Well, what is there to say? At least the waiter was a nice guy…

While meals are only one component of travel, they really illustrate the difference in mindset between work travel and leisure travel. Theoretically, there’s really no reason why one can’t eat as well when travelling on business vs leisure. A meal is a meal. At 7pm, find a restaurant, go, and eat. Easy peasy, no?

In practice however, one really never eats as well while on business, despite the expense account. Business trips are always very tight on time, filled with meetings that require extensive preparations. And because these meetings are always arranged in a just-in-time manner, that usually means preparations begin on the flight. And on the ground, late night calls are the norm, going over the numbers with the local team and discussing t’s & c’s with the global centers. And during the meetings, the politicking and maneuvering of negotiations is enough to drain one of the desire to do anything other than to head back to the hotel for a drink (or to the airport to catch a flight home…). Naturally, all these factors conspire to rob one of the appetite to eat a nice meal; your mental state is such that spending too long eating takes away from finishing up the work at hand. In fact, this is why many road warriors tend to eat very unhealthily.

Aside from the food, the work itself is usually challenging and ultimately satisfying. The feeling of winning is great – nothing feels better than giving a well-received presentation, or getting one’s way in negotiations, or coming away with a signed deal. But the eating suffers…

On vacation, hey, you’re always just waiting to your next meal. No meetings in the morning to prepare for, no late night phone calls to locales where phone connections are staticky, no colleagues asking why delivery timelines are so short, no senior executives asking if margins can be higher… in short, nothing to harsh one’s mellow!

On vacation, you pretty much have a great appetite all the time. This why when Christina and I are on holidays, we have the ability to eat things at a frequency that would make the pre-subway-diet Jared Fogle (remember him?) proud.

So, with the above preamble, we head back to Sapporo where we would begin every morning with a full breakfast. Japanese hotels do very nice breakfast buffets, with Japanese selections consisting of rice, various types of fish and meats, pickled salads, miso soup, etc. plus continental standbys such as fruits, dairy products, cereals, salads, etc. The milk, this being Sapporo, was particularly good. Hokkaido milk is truly some of the best we’ve had. (If you like your milk bland and tasteless, you might beg to differ)

On this particular day, after having breakfast, we had a pretty full itinerary ahead of us. In the morning, after breakfast, we took a public bus to the Sapporo Beer Museum. Those of you who have broken bread with me know that I like my beer, so no surprise that I would drag Christina out there. Now having spent a lot of time in Singapore, I thought I knew what clean was. But the Japanese really takes clean to the next level.

The window sills of the public bus we were on was dust free. The rest of the bus immaculately clean. And the bus driver couldn’t be a nicer chap, despite our language challenges. And that really is a microcosm of Sapporo society. Oh, interesting factoid – you don’t pay when you get on the bus, you pay before you get off.

And after a short ride, we arrived at the Beer Museum.

Sapporo beer is still brewed in Hokkaido, but outside the city. The beer museum, as we found out, was never really a brewery. It was originally a sugar mill.

The tour was self-guided, and frankly, not the most interesting one I’d been on. Having been taken on walking tours of commercial breweries in Asia, the Beer Museum was somewhat of a let down. The most interesting thing were the collection of Sapporo beer bottles through the ages, as well as the series of posters used to market the products from the 1800s to present day.

A small section of their poster wall.

The plan was to spend an hour or so here, and then head over to the Sapporo bier garten for a quick snack. We finished the tour in 30 minutes, but that didn’t stop us from heading over to the bier garten anyway.

A very rigid napkin

The place had a German vibe about it, but you don’t have to look too closely to see that it is Japanese. The place was large and very smoky – not from cigarettes, but from the all-you-can-eat BBQ lamb that they were serving.

My wife was still feeling pretty full from breakfast, so she wisely sat out this meal. Me? I got the following:

Sapporo doesn’t get much fresher than this – very close to the source. Just as I’ve had the best Heineken while in Amsterdam, I had the best Sapporo in Sapporo!

We also had lamb sausages with some pickled cabbage (not, it’s not quite sauerkraut) and Dijon mustard. The sausages were nice and greasy, a little sweet on the palette, and pleasingly gamey.

The star almost reminds one of Heineken.

Snack eaten, we bade the beer museum farewell and made our way to the fish market. On this short journey, we got to see more of Sapporo’s public transit system, which was clean, efficient, and unexpectedly inexpensive. The subway ticketing systems were very intuitive and exceedingly user-friendly, so much so that we got the hang of it within 30 seconds. The subway trains pull into the station at breakneck speeds, like so:

Subway train arriving at the station. Note the half-height safety barriers – the trains stop in such a way that their doors are aligned with the safety barrier doors.

The train interiors are spotlessly clean. Also, the Sapporo subway trains have cloth upholstered seats, which are comfy and impossibly clean. How do they keep it so?

We made two train transfers and then got off at a station that was on the outskirts of downtown. This place was a bit more industrial, yet no less clean. It was a little bit of a walk to the fish market, which isn’t really one large market. Rather, it’s a street where seafood vendors have set up shop, with quite a few vendors vying for the shoppers’ seafood dollars. We got there a little late, and many of the businesses were already washing up, preparing to shut down for the day. However, there were one or two large stores, obviously well-prepared to handle tourists, that were still going full-tilt.

A cute little pickup used for delivery. In the background, you can see the colorful signs of the seafood vendors.

We walked into one of the larger seafood stores and gawked at the impressive variety of seafood on offer. One of the fishmongers walked up to us and starting speaking in rapid-fire Japanese. We smiled at him politely, patiently waiting for him to come to the realization that we didn’t speak the language. But he was a loquacious one, and kept on gabbing away. And then, all of a sudden, he realized we weren’t responding, which was when he started laughing, shaking his head, and asked what could only be “Oh, you don’t speak Nihongo?” in Japanese.

And then he put his arms around my shoulders, starts pointing at my wife and begins with his rapid-fire speech again. He was nodding, making the thumbs-up sign, and I caught the words “Nihonjin” quite a few times. I think he was saying my wife looks Japanese (it’s not the first time we’ve heard that). And then he gave me a friendly slap on the arms, and with more thumbs-up in Christina’s direction, gives me the universal “You lucky dog” smile that men the world over all understand. Who said the Japanese are reserved?

