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Feb. 2005, Xene #44
Dining Satisfaction(Get Some)
by Michael O'connell |
Perhaps you've heard of England's notorious "chip
butty," the fried-potato sandwich. Apparently
inspired by this, a Mexican restaurant in Sapporo
once served tortillas stuffed with French fries
and called them tacos. This was not Mexican cuisine.
It wasn't cuisine at all. It was Mexican a la Manchester,
the gastronomic equivalent of a slap in the face.
Sapporo restaurants rarely fail so spectacularly.
The food here is excellent, and chefs who come up
from Tokyo rhapsodize about the fresh seafood and
produce. Even so, there are times when you leave
unsatisfied. The meal may be on the skimpy side,
or it may be prepared with a lack of care. The service
may be smiling but inept. The waiter may say "Irrashaimase"
while the loud music and cramped seating are saying, "Chow down and get out." Portions, quality,
service, atmosphere - failure in any one of these
means poor value for money. Success in all four
means a restaurant that's firing on all cylinders.
You'll leave satisfied, and you'll come back.
Mackerel kunch (Ootoya)
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Ootoya, on the 10th floor of the Bic
Camera building adjoining Sapporo Station, is just
such a restaurant. This is surprising considering
the Station's reputation for giving poor dining
value. Ootoya serves satisfying sets in a pleasant
atmosphere at reasonable prices - usually about
700 yen.
Although the sets all are prepared with a Japanese
sensibility, they cover several cuisines. My personal
favorite is the yakizakana saba teishoku
(broiled mackerel served with rice, miso soup, grated
daikon, bean sprout salad and delicately pickled
daikon). Other good bets are the tori no sumibiyaki
teishoku (char-broiled chicken with similar
side dishes), and the Chinese-influenced tori
to yasai no kuro-su ankake teishoku (deep-fried
chunks of chicken with lotus root, green peppers
and carrots in a thick sauce of sweetened vinegar).
Lighter but still filling is the hon nigiri tofu
to chikin no toro-toro-ni teishoku, a savory
bowl of tofu and chicken in an egg-thickened sauce
garnished with trefoil. You'll also find burger
plates (hanbaagu teishoku), breaded deep-fried
pork (tonkatsu), chirashi sushi bowls, and
donburi dishes. The rice is premium Koshihikari,
and you can taste it. The drink bar is 157 yen extra,
and the photo menu is a breeze. Ootoya's unifying
themes are quality, nutritional balance, and the
deft touch of the cook.
For more straight-up Japanese, hunt for Hoshino,
at S2E2, north across the street from the Nijo-Ichiba
fish market. It's not the easiest place to find,
hidden behind a recessed wooden door in a gray concrete
building, but when you do find it, you'll forget
every limp udon noodle you ever had. The
handmade noodles resist the tooth to the perfect
degree, and at lunchtime Hoshino bustles with regulars
because no other udon shop in Sapporo can
touch it.
I recommend the tori nanban, noodles with
chicken breast in a soup topped with negi leeks.
The hearty buta kakuni tamago takikomi teishoku
features simmered pork and boiled egg, a bowl of
udon, seasoned rice and two side dishes. Remember
to sprinkle your udon with the shichimi seasoning.
At most noodle shops, it's red with chili pepper.
Hoshino's is a pale green blend of citrussy yuzu
peel that perfectly compliments the delicate Kyoto-style
broth.
Expect to pay between 700 and 900 yen for a bowl
of udon or a set, 100 yen more for ohmori
(large serving). The only difficulty is the menu,
a kanji-phobes nightmare.
Occidental noodles can be found at Chirorin
Mura, which opened in 2004 at Tanuki Koji
W6. This chain is a longtime pasta favorite, with
other downtown branches at S2W2 on the B1 floor
of the Ships Building, and at N1W2 on the B1 floor
of the Tokeidai Building next to the Sapporo Clock
Tower. A generous plate of pasta will set you back
600 and 800 yen, 100 yen more for the heaping ohmori
(large serving).
Because the Japanese menu is many times more extensive
than the "Engrish Menu" (rare candor there),
I'll give the Japanese names of recommended dishes.
There's karubonaara (carbonara; 1000 yen),
ebi no tomato sohsu (shrimp with tomato sauce),
ika to nasu no tomato sohsu (squid and eggplant
with tomato sauce), and chikin no kuriimu sohsu
(chicken with cream sauce, garnished with spinach).
A funkier choice is the asari beikon suupu supagetti,
pasta in a salty broth of clams and bacon, the perfect
meal for a chilly day. I shy away from the even
wilder selections, like pasta with potatoes (that
taco butty haunts me still). Sets, from 1300 yen,
include a pasta entre, drink, salad and dessert,
but the only reason to order the set is for variety,
since the a la carte servings of spaghetti are ample.
My only quibble is the smoky air, and this applies
to all their locations. The good news at the Tanuki
Koji branch: You'll rarely have to wait for a seat,
even during the lunch rush. As at Ootoya and Hoshino,
the menu is the same for lunch and dinner, weekdays
and weekends, making these places super value all
the time.
 Why
are the great Chinese restaurants always tucked
away in residential neighborhoods? It's a riddle
wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, as Churchill
might have said, although judging from his girth
he'd have enjoyed Yohgenkyoh, two
and a half blocks west of Nakajima Park, at S12W8,
behind Nakajima Junior High School. I cook so much
that I rarely eat out in my neighborhood. For Yohgenkyoh
I make an exception.
