time off.

However, I did buy a new camera a couple of months ago. I bought a Canon Powershot G9X. It was expensive but actually takes some really decent photos, so it was a worthwhile investment. Now that I've built up a library of photos again, and as I'm about to embark on 6 weeks of travelling in Kansai and Kyushu regions of Japan, it seemed like a good time to revive the blog.

For now, I'm going to share a few photos that I have taken on my new camera.

Mount Yohtei

Mount Yohtei is an inactive volcano in Hokkaido, and it sits opposite the resort where I live/work (which is on Mount Niseko-Annupuri). Most days it's hard to see the top of Yohtei because it's too cloudy, but I got this shot on a rare sunny day. There was still a bit of cloud though as you can see! I love Mount Yohtei, and I think its beauty definitely rivals its better-known cousin, Mount Fuji. When I see a view like this, I know I made the right choice to leave London. How could you ever get bored of waking up to a majestic sight like this?

Gyu Bar

Hirafu is famous for it apres-ski scene. Although a lot of the bars aren't much different to anywhere else in the world, some of them are unique. Gyu Bar certainly is. It's nicknamed the Fridge Door bar, and I'm sure you can see why! The entrance is really small and you have to be careful to duck and avoid hitting your head. Easy enough on the way in, but after a few drinks you can forget to do the same on the way out! As well as having an impressive selection of spirits (in particular whiskies), they also do some amazing cocktails. They're often traditional cocktails with a Japanese twist, for example their yuzu mojito, which uses Japanese yuzu instead of limes - yum!

Sashimi platter at Hanayoshi

Now, a post from Japan wouldn't be complete without a picture of sushi or sashimi, would it?! The presentation of this sashimi platter at Hanayoshi blew me away: it's so delicate and beautifully arranged. The restaurant source fish from the famous Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, as well as from local fisheries in Hokkaido. As well as the usual suspects of salmon and tuna, this also had scallop, octopus, squid, prawns, abalone... and a few other things I couldn't quite work out! I personally love the delicate flavour of sashimi much more than that of cooked fish.

Attack on Titan ice sculpture

This year I made it to Sapporo Snow Festival, finally! Although I've been to Sapporo a couple of times before, I never came at the right time of year to see the snow festival. This year was the 67th edition of the festival, which features hundreds of ice sculptures, from the size of a snowman, up to monumental sizes. The above photo is part of one of the show's centrepieces (the sculpture is huge: the size of a building!) which is inspired by the manga series Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan). I'll write a separate post about the snow festival as it's one of the most popular events in Hokkaido: plus I took a lot of photos!

You have reached the end of my update post! Thank you for reading it, and I promise it won't be another 5 months before I post again!