There was a restaurant attached to that store, which we recognized from one of the TVB food programs that we’d watched. One of the walls was covered with testimonials from previous visitors, and we recognized one from Leung Man To. Well, with references like that, how could we not eat our third meal of the day there?

Spartan but clean surroundings. The wall with the tuna drawing was covered with testimonials from previous “famous” visitors.

One side of the picture menu. Prices here weren’t cheap.

The other side of the menu.

Self-serve tea and eating utensils.

And here’s what we ordered.

A chirashi bowl with ika (squid), amaebi (prawn), maguro (tuna), awabi (abalone), uni (sea urchin roe) and ikura (salmon roe). This was AWESOME. I don’t know how we ate it all up, but we did. Everything was good, but ikura was a revelation. The ikura we get in Vancouver is a bit cloudy, but the ones in Sapporo were ruby red and very clear. And in your mouth, each globule pops and releases a burst of fresh, rich, salty goodness with a slightly sweet finish. Nothing I’ve eaten outside of Sapporo have tasted this good.

After our third meal of the day, we walked around the store contemplating buying some seafood to eat back at the hotel. Here’s some of the items on sale at the store:

King crab legs

Air dried fish

Fish roe

Uni. I think Uni wasn’t in season yet, for the roe was pretty small in size.

Hokkaido hairy crab

Spiny king crab

Queen crab

King crab. Mmmm… King crab. All packed for travel and ready to go.

The friendly Japanese guy snapped a couple of photos of us, and we were on our way. Some of you might know that I’m a huge car nut, so I took several photos of cars that I found interesting.

For instance, in Japan, this Legend is properly labeled a Honda. “Acura” is a brand made-up purely for the North American market. What’s wrong with calling a Honda a Honda?

In a land where small cars are the norm, it’s always hilarious to see something like this Chevy Suburban. All blinged up with 22 inch chromed rims too…

Next post, snacks and the best sushi we’ve had to date. Keep watching this space…

Author: My Husband

…are here again. Although it was frustrating having to upgrade Wordpress on Saturday night, this new version is much more user-friendly and responsive than the one we’d been using.

Blue skies are literally here – in Toronto at least. Couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day; too bad I spent most of it in a boardroom.

Today was the first day in a long time I wore a tie to work. Suits and blazers are pretty common in my line of work, but ties are not. It has been such a long time since I’ve had to put on a tie that I don’t have many shirts where I could do up the collar button anymore; good thing then that I did a dry run at home when I was packing, or I would have shown up wearing something with a collar that would have slowly strangled me. As soon as the meetings were over, I schlepped back to the hotel for my standard sweater/jeans before wandering out to discover a place for dinner.

For a city the size of Toronto, you would think the downtown south of Queen St would be home to some restaurants. But strangely enough, I didn’t run across all that many on my walk. And those that I did run across were closed! Very puzzling, this. My walk took me from Queen St W to Front St E, and just as I was about give up and turn back, I saw this place called The Sultan’s Tent. It’s better than nothing, and I really didn’t feel like walking up to Bloor, so I went in.

Here’s what I had.

Maftoul. It’s deep fried pastry rolls (sorta like Chinese spring rolls, but not as crisp) filled with a mixture of mildly spiced beef, nuts, and raisins. The filling was nicely spicy and quite satisfying, but the pastry was more chewy than crisp.

Beef short rib with Moroccan spices (quite a but of cumin). The meat was not as tender as I’d hoped, but the demi-glace that it was finished with was quite good.

Dried and candied fruits for dessert. There were some figs stuffed with bits of crunchy nuts, which made for a good textural contrast. Then there were some chocolate dipped apricots, which were very hard to the bite. I probably would have done better in going for the creme brulee instead…

All in all, it was a quite-tasty but not-very-memorable meal. I’m sure there are much better places in downtown Toronto; the trick is to find some that are still open after 8pm.

No, this post isn’t about the fish market in Sapporo, but I just wanted to do a quick one just to break this new Wordpress blog in. Next post – the fish market in Sapporo!

Author: My Husband

Since Hokkaido is renowned as a port of entry for Japanese seafood, Christina and I were planning to have a crab meal in Sapporo. But where do we go? Well, as luck would have it, two of our friends, one whom used to be a travel agent and is very familiar with Sapporo, were in town (in the same hotel in fact) the same days we were. We asked him where we should go, and “Kani Shogun” was his reply. We had the concierge make the reservation for us that morning. That evening, soon after “Ramen Hour”, we walked the three or so blocks from Ramen Yokocho to keep our dinner reservation at the restaurant.

And what a restaurant! Similar to the higher-end places in Asia, Kani Shogun actually took up an entire building.

Kani Shogun – “Crab General” – has several locations throughout Japan. Their Sapporo location in Susukino, like many other crab restaurants in the city, has a large mechanical crab with waving claws/legs hung just above its entrance

Here’s a closer look:

The mechanical crab is actually quite detailed. We saw something very similar at a restaurant in Osaka, but I don’t know who had the idea first. But I guess there’s no mistaking the kind of food they serve behind these doors.

My wife and I walked in through the automatic doors, locked away our umbrella in a secure stand, and were formally greeted by the staff. All the female staff at Kani Shogun wore traditional kimonos, and behaved very professionally and formally at all times. We were politely invited to remove our shoes in the grand foyer, and were handed off to a hostess who led us to the elevator for the ride upstairs. We weren’t given a chance to touch the buttons – all the buttons were pressed by our hostess outside the elevator with an efficiency of motion that was astounding. And as the elevator doors closed, she gave us a deep bow. At this point, we didn’t know what we were supposed to do after we reached our floor, but we needn’t have worried. As soon as the doors opened, there was another hostess, who after greeting us with another deep bow, led us to our private dining room.

There were several of these private dining room on each of the floors. Each one is designed to have a little porch with a fence…

… and a miniature rock garden.

Each room has a sliding door, which was always closed when the waitress wasn’t in the room. There was a call-button on the table, and a press of that would have somebody knocking on the door within seconds. The tatami rooms were minimalistic in design, which added to the Japanese-ness of the entire experience. Our two waitresses took care of us very well, and their English was much much better than our Japanese. The service at Kani Shogun (well, at all the places we visited in Sapporo) could not be faulted at all.