The weekday dim sum (yamu-cha) lunch is a
steal. Choose from among 17 stir-fried dishes, buns
and dumplings, at 700 yen for 4 dishes, 800 yen
for 5 dishes, and 900 yen for 6 dishes. Hearty soup,
pickles and tea are complementary with these sets,
but rice is extra. You might want to choose fried
rice as one of the included dishes. It's dotted
with savory Chinese sausage. A delightful study
in contrasts is the kikurage tamago itame
(stir-fried eggs with tree-ear mushrooms), available
as a dim sum choice and a dinner entre. The dim
sum photo-menu is intuitive.
Dinner is pricier, but the choices become more exotic.
Even with the photo menu you may not know what you're
looking at, which will either frustrate you or give
you a thrill, depending on how you feel about the
culinary deep end of the pool. The buta-niku
hosogiri to tenmenjan itame (1200 yen) is a
must: Strips of pork are flavored with sweet bean
sauce and served with scallions and cilantro. You
roll these in skins made of bean flour, with the
fragrant coriander offsetting the tangy pork. Yohgenkyoh's
specialty is Northeastern Chinese home-style cooking,
as seen from the great number of potato and bread
dishes. The chuugoku inaka-fu no chi-no-sachi
itame (900 yen) features potatoes and green
peppers. It translates as "stir-fried harvest
of the Chinese back-country." Soup entres include
the kaisen booru-iri hoorenso suupu (900
yen): fish balls and spinach in a clear broth. Expect
to spend about 2000 yen per person on dinner, well
worth it for Chinese this authentic and hearty,
and service this warm and able.
I love ethnic food, but I hate esunikku food
-bastardized cooking that blunders into taco butty-land.
Sapporo finally got its first real Thai restaurant
when Jitrada opened in 2000 at S4W5,
two doors north of the Sunkus convenience store.
Behind the suspiciously windowless wooden door is
the finest Thai food in Sapporo, brought to you
by a Thai cook and her Japanese husband.
The menu is trilingual, so I'll give the dishes
by their English names here. The standards - raw
spring rolls (580 yen) and fried rice noodles Thai
style (phat thai; 780 yen) - are solid. The
spicy grilled chicken (1000 yen) has enough heat
to let you know they're not fooling around. The
green chicken curry will have you sweating, and
the red pork curry, marked with a triple-chili on
the menu, will have you crying like the woman in
the Thai travel commercial (Hontoni naku, yo!).
My personal favorite is the minced chicken salad
(750 yen), whose light dressing captures all the
fire and subtlety of Thai cuisine: oniony sweetness
balanced by lime sourness, hot chilies balanced
by cool mint. The stir-fried chicken with cashew
nuts (780 yen) borrows from Chinese and is safer
for those with a delicate tongue. More unusual is
the stir-fried morning glory (850 yen), a classic
Thai vegetable. Order it in season, from spring
through fall.
On weekends Jitrada caters to a sell-out crowd,
so it pays to make reservations. Unlike the restaurants
mentioned above, Jitrada is closed for lunch.
French food in Japan depresses me. It never seems
worth it to pay 5000 yen for expensive tablecloths
and food that looks better than it tastes. It's
all so superficial.
Ichiro is that rare French restaurant
of substance, worth the ten-minute hike from the
Nishi Nijuuhatchome Subway Station to Miyanomori
3-jo, 5-chome. Named after the owner and not the
baseball player, this modestly priced gem belongs
in the big leagues of Sapporo French cuisine.
The menu, in Japanese, features a 3,500-yen set
that includes an appetizer, soup, main dish, bread,
dessert and coffee. (There is an extra charge of
a couple of hundred yen for a few entre selections.)
The list of appetizers and main dishes goes to only
seven each, but this is understandable for a neighborhood
restaurant like Ichiro. What's important is that
every dish is sublime. For seafood, don't miss the
saamon marine (marinated salmon) appetizer.
The pooku roosu niku no sumibiyaki entre
is charbroiled tender pork of a grade far above
what you see in the supermarket. The broiled suzuki
(sea bass) entre is crisp and succulent, with
an herbed sauce. I can never figure out what's in
it, but it brings tears of joy to my eyes. It's
the best fish I've had anywhere in Japan.
The 4000-yen set entitles you to a second main dish
of your choice, but that might not leave room for
dessert - or, rather desserts. You see, Ichiro has
the sweetest of dilemmas. They're rightfully proud
of their crme brule, but they want to leave you
some choice. Their solution is to include the crme
brule with every set dinner, but to give you an
additional dessert of your choice. Two desserts:
dilemma solved.
The house wines are reliable, usually a Chilean
for 600 yen per glass, a Californian for a little
more, and a French above that. Visit the cozy wine
cellar to see the fine collection, or just to steal
a kiss from your date.
Ichiro has lunch sets from about 1500 yen, but dinner
is a better value. The terra cotta walls and stone
floors are fancy enough for a romantic date, but
casual enough to make you feel comfortable. The
service is impeccable, and they take reservations.
Although Ichiro is the most expensive of the restaurants
here, it gives even greater value than the others,
quite a feat for a lineup like this.
Phone
Ootoya: 011-219-1187
Hoshino: 011-221-8808
Chirorin Mura, Tanuki Koji Branch: 011-261-1112
Jitrada: 011-232-3150
Yohgenkyoh: 011-533-7751
Ichiro: 011-644-0610
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