Location: Sapporo, Japan

Author: My Husband

After our pitstop at the fish market, we headed back to Sapporo Station to do some last minute shopping. Sapporo Station seems to be the nexus of the city, the one place from which all manner of products and services flow into Sapporo. Around Sapporo Station, there are multiple department stores, countless restaurants, massive foodhalls, eletronics stores, boutiques, and many other businesses. When visiting a place new to us, we always do some of our shopping at the local grocery stores. So that afternoon found us wandering the basement foodhalls and grocery stores at Sapporo Station looking for souvenirs to take home. There were several snack items that were way to tempting to pass up, and so we bought some to eat at the hotel that afternoon.

First, we have a cream puff from the Fruitscake Factory. I did a triple take when I first saw the name because it was so Cheesecake Factory like, even down to the type of font used. But instead of being a chain restaurant like the Cheesecake Factory, Fruitscake Factory is a chain of stores selling confections. Like this cream puff for example:

It’s very much like a Beard Papa cream puff; the outside of the puff was crispy and the cream filling was very smooth, pretty sweet, and had lots of vanilla seeds in it. When it comes to cream puffs in Japan, Beard Papa certainly isn’t the only game in town.

Then there were these grapes that we had read and heard so much about. A small bunch like this was approx. CAD $10, but despite the price, we had to try it. In HK where they import Japanese produce, these grapes were selling for 2.5 times the price in Sapporo.

Ever seen a bunch of grapes wrapped up like this?

Banish all thoughts of the taste of “regular” grapes when eating these. Each seedless grape is huge and exceedingly juicy. Biting into one releases grape juice that is so sweet it is almost unreal. And each grape releases a mouthful of juice that just fills your mouth with grapy goodness. Unbelievable. Definitely worth the $10.

For some reason, Baumkuchen is very popular in Sapporo. Not sure why as we thought it was a bit dry (though very buttery).

This is a German cake, made by painstakingly building up layers of batter over a horizontal rotating spindle. The size of most baumkuchen tend to be quite substantial (approx. the size of a 6” cake with a hole in the middle), but we bought a small piece just to try. It was too dry, but decent tastewise; it was buttery and not overly sweet.

We also bought a slice of Japanese cheesecake. The packaging was a joy to behold.

To ensure that the cake didn’t move around during transport, our server folded up some thin pieces of cardboard into circles to buttress the slice of cake. One cardboard circle was used to store a spoon, while the other for paper napkins. This is why we like to buy things in Japan.

This cheesecake was different than other Japanese cheesecakes we’ve had. It was very moist and the texture very smooth. And it is also richer – almost more creamy – than the versions we find in other parts of Asia or Vancouver. Christina loved this.

Finishing up these snacks back at our hotel constituted our fourth meal of the day. By this time, we weren’t sure we could have dinner, but I told Christina we should try to give it our best shot. After all, I’d really wanted to have some sushi before heading home. At 9pm that night, we walked out to Sapporo Station yet again, this time to an outlet of Sushi Zen. We’d been told that Sushi Zen serves some of the best sushi in Sapporo, and I was determined to try it.

Sushi Zen is located on the restaurant level of Sapporo station, and was empty save for one other table of customers by the time we got there. We chose to sit at the sushi bar so that we could see the itamae work. As there weren’t many customers that evening, we had the itamae all to ourselves. He was very friendly, spoke some English, and seemed genuinely pleased to converse with us. Unlike many Japanese restaurants that prep and serve the entire sushi order on one plate, the chef at Sushi Zen madeand served one piece of sushi at a time. And as we ate it, he would proceed to make the next piece.

Each nigiri would be placed on the rectangular ceramic platter on the counter. The chef would only begin making the next nigiri only after you have finished your previous piece.

It was a joy to see the itamae work. His practiced moves, economy of motion, and elegant knifework all came together like a masterfully choreographed dance, and his creations were truly mouth-watering. Our original plan was just to have a few pieces of sushi and then call it a night. But the food that was put out by the chef was just too difficult to resist, and we ended up having a much larger dinner than we’d intended. Honestly, I have no idea how we managed to put so much food away.

The attention to detail in preparing the nigiri was very impressive. For instance, the chef removed the ingredients that were used for each individual nigiri from the refrigerated case and allowed them warm up slightly before making the sushi. If the ingredients were too cold, the true flavors of the seafood would not come through. Also, the chef painted a layer of sauce on each of the nigiri before serving it, making it such that you don’t have to dip the sushi in soy yourself.

Here’s what we had:

Hotate (scallop). The chef painted a coat of sauce over top of this before setting it on our serving plate and told us that it wasn’t necessary to put more soy on it. The sweetness of the Hokkaido scallops were astounding, and it was so fresh there was a nice, pleasing crunch when you bit into it.

Hamachi (yellowtail). This fish was nicely fatty, had a nice crunchy texture, and had just the right amount of oilyness and sweetness. This was possibly the best fish we had that evening and we ordered two rounds these for each of us.

Hotaebi (sweet prawn). There’s raw prawn and then there’s this raw prawn. My goodness, it was so sweet, and the texture so wonderfully smooth that you would think you were eating butter. It never got to be too gummy even after chewing for a while, and we really enjoyed this.

Uni (sea urchin roe). The chef used a strainer to retrieve the uni from a water-filled container, and then allowed the uni to warm up/dry on a piece of cloth befor preparing the sushi. The nigiri, unlike the other ones, was placed on a plate, and some salt was carefully sprinkled over the uni, before being served. The chef specifically told us not to dip this in soy. WOW. Enough said.

Ikura (salmon roe). Ikura must’ve been in season – that’s the only explanation I have because we’ve never had such fantastic ikura. These ones were ruby red, clear, and sparkly. When they pop in your mouth, the liquid is fresh, briny, and has a nice slightly sweet finish. We’ve never had ikura like this anywhere else in the world. These were simply fantastic, and we had four orders between the two of us.

Otoro. OMG. Look at the marbling on this piece of fish. Looks almost like a slice of steak. Totally divine.

Kinki (a small red-colored rockfish). This fish is difficult to find outside of Japan, and even in Japan, is pretty expensive. A blowtorch is taken to the skin of the fish before it is served. The slightly charred skin, along with the fatty and soft-texture of the meat, really made for great eating. Despite its delicateness, this fish was pretty oily and rich – I can see why there is a demand for it despite the price.

Squilla (mantis shrimp). This is what the Cantonese call this 攋尿蝦. I usually really like mantis shrimp because it is much sweeter than a regular prawn, but when made as a nigiri, it didn’t do much for me.

Tamago (egg). Looks more like a cake than the regular tamago nigiri, don’t you think? It was our “dessert” nigiri, and as we understand it, is usually served last to round off the meal. Best tamago we’ve had btw.

I used to say that I’ve never eaten at a truly good sushi restaurant, so I didn’t know how Vancouver sushi stacked up. Well, I think it is safe to say that I have now eaten at a pretty good sushi restaurant, and I’m sad to say that nothing I’ve eaten in Vancouver (it should be noted I haven’t been to Tojo’s, and Ajisai is our current favourite) has approached the level of quality and taste of the food at Sushi Zen. And despite the multiple orders of some of the more expensive items, the bill was not unreasonable. It was the best and most memorable sushi meal we’ve had to date. We have every intention of coming back…

Next post, airline lounges and trip roundup.