So after stuffing ourselves silly all day, we had decisions to make. There were several very appealing kaiseki meals available at Kani Shogun; however, we also had the option to order the crab sampler, which consisted of just crabs and nothing else. Since we were here to eat Hokkaido crabs and weren’t all that hungry, it made sense for us to try the crab sampler. However, in an attempt at variety, we also ordered a side dish of crab innard hotpot, and a BBQ king crab leg.

Naturally, one would order Sapporo beer when in Sapporo. Interestingly, the beer is no longer brewed within Sapporo city limits, but at least the brewery is still in Hokkaido.

Crab innard hotpot. Frankly, only in Japan can a serving of crab innards look so good. We mixed all the ingredients together in the pot and allowed it to heat up, then ate it neat. It was oh so rich; sweet, complex, with a slightly bitter finish. This was great – but you wouldn’t want to eat too much of it lest it fills you up before the main course.

Our crab sampler. There was one whole hairy crab, the legs & claws of a queen crab, and the legs of a king crab. This was meant to serve 5, but since it was our main course, we finished it between the two of us (albeit with a bit of difficulty as we were soooo full…). The king crab tasted best – sweet and succulent. The queen crabs were a close second – the meat was sweet, but not as succulent as the king. The hairy crab was the least special – it tasted very much like a Dungeness.

No scissors or crackers were provided because none were needed. In typical Japanese attention to detail, the shell on these crab pieces were trimmed in such a way that you could access every nook and cranny with the crab pick. Very convenient and very thoughtful.

A closer look at the crab.

The BBQ king crab leg. OMG. This was too awesome – it was even more succulent that the king crab pieces on the platter. And again, notice how the shell has been trimmed away – even the knuckles – such that the meat can be extracted easily and conveniently? Simply wonderful.

By the time we slurped up the last of the BBQ leg, we were feeling like a couple of lard asses. Thank goodness were were going to be in town for only 3.5 days, or no post-vacation diet in the world would get us back to our fighting weights. After our meal and feeling veeeeery satisfied, the floor hostess showed us to the elevator and proferred another deep bow as the doors were closing.

We settled our bill at the cashier station on the ground level, and after yet another round of bowing, we found our shoes laid out all ready for us; a male employee was standing by with a shoehorn just in case… What attentive service!

After leaving the restaurant, we decided to walk off the meal, and here are some of the things we saw:

Supersized neon signs…

… all over the place.

The Tanuki Koji Shopping Arcade, which spanned several parallel streets. There were a good number of stores and restaurants here.

And as honest-to-goodness dedicated foodies, we took the chance to visit the restaurant-level at Sapporo station before walking back to our hotel. These are a lot more appealing than pictures in menu, don’t you think?

While walking around Sapporo Station, we came upon a sushi restaurant that would really open our eyes (and tastebuds) to excellent sushi. That post is to come. For my next post – more crabs at the Seafood market in Sapporo.

Author: My Husband

Before heading off to “Ramen Hour”, my wife and I spent the earlier part of the day walking around and sightseeing in Sapporo’s business district. Sapporo, Japan’s youngest and fifth-largest city, was planned much like a North American city where the grid pattern and rectangular city blocks dominate. The business district is pretty compact, and very walkable even though the chill in the air was a constant reminder that we were a little under-jacketed. But despite the cold, my wife was adamant about trying the famed soft-serve at the Hanabatake Farm retail store.

Hanabatake Farm retail store – right across the street from the historic Sapporo clock tower.

Hokkaido is famous for its agricultural products, especially milk. Milk from Hokkaido cows is so strongly perfumed, rich, smooth, and creamy that North American milk tastes bland by comparison. Hanabatake Farm is known for its range of high-quality dairy products made from the milk from their own herd of cows.

We tried the soft-serve, which turned out to be everything it was cracked up to be.

Hanabatake Farm soft serve. Smooth, rich, creamy, and redolent with milky goodness. It is very easy to get hooked on this stuff.

We also tried the milk pudding, which was packaged in a very interesting manner.

A cylinder containing three servings of milk pudding.

A closer look at how each serving is packaged up. The pudding is allowed to set in a tightly fastened balloon-like material, and is bouncy to the touch.

To eat, you pop the balloon with a toothpick and the pudding is readily released. It’s a very ingenious hygienic and green way to packaging pudding. And oh yeah, it was delicious.

Christina ended up buying several jars of condensed milk and dulce de leche to take home, and as of this writing, we’ve just finished up the last jar of it.

Our readers might remember that I had written about my new found fondness for Royce’ Chocolates in an earlier post on this travel series. In a rather serendipitous turn, we found after landing in Sapporo that Royce’ Chocolates were made in Hokkaido, and that there was a retail café in the city. It didn’t take much convincing for me to go and visit.

The Royce’ Café.

Serving their own Americano brew. It was pretty good – unlike many Japanese blends, it was actually on the richer/heavier side.

Royce’ Chocolate’s latest product – the chocolate covered potato chip. Word has it that these chips are quite tasty, but we didn’t buy any to try. Next time we will.

The café had the complete line of Nama chocolates. Suffice it to say, we bought a few to take home as souvenirs.

Royce’ has a range of ice cream flavours as well.

Royce’ also had a wide range of other products – cookies, teas, coffees, even cocoa based skin care products!

To end this post, here are some photos of Sapporo in no particular order…

The Japanese people are really big on machinized help – this is a contraption that helps you get your wet brolly wrapped in a plastic sheath. No need to get your hands wet!

Sapporo Clock Tower – the oldest standing building in Sapporo.

Sapporo Station – this is pretty much how everybody gets into the city.

Ah Daimaru – home to expensive, but excellent shopping.

Vending machines are huge in Japan. This one is for cigarettes…

… and these ones for drinks. There are countless other selling all manner of products all over the place.

Sapporo’s Poletown, an underground shopping complex. Very handy when you are under-dressed for the weather outside.

And in the spirit of preparedness anytime and anywhere, there are defribillators installed at several locations in Poletown.

Next post – Hokkaido seafood!

