One of the local specialties here in Fukuoka is something called mentaiko — a reddish, sausagey-looking thing made from cured sacs of pollock roe.
It recently occurred to me that I was about to leave Japan without having yakitori (skewered meat, traditionally cooked over charcoal). Obviously, that wouldn’t do.
Tonkotsu ramen — in which pork bones are boiled down for hours and hours until you wind up with a rich, creamy soup — might be the most famous style of ramen.
I should have known that the airport ramen wouldn’t be very good. I mean, it’s airport ramen. Any rational person would tell you that it’s not going to be very good.
After my sub-par experience at Aji No Karyu, I knew I couldn’t leave it at that. I had to eat at least one more bowl of ramen in Sapporo so that me and the city could part on good terms.
Aji No Karyu is mostly notable for being the ramen joint that Anthony Bourdain went to during the Hokkaido episode of No Reservations. That’s certainly the reason I wanted to try it.
Soup curry is one of those local dishes that you pretty much have to try; it’s a Hokkaido specialty that features a spice-packed, long-simmered soup crammed with veggies and meat, and served with rice on the side.
Well, regardless of whatever else I do/see in Sapporo, I’m already incredibly glad that I came here if only for the ramen at Amewa Yasashiku.
I might have gone a little bit overboard with the ramen in Tokyo, so I made a conscious decision to avoid ramen in Sendai. As much as I love ramen (which is a lot, clearly), there’s so much great food in Japan to try.
But I obviously couldn’t leave without having at least one bowl. I mean, what do I look like, a maniac?
I mentioned in a previous post that I took a sightseeing boat from Matsushima that wound up at Shiogama.
Among other things, Shiogama is known for being one of the busiest fishing ports and processors of seafood in Japan. A pleasant side effect of this is that Shiogama boasts one of the highest concentrations of sushi restaurants in the whole country.