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.
After my absurdly horrible ramen experience at the Sapporo airport, the Food Gods clearly decided to take pity on me, basically dropping an amazing pastry right in my lap.
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.
About 90 percent of the things I eat while I’m travelling are either based on research or popularity (i.e. if I see a line for food, I’m probably going to stand in that line regardless of what it’s for).
Occasionally, however, I’ll see something like the dorayaki ice cream sundae at Sazae x Ishiya. I hadn’t heard anything about it, and there were no crowds. But come on: look at that thing. That’s way too delightful to pass up. I had to try it.
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.
Among other things, Hokkaido is known for the quality of its local dairy. A nice side-effect of this: ice cream shops are everywhere here.
I’m not particularly a sports guy (and by “not particularly” I mean “not at all”), but if I were going to get into sports, I’d be watching baseball. It’s the only sport I can watch all the way through without getting completely bored.
So when I realized I could watch a baseball game here in Japan, I figured sure, why not.
Though you can find cheese tarts all across Japan (and across the world — at least a couple places have opened in Toronto that serve these things in the last few years), they’re originally from Hokkaido.