Author: My Husband

Boy, it’s been a month since our last post! Well, what better time to jump back in than now, with so many Vancouver blogs posting about ramen? I thought it might be interesting to compare pictures of “Vancouver Ramen” with “Japanese Ramen”, so I’m putting up this post about our ramen meal from day 2 of our Sapporo trip.

Truth be told, I don’t eat a lot of ramen in Vancouver. My wife and I have tried many of the local ramen places, and though they serve up very decent bowlfuls, we think there’s still that little something that’s missing. It’s like eating Vancouver satay vs Singapore satay – there’s just that little je ne sais quoi in the Singapore version that makes eating the “real deal” so much more enjoyable.

To pick up where I left off with my previous post – Christina and I slept like babies during our first night in Sapporo. This, I attribute to our relative lack of sleep the day before. We spent the second day in Sapporo exploring many of the interesting food places and restaurants that Christina read about, and boy, was the eatin’ ever good. We pretty much hopped from place to place stuffing our mouths (and tummies), and we started inventing new mealtimes simply because… well, simply because there was something we ran across that we had to try. Like for example, there was one hour between “second-afternoon-tea” and dinner that was begging to be filled – so we came up with “ramen hour” to fill it.

We named it “Ramen hour” because we found ourselves in the vicinity of Sapporo’s famed “Ramen Yokocho”, a small alley off a side street in Susukino that housed an amazingly large number of ramen shops.

View from one end of Ramen Alley.

The board at the entrance of the alley describing each of the ramen shops and their house specialty. Talk about choices.

We didn’t know which one to choose, so we “eeni-meeni-money-moed” our choice. We ended up at this place, which I suspect was eponymously named.

”Ramen hour” was around 5:30pm in the afternoon, which was way too early for dinner. We had the run of Ramen Alley to ourselves at that time of day. Peeking into each of the shops, we saw the noodle chefs all doing the prep for that service; there were hardly any other customers in the alley except for us.

We stepped into Kunimitsu Ramen Shop, which only had one U-shaped bar/seating area. Ramen shops are not places where you would want to hang around after eating your noodles. Etiquette dictates that you order, eat, pay, and leave.

Since this was a meal in between “second-afternoon-tea” and dinner, my wife and I ordered one bowl of miso ramen (which apparently was originally “invented” in Hokkaido) and some gyoza to share. Here’s our food:

Very nicely fried gyoza.

Miso ramen. This was a very nice bowl of noodles, with a rich – yet puzzlingly light – miso tonkotsu broth. The fatty cha su was a nice accompaniment, portion control (i.e. 2 slices) meant that the fat never overpowered your tastebuds. The noodles were cooked to a degree of doneness that was psychically aligned with our desires that afternoon. And the half-boiled egg was just perfect.

We enjoyed the egg so much, we ordered another one. We ate half of it before remembering to snap a photo:

Perfect half-boiled egg.

The ramen was slightly different than what we had in Tokyo from a previous trip, but I think I’m more partial Hokkaido’s version. One shop down, seventeen more to try. Methinks we’ll be headed back to Sapporo sooner rather than later.

Author: My Husband

Our last stop on the trip before heading home was the city of Sapporo in northern Japan. We have visited quite a few places in Japan in the last several years, but all of them were located on Honshu island. This was our first time in Sapporo, which is situated on the northern island of Hokkaido.

It took us a little while to get from HK to Hokkaido (my wife will probably roll her eyes at my definition of “little”). We first had to fly from HK back to Singapore (on a SQ A380 – nice!), and then waited 4 hrs at Changi for our overnight flight to Tokyo Narita on yet another SQ A380. We waited out a 3 hr connection at Narita in the ANA lounge, then spent another 2 hrs on a regional flight from Tokyo Narita to Sapporo New Chitose. I didn’t mind the flying – airplanes are almost like a third home for me anyway – but Christina thought I was nuts.

Pretty sky somewhere between Tokyo and Sapporo.

A glimpse of the outlying areas surrounding Sapporo – very agricultural. What a difference compared to the built-up areas surrounding Tokyo.

Oh yeah – funny story on the flight from HK to Singapore. My wife, who is now a certifiable Iberico ham fanatic, found some good-quality jamon Iberico de Bellota at Seibu’s “Great” food hall, so she bought a small pack to eat on the flight. In the air, she shared some of the ham with my Aunt, and before long, I had two hysterical women lamenting the fact that Iberico wasn’t available in Singapore or Canada. Great… (We later found out that Iberico ham is available at Bosa Foods and Oyama Sausage. Oyama Sausage has the better quality ham from acorn-fed pigs – jamon Iberico de Bellota. Bosa Foods only sells regular jamon Iberico. Christina will be writing a post about this soon enough..)

We got into Narita at around 7:30 in the morning. I slept a little during the flight, so I was feeling pretty good. My wife on the other hand, didn’t sleep much and promptly fell into a deep slumber while sitting upright in the ANA lounge. Since my company was fast asleep, I took a leisurely shower and amused myself by pouring beverages, one after another, using the infamous Japanese beer machine in the lounge.

This is a typical self-serve beer machine in the ANA lounge. You put a glass in the metal holder and press the start button. The machine then tilts the glass and dispenses the beer until you press the stop button. The automated tilting action ensures a perfect head of foam every time. Yes, it probably was too early to drink, but hey, I was on vacation.

Typical Japanese attention to detail. Beer glasses were kept cool in the fridge. Only Japanese airline lounges serve Pocari drinks – I was tempted to have a can to relive my youth, but draft Sapporo won out in the end. The white liquid in the top shelf? Hokkaido milk, imho, the best tasting milk in the world.

The ANA regional flight got us into Sapporo in the early afternoon and we made our way from the airport to Sapporo Station on the JR Express train. A word of advice to those of you who are thinking of travelling to Japan: pack light. Our bags weren’t large by North American standards, but we encountered some challenges getting them onto and off the train. And when onboard, there really wasn’t any space to put the bags without getting in the way of other passengers. Needless to say, our bags were the largest ones onboard…

We stayed at the Keio Plaza Sapporo, which is located several minutes walk away from Sapporo Station. The following are views from our room:

View to the west. JR train tracks are in the foreground.

