Epicurean Heaven In Japan

I just came back from a two-week leisure and skiing trip in Tokyo and Hokkaido. Japan is a food paradise indeed! I have eaten just about every variety of food available! As I have mentioned, the best Japanese food is in Japan itself!

The first day in Tokyo, we went for a steamboat dinner where all the ingredients were thrown into the pot, filled it with water, mixed with sauce and milky cream, and voila! A delicious meal! After the soup had absorbed all the ingredients, rice was added in and we ended up eating delicious sticky rice! Not to mention the appetizing side dishes!

A sashimi dish

Prawn Sushi

Hot pot

Second day. In Haneda airport, we had breakfast at a ramen place where I had soy sauce ramen. We had to order through a machine and then the food would be cooked and served to us instantly. Lunch in Hakodate consisted of rice with salmon and roe, with side dishes of sautéed pickles and vegetables. Dinner was fried rice balls with seafood, consisting of scallop, sea urchin, miso soup and crab!

Ramen counter at Haneda Airport

Bento lunch at Hakodate

Christmas Eve Dinner at Hakodate

Drinks at Hakodate Beer Brewery

Hakodate Pink Beer (somehow does not look that pink in the photo)

Third day. Breakfast was a buffet of cold dishes. In Noboribetsu, lunch was spicy ramen. Dinner was a buffet of seafood, sushi, sashimi, you name it, they had it! We were at the banquet hall around half past seven, and the dinner ends at half past eight, so we only had an hour to gorge ourselves!

Enya Ramen Restaurant in N0boribetsu

Spicy Ramen

Buffet dinner at Noboribetsu

Fourth day. Breakfast was another buffet of cold dishes and American breakfast. Then we had a late lunch of delicious ramen at Susukino. Dinner was light, with a small teppanyaki, dumplings and sausages.

Yorocho Ramen at Susukino Alley - the place that started the famous Ramen Alley

Proprietor making ramen

My extra spicy (and delicious) ramen

North Star Teppanyaki Restaurant in Susukino Alley

Boxing Day dinner

Fifth day. We wanted to go down to the seafood market for breakfast, but woke up too late, so just proceeded on our way to Otaru. Upon reaching Otaru, we had lunch at a sushi place that serves the best sushi I have ever tasted in my life! My meal was a tempura set consisting of miso soup, rice and side dishes of sashimi. The sashimi is also the best I have ever tasted!

Otaru Sushi Restaurant - the best so far!

Interior of the sushi restaurant in Otaru

Best sushi I have ever tasted!

Tempura Set

Fish soup

Shredding a radish

The humongous ice-cream of many flavours - lavendar, vanilla, melon and chocolate

We wanted to eat a Yakitori dinner, but went there too late, so stumbled upon another restaurant in the same building that serves pretty good Hokkaido steamboat with Sapporo beer! A Japanese man behind us realized we were tourists so ordered sake for us on him! How nice!

Sapporo Beer

Hokkaido Steamboat

Big bottle of sake

The sake we partook

Sixth day. Breakfast was at a café along the Sapporo Station. I had toast with scrambled eggs while some of them had pancakes with maple syrup. Upon reaching Niseko, we had soup and toast for a late lunch. We wanted to go to this restaurant called Bang Bang for dinner, but reservations were required. In the end, it turned out that the place was fully booked for the week, so we settled for another sushi restaurant that paled in comparion with the one in Otaru.

Then we went shopping for groceries in case we should get hungry. Seventh day. Breakfast was homemade toast and eggs before we went out to ski. Lunch was a small sandwich at the ski café. By the time it was dinner, I was famished! We ate Yakiniku, had a great time cooking the meat. We ordered mutton, beef and pork, together with bean sprouts! We even tried out with the different sauces for the meat!

Eighth day. I decided to cook spaghetti for the rest of them, so I made pasta. Since there was no beef available and in any case, one of the girls could not eat beef, I cooked bacon and cut it into strips, before mixing it with spaghetti and tomato sauce. Not sure how well I did, but according to feedback, the spaghetti tasted really nice! Lunch was again at the ski café, then we had another ramen for dinner.

Ninth day. I cooked eggs for everyone for breakfast, but my sunny side up (two eggs with one egg white and two yolks) did not turn out that well since I accidentally broke the eggs. Still, I think the eggs were pretty good. We then had toast and milk. Lunch at the ski café, then dinner at a cosy restaurant called Mozart, where I had veal.

Tenth day. We had instant noodles for breakfast, and the mistress kindly cooked eggs for us. At least her sunny side up looks perfect! Lunch was a seafood consommé at the Hilton, and dinner at a small tempura restaurant, where we were having so much fun that the manager actually came by and hushed us up!

Eleventh day. Breakfast was eggs and toast, lunch at the ski café, then dinner at Oh Do Ri! in Sapporo. My friend had seafood curry while I had chicken and vegetable curry so we could just share and swop.

Interior of Oh Do Ri! Restaurant

Chicken and Vegetable Curry Set

Seafood Curry Set

Twelfth day. I took the train without eating breakfast. I was in the train the whole day without eating anything, so by the time I reached Tokyo, I was famished! Too famished and tired, so all I did was to drink some milk and went to bed.

Thirteenth day. I had a breakfast of toast and orange juice then went out exploring. Lunch was delicious cold soba at the Yokohama Takashimaya. I was so full that I could actually skipped dinner!

The very delicious soba

Fourteenth day. Breakfast was hot cocoa and a Belgian Chocolate brownie at a café in Ginza. Lunch was teriyaki chicken on the plane. And hence the end of all the glorious food!