View to the east, looking towards Sapporo station.

By the time we were settled in, it was already early evening. The long travelling hours were starting to catch up to us, and we just wanted to get something to eat and turn in early. We didn’t have any idea what we were going to to eat, so we walked out to Sapporo Station to check out what was available.

Now, Japan is the land of plenty when it comes to many things, but food has to be at the top of the list. We strolled into the basement food hall at Daimaru and we were lost in a wonderful maze of food stalls selling an amazing variety of foodstuffs – think super-sized foodcourt on crack (without the chairs/tables) and you’ll get a sense of what we found ourselves in the middle of. Sleep and hunger forgotten, we spent the next hour walking around the Daimaru food hall, and then through the underground mall to the other food halls in the basement of the JR Sapporo Station complex.

One of the reasons we came to Sapporo was for the food, and we knew rightaway that we weren’t going to be disappointed. Something Christina really wanted to eat on this trip was authentic Japanese tonkatsu, or deep-fried pork chop. We were supposed to go to a restaurant in HK to do so, but we never made it there. As luck would have it, we ran smack into a tonkatsu restaurant on one of the dining floors in Stellar Place, a multi-storey mall connected to Sapporo Station. We didn’t wait for an invitation; we stepped right on in.

Tonkatsu restaurant. One of the things about Japan is the discipline and consistency with which malls are designed. In the basement, you will find the food hall. Keep going up the escalators and you will find yourself on the dining floor – restaurants galore. A true foodie paradise, Japan is.

The staff in the restaurant did not speak much English, and we did not speak an iota of Japanese. But this being Japan, we were offered picture menus as soon as the staff realized we weren’t locals. The funniest thing was Christina being mistaken for being Japanese ALL the time, and I will relate a funny story about this in a later post.

One thing that I noticed was the patience that people in Sapporo had for foreigners – they were extremely nice to non-Japanese speaking people, which made things a lot easier for us. In Tokyo and Osaka, people are slightly less patient. The worst experience we had was in Kyoto, where some of the sales people we tried to buy stuff from were downright rude to us. In terms of tourist-friendliness, Sapporo is the perfect city for first time visitors to Japan.

But back to tonkatsu – the picture menu was pretty comprehensive. You could choose the kind of pork, the size of the tonkatsu by weight, the meat to fat ratio, and a host of other stuff. Because Japanese kanji is approx 70% similar to written Chinese, we generally understood the context of the information being presented. I ended up choosing a set meal with a 164g tonkatsu. My wife went all out and chose a 250g piece. After making our choices, our food started showing up pretty quickly…

These were the condiments and “tools” that were placed on every table. On the left, you have the mortar and pestle for grinding up sesame seeds, a bottle of which you see on the right; the ground sesame paste is used as a sauce for the tonkatsu. Next to the mortar and pestle, you have a selection of salad dressing. Next to that, you have one jar of sweet sauce and another jar of spicy sauce.

This trio of pickled vegetables were presented to us before our tonkatsu arrived. All were very good, and we ended up eating quite a bit of the middle one, as well as the one on the right. Also served, but not photographed, were two bowls of very tasty miso soup.

Then these were served.

Tonkatsu – perfectly fried with no excess oil. And tonkatsu is always served with a healthy heaping of shredded cabbage. Guess the greens balance out the fried pork chop. This was my 164g order.

This was Christina’s 250g order, which was sliced before serving. See how light and crispy the panko crust looks? Also, see how thick the tonkatsu is? It puts to shame all the pale imitations served at the Taiwanese and Japanese restaurants in Vancouver.

Another view of the pork chop. It was fully cooked (no medium rare doneness here), very moist, and had the perfect ratio of meat to fat. The texture was superb, and very umami tasting. It was, in a word, awesome.

Last but not least, two bowls of Japanese rice were served. Now, Japanese rice is very premium stuff and is not usually exported out of Japan. (The Japanese rice we buy in North America is grown in North America). The rice we had was soft, fluffy, and pleasingly starchy – it was superb. My wife, who usually doesn’t eat much rice, finished her whole bowl. She also had rice every morning for breakfast, so you know it’s gotta be good…

With our hunger fully sated, we made our way back to the hotel and settled in for our long-awaited sleep. But the tonkatsu was a really perfect way to start our vacation in Sapporo, and it was just a teaser of the great things that were to come…

In the next few posts, we’ll talk about seriously good eats in Sapporo…

Author: My Husband

After three days in Hong Kong, it was time for us to travel to our next destination. But before I post about that, here are some photos of the HK odds and ends to wrap up this visit.

The best Portuguese egg tarts, we found at Lord Stow’s in Macau. However, HK also boasts some very good egg tarts as well. For instance, the ones available in Tai Cheong Bakery are pretty good.

Creamy custard filling, and interesting pastry shell made with oats.

Here’s where you can find them – Tai Cheong Bakery. There are branches all over the city, and word is that the last governor of HK – Chris Patten – used to be a regular patron.

My wife loves beef, so we weren’t going to leave HK without eating at Kau Kee (九記牛腩) first. This restaurant has a rich history of serving beef brisket (and only beef brisket), and boasts a customer list that reads like a who’s who of HK high society. Their beef brisket was very good indeed. So good, in fact, that the waiters did not see any particular need to provide much – if any – service to the customers.

Beef brisket noodle in clear broth. The noodles were interesting – they were flat and delicate, and had a texture somewhere between al-dente and mushy. The beef is tender and flavorful. Broth is chock-a-block with umami.

Beef brisket in clear broth. The beef in this dish is even more tender than that in the dish above. Very satisfying indeed.

Kau Kee is an institution, and plenty of customers flock to it. This also means that they haven’t refreshed the place in ages (i.e. it is little more than a hole in the wall), and have in their employ waiters who do not even speak to you when taking your order. It was really quite the experience…

I happen to like HK milk tea, especially like the iced version; however, I usually have to rush against time to finish it lest the melting ice dilutes the flavor. In HK, several “creative” solutions have been applied to this particular problem. An ingenious one is to freeze milk tea into ice cubes, and then use them in the preparation of the final drink. I was on the lookout for this, but did not manage to find it. Another solution, albeit one that is quite gimmicky, is this:

Ice-well milk tea. Since the ice is on the outside, it can’t dilute your drink.

You can find the above at Tai Hing Roast Meats – this place is apparently popular amongst locals, but I found the food to be quite average.

We also went to one of the more popular cha-chan-tangs (茶餐厅) in Central called Honolulu. They are pretty well known for their egg tarts, pineapple buns, and milk tea, so we ordered those.

More egg tarts. The custard was excellent, but the pastry had gone a bit limp as it had been out of the oven for a while. Fresh out of the oven, these tarts would have been awesome.

Pineapple bun. It was also a little limp, but the top coating was pretty good. I would say that Lido’s (Central Square, Richmond) version, often regarded as the best in Metro Vancouver, is as good as Honolulu’s.

Iced milk tea. Strong and creamy, this was superb. I haven’t found any in Vancouver that are better. And because Honolulu is owned by my good friend’s family, I actually have a tub of their tea leaves sitting at home.

I really like Hong Kong, and I can’t wait to visit again. After HK, my wife and I pushed on to our next destination:

This tower is not particularly well known, but it is a landmark of the city that we travelled to. Any guesses as to where this is?

Finally, to end our series of posts on HK, the following photos are of a meal we had at Leung Man To’s (梁文韜) Tai Wing Wah Village Restaurant. Leung, also known as Hugo, is a celebrity chef in HK and has a well-deserved reputation for being a gourmand. Since both Christina and I like to watch his TV shows, we were really enthusiastic about trying out his food.

The Tai Wing Wah in Kowloon. The place was pretty packed – good thing Christina made a reservation.

Smoked oysters. These were pretty decent; the oysters were suitably smoky, and had a pleasant texture.

Family-style chicken. This was ok. Not bad, but not fantastic.

One of Hugo Leung’s more popular dishes – rice with lard and soy sauce. Sounds disgusting you say? It is actually really flavourful. You are provided with the lard and soy, and you can add as much as you like.

The rice was beautifully cooked.

A cold platter of roast suckling pig and jelly-fish. The roast pig was very nice. Skin was crispy, and the pork very tender.

Another of Hugo’s popular dishes – “rice fried” duck that is supposed to be limited to only 20 per night. The duck was flavorful and pretty rich, but also quite chewy.

Yet another of Hugo’s popular dishes – Ma Lai Gou. The serving size was gigantic. It had a very fine texture, was suitably moist, and had more than a trace of butter. This was very good indeed.

The food at Tai Wing Wah is meant to be “village” food, so everything is served family style. The dishes are not meant to be fancy; rather, they are supposed to be rustic and honest. Judged in that context, Tai Wing Wah delivered in spades. What’s more, the food was very reasonably priced by any standards – all the food above (plus beer for me) came to approx. CAD $60.

However, in absolute terms, truth is, the food was really just so so. Perhaps we were expecting too much, or maybe it was a bit of an off night for the chefs, but we didn’t walk away wanting to visit again soon.

Author: My Husband

After completing the write-up on Lung King Heen in late December, I had planned to put up the next post in a couple of days. For a bunch of reasons, that couple of days quickly turned into one week. Then one week quickly turned into a couple. And in the blink of an eye, a couple of weeks became a month. A month without updating this blog… I’m not even sure I want to see what the traffic statistics look like anymore.

Over the last four weeks, a new deal has been taking up a good part of my work days. The effort that I’ve been putting into it, plus all the associated travel required to manage it, has made me want to be a passive recipient of entertainment after hours (i.e. TV!) instead of being a content creator. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to manage new deals, especially complex ones. But this non-stop action has made me look forward to a little R&R again. What better time then, to revisit our vacation from two months ago where the biggest stressor of each day was deciding where to go for our meals?

Picking up from where I left off, here’s the post on our day-trip to Macau.

The façade of St Paul’s Cathedral. Built in the 16th century, it was mostly destroyed by fire in the 1800s. Today, only the facade remains standing. This is one of the most popular tourist sites in Macau and we always visit to take photos every time we’re in town.

Modern day Macau has a bit of a schizophrenic personality. Its downtown core is filled with throngs of people and its streets jammed with loud, slow-moving traffic. There are still vestiges of Macau’s Portuguese connections in some of the architecture, but the city scene is largely dominated by cookie-cutter buildings and garishly colored signboards that reminds me of a typical mainland city. This commercial part of Macau is fast-paced and over-developed; when surrounded by the unending sea of humanity, you can’t even hear yourself think.

A street in downtown Macau. Looks a lot like Guangzhou.

People people everywhere.

But just a few streets away, a gentler Macau awaits. This is a Macau that is more like the environment in which my wife grew up – a place where the air is stiller, where golden silence is only occasionally broken by the sounds of raspy scooters putt-putting down small side streets. This part of Macau, I like.

Charming older builders, no ugly signs, no huge mass of people – this is Macau as I imagined it to be.

Along these quiet streets, you will see many small family run businesses selling specialty Macanese snacks and pastries. You will also come across a few stores specializing in Chinese desserts. This one came highly recommended by my Aunt.

A traditional Chinese dessert store. As a tribute to Macau’s Portuguese colonial past, most businesses still maintain their signage in Chinese and Portuguese.

And here are some of the desserts we had. They were cooked-to-order, and were excellent.

Almond soup.

Walnut soup.

In contrast to the quiet parts of Macau, the crowd-filled Senado Square is home to many “western” businesses.

Macau’s famed Senado Square. Who says the red-blue-white fabric is only good for carrying bags? You can use it for wrapping buildings too – who’d have thought? (heh heh, a little inside joke for our readers from HK )

The McDonald’s juggernaut first came to Macau in the late 80s, and there are now quite a number of branches in the city.

Macau hasn’t escaped the Starbucks machine either.

After wandering around Senado Square for a bit, sampling and then buying the pastry snacks that Macau is famed for, we hired a cab to take us to Coloane island where we had dinner reservations. The half-hour ride took us from the hustle and bustle of mainland Macau to the glitter of the newly developed Cotai strip, and then through open bucolic countryside to the southern tip of Coloane island. The further south we went, the more open the countryside became, and the more I liked what I saw.

We were headed to Macau’s famous Fernando’s restaurant on Black Sand Beach, but we had the cabbie make a brief detour to Lord Stow’s – original home of Portuguese egg tarts – first. The Portuguese egg tart was created by Andrew Stow in the 1980s when he adapted the recipe for the Portuguese Pastel de Nata for Asian consumption. Andrew’s (aka Lord Stow’s) Portuguese egg tarts were so popular that these delicious little treats eventually made their way all around Asia and even North America. Even today, busloads of tourists come to Lord Stow’s to buy their egg tarts. Here were ours…

We bought the tarts to go. We did see a few customers eating their egg tarts right outside the Lord Stow’s store.

OK – BEST egg tarts EVER! The custard was totally sinful, and the flaky pastry is unlike anything we’ve tried. It was both light and substantial all at once. No wonder Lord Stow’s made such a name for itself.

With our egg tarts procured and safely stowed (no pun intended), the cabbie drove us to Fernando’s. Fernando’s, run by a Portuguese proprietor, is located in a charming wood and brick building right on Black Sand Beach. It was too dark by the time we got there to actually see the beach itself, but the sounds of the lapping waves and the sea breeze made it a really atmospheric place for dinner. My wife has some fond memories of eating BBQ chicken wings at Black Sand Beach when she was a kid; she was really hoping that the BBQ vendors would be open for business, but none were that evening. I told her it was something we would do the next time we were back in Macau.

Fernando’s.

Interior of the restaurant.

Fernando’s is particularly well-known for the roast suckling pig, so that was one of the dishes we had that evening.

Individual serving of roast suckling pig. It was the first time I ate at Fernando’s, and I found the pork to be slightly underwhelming. Based on the rave reviews given by people who had eaten there, I had pretty high expectations. But in reality, the pork was only above average. The crackling was disappointing. Instead of being crunchy, it was actually quite chewy. The meat was, however, very moist and quite flavorful.

We also ordered some roast chicken. Christina did not like this, but I thought it was ok. A little overcooked and dry perhaps, but the flavour was not bad.

This crab dish was the best one of the evening. It was cooked in a flavorful and herby red sauce that complemented the sweet crab very well.

Finally, we had some fried rice. It had plenty of wok-hei and very tasty – rather nice dish to finish off the meal with.

After dinner, we hired another cab to take us to the new casinos on the Cotai Strip to walk off the food. As you will see from the following pictures, the Cotai Strip is like a mini replica of the Las Vegas strip. In fact, there is an almost identical replica of the Venetian hotel/casino there – right down to the gondolas plying the artificial lagoons.

The entrance to the hotel/casino is a dead ringer for the Las Vegas one.

And so is the clock tower.

To conclude this post, I’d like to leave you with some more pictures of Macau. I hope you enjoy them – click on the following link to bring them up. Next post: HK wrap-up.

The fast catamaran that took us to Macau. Boy, was the ride ever choppy.

The jet foil that took us back to HK. Did you know that Boeing actually built these boats back in the 60s and 70s? Pretty interesting fun fact. Ride was quite a lot smoother than the catamaran by the way.

Portuguese architecture in Macau.

Street signs in three languages.

Macau Cathedral in Senado Square.

Retail therapy in Senado Square.

Casinos along the Cotai Strip.

Neon lighting up the night skies. Unlike Las Vegas, there was a distinct lack of action in Macau after 9pm.

Sign of the economic times. Partially completed casino abandoned.

Author: My Husband

Of all the different types of Chinese cuisines available, it is no secret that Christina and I like Cantonese best. While those who misunderstand the cuisine describe it as “bland”, we feel that good Cantonese cuisine is all about highlighting and enhancing the natural flavors of the main ingredients in a dish. This is best done by carefully balancing the textures and flavors in a dish to ensure that the main ingredient is not overpowered by the other things in it.

In good Cantonese dishes, you can always find harmony in the flavors/textures: the sweetness of fresh steamed fish is complemented by the subtle saltiness of a light soy, the heaviness of a thick stew is cut by a few drops of vinegar, the softness of tofu is contrasted with a crispy deep fried prawn paste, etc. Cantonese food can be subtly flavored, or it can be strongly flavored, but whatever the case, it is the balance found in those flavors that creates the depth and complexity in taste that so satisfies those of us who appreciate the cuisine.

On the flipside, it is difficult to cook good Cantonese food. The freshness of ingredients and the talent of the kitchen staff are of paramount importance in determining the success of the food, and cut-corners or missteps in the cooking process will result in a “faulty” dish. In North America where the majority of Chinese restaurant dishes are cooked to meet a price point, it is challenging to find good Cantonese food indeed.

But what happens if menu prices take a second seat to food quality? What happens when a chef decides to cook the best food he can by using the freshest ingredients without worrying about food costs? Lung King Heen happens, that’s what, and the inspectors from the Micheline Guide liked it enough to award this restaurant and its chef three stars.

On this Hong Kong trip, my foodie aunt insisted that we go to Lung King Heen to try the dim sum for ourselves. Will we find the balanced flavors and textures that we so prize? Read on to find out…

We were seated at a very spacious four-top next to a bank of huge picture windows. Some seriously nice china was used for the place settings.

Nice view of Kowloon from our table.

When the Michelin Guide awards a restaurant three stars, it’s not only about the food. That the food is excellent is a must, but service and ambiance must be also be top notch. And Lung King Heen delivered.

The service was excellent – warm hand towels and finger washing bowls magically appeared when needed, tea cups were kept filled (teapots were kept warm at a nearby service console, keeping our table clear for the dim sum), water glasses were constantly refreshed, and a simple glance at the waiter had him by our table in a jiffy. The two waiters assigned to our table anticipated our every need and brought us stuff we wanted before we could even ask. For instance, after I ate a bun without using cutlery, a silver finger washing bowl appeared by my side. After I washed, the bowl disappeared. Even more impressive was the unobtrusive manner in which the service was delivered; we spent the entire lunch chatting amongst ourselves and despite all the freshening of the drinks and china at our table, our conversation was not disturbed at all. Who says good service at a Chinese restaurant doesn’t exist?

A trio of sauces. Note the perfect alignment of the three teaspoons…

Steamed dumplings (潮州粉果). A thin and delicate thin skin holding a filling made with shrimp, pork, chives, and mushrooms. Very nice.

Prawn dumplings (I蝦餃). The prawns were fabulously succulent and fresh. One of the best I’ve had.

Pork/Prawn dumplings (燒賣). The bouncy pork filling was topped off with prawn. Looked pretty and tasted great.

Lobster and scallop dumpling. This is one of the more renowned dim sum dishes at Lung King Heen. The dumpling skin holds a generous portion of scallop and lobster, which are topped off by half a shrimp. Each dumpling is served in its own steamer. This was wonderful.

Grated daikon pastry. A flaky pastry shell enclosing a savory daikon filling. See how the pastry takes the shape of a daikon?

BBQ goose buns. Perfect sweet/savory balance in the BBQ goose encased in a delicate bread shell. This was fantastic.

BBQ Pork (叉燒). The presentation left a bit to be desired, but tasted decent. I’ve definitely had better BBQ Pork elsewhere.

BBQ Pork Jowl. Perfectly fried, each slice was beautifully crunchy. Best pork jowl I’ve had. This was so good, we ordered a second serving.

Deep fried squab. This is Christina’s favourite, and she loved it. She said it blew the Tai Ping Koon version away, and I agreed. Definitely one of the highlights of this meal.

[Dry] Fried glutinous rice. There was an optimal ratio of rice to other ingredients in this one, which gave the dish a wonderful texture.

Abalone fried noodles. This was fried with abalone stock and some slices of abalone. Good textural contrast, but the abalone rice at Thai Village in Singapore is still our favourite.

Toothpicks in a solid silver holder were offered after we finished our savory selections.

Osmanthus jelly (桂花糕). Very fragrant and not overly sweet, this was one of the better examples of this dessert.

Portuguese style egg tarts. Oh yeah Baby! Fabulous.

Double boiled bird’s nest served with almond & coconut cream. Very nice.

Mango flavored sago cream with pomelo. This one was a huge hit with all of us. It’s much nicer than the version available at Hung Fa Lau.

Complimentary desserts.

Suffice it to say, we were STUFFED after this meal. And yes, the flavors and texture of the dim sum dishes here were balanced, and overall food quality (save the BBQ Pork) was excellent. This is the best dim sum I’ve had in quite a while, edging out even the Shang Palace in Singapore. The food, service, and décor in Lung King Heen could not be faulted, and despite it being a Michelin three-starred restaurant, the price for the meal was not super expensive. This is another restaurant we plan on heading back to the next time we’re in Hong Kong.

To conclude this post, here are some pictures taken at (and outside) Lung King Heen:

Lung King Heen is located on the 4th floor of the HK Four Seasons.

Another view of Kowloon.

Nice view from the multi-storey atrium of the hotel.

Typical Hong Kong street scene. The trams are a good way to see the city, and cheap too, at only HKD $2 per ride.

Next post – my wife’s old stomping grounds.

Before getting to the post about the world’s only Michelin three-starred Chinese restaurant, I’d like to write about a product that is sure to appeal to the chocoholics who read this blog.

What is in this bag? Read on to find out.

Those of us from my mom’s side of the family love our sweets. As long as it is a sweet high-quality confection, whether hot or cold, large or small, cheap or expensive, we are predisposed to liking it. It is in our genes; if we hear that it is sweet – and tasty – we will not relent until we hunt it down and devour it.

My foodie aunt and I both share a fondness for good chocolates. Actually, come to think of it, it was my aunt who got me hooked on chocolates, what with all the good stuff she brought back as gifts from her business trips when I was a kid. I especially liked it when she traveled to Europe since it meant I would be getting my hands on a large box of rich and sinful Swiss or German chocolates upon her return. That’s really where my liking of chocolates came from, and because I ate so much European chocolate when I was a kid, I grew up being very partial to them. North American ones, not so much…

I first saw the Royce’ chocolate counters in some of the higher-end supermarkets in Asia several years ago. As Royce’ chocolates weren’t from Europe, I never felt compelled to try them. So imagine my surprise when my aunt gushed about them when we were chatting last year. Though we shared similar chocolate preferences, she couldn’t stop singing praises about Royce’s Nama product.

So in Hong Kong, when we were making our usual rounds in the Time Square city’super (surely one of the best supermarkets in Hong Kong), my aunt got me a box of Royce’ Nama Bitter to try.

Like all things Japanese, the attention to detail in packing the item for transport was quite impressive.

Nama chocolates have to be refrigerated. So the sales rep. put the box of chocolates, along with a freezer pack, into a thermal envelope to prevent melting during transport.

And like many Japanese products, the product packaging is really impressive.

Attractive packaging.

Upon removing the outer wrapping, the box flips up to reveal a mini product pamphlet, a “spoon”, and the nicely air-tight package of chocolates.

Tearing away the air-tight packaging reveals a tray of chocolates that is protected by a clear plastic lid.

Lifting the lid reveals the precious nuggets of the chocolate they call Nama. To prevent sticking, the chocolate pieces are dusted with cocoa powder.

What do they taste like? Imagine a high-quality chocolate truffle, but without the outer chocolate covering. The Nama chocolates are rich, bold, smooth, and insanely sinful without being overly sweet. It was pure luxury, like eating semi-solid ganache, except better. The flavors were deep and complex with a long but clean finish. There was no noticeable aftertaste. This stuff could go head to head against some of the best brand name European chocolates, but costs only a fraction of the price. It was a revelation.

The Nama chocolates come in a variety of flavors. My aunt bought me the Bitter, which still had a pleasing sweetness to it. Interestingly, there was more than a slight hint of alcohol in it, which I found strange since there was no mention of it on the packaging. We later discovered that most of the Nama chocolates are flavored with alcohol, and where and how we made that discovery will be the topic of a future post.

For now, it suffices to say that I will be adding Royce’ Nama chocolates to my preferred chocolate list. And next time I’m in Asia, you can bet I’ll be making a beeline to stock up. If any of our chocoholic readers should find themselves in the vicinity of a Royce’ counter, I highly recommend that they do so as well.

(Unfortunately, Royce’ products are not yet available anywhere in North America…)