Sapporo Food: Garaku Soup Curry

Garaku is another one of the more famous soup curry shops that I've been meaning to go to forever. In fact, I have actually tried to go there on a number of occasions only for there to be far too long a waiting list, or for the soup to actually have run out. The place was full while we were there and people were constantly coming and going so it's clearly a very popular place. Plenty of celebrity autograph cards on the walls too.

The place smelled great and the menu looked so good it was hard to choose. But sadly in the end Garaku was just 'good'. I wouldn't put it up there with the best soup curry I've had in Sapporo. It was, however, absolutely soup curry. I was griping about Soup Curry S being really popular while not really looking or tasting much like 99% of the soup curry shops out there. Garaku is a perfect example of soup curry, it's just that the soup is not that amazing.

What is amazing though? Everything in the soup.

I got the kakuni (slow cooked pork chunks) which I tend to get at a lot of places, and which lets me compare between places pretty well. On their menu it was marked as being the most popular dish. I got it with extra broccoli as a topping, which was great as was everything in the soup. The meat and the vegetables were all wonderful, the pork was soft and juicy and everything was cooked to perfection. The big let down for me was that the actual flavour of the soup was... just ok. It's a shame because it looked so good, but from the first spoonful to the end of the soup I wasn't really digging it. When I was eating the ingredients in the soup... oh that was great.

Yuki got a vegetable soup with a sausage topping and her opinion was exactly the same as mine. Everything was amazing except the soup. Which, I stress, wasn't bad, just wasn't great.

So I think we'll go back if the place isn't too busy, but it's another of the more famous Sapporo Soup Curry places that didn't impress me as much as I'd hoped. It's very centrally located in Odori though, which is good, and if you're in town visiting then I'm sure you'll like the place. And as always with Soup Curry, your mileage may (probably will) vary wildly so you should go check it out yourself. It's just south of Tanuki Koji and I'll mark it on my map. Oh! I just noticed that you can use google streetview to go inside the place, so check that out too.

Sapporo Cafes: Hammock Base Cafe

Hammocks. Do you like hammocks? Talking about this place with my sister I discovered that she has an irrational hatred of hammocks in cafes. I think it comes from living for too long in areas with a high concentration of cafes that are trying just a little too hard, and, for her, the hammocks have become tainted by their association with annoying people. If, however, you harbour no ill will towards swinging seating then Hammock Base Cafe near Sapporo TV Tower is worth checking out.

In one of those like-attracts-like occurrences, Hammock Base Cafe opened just over a year ago in the basement of the same building that houses the ultra-stylish Fabulous Cafe. Hammock Base Cafe's concept is hammocks, but it's a very cool looking cafe all round with a small menu of handmade dishes and a well stocked bar to boot.

Here's where the good shit is:

Hammocks, son. I think we were actually expecting more traditional... reclining hammocks? Slung-between-two-trees hammocks? These are more like chair things, but if you get yourself properly positioned you can stretch right out and swing around a bit. Just try not to knock over your coffee.

There aren't all that many hammocks so I think that pretty often you'll have to wait before getting to sit in one of those low-slung things. We waited sitting at the bar, which is also impeccably cool. Here it is, through the strings of a hammock.

When the hammocks are free you can go climb in, but if there are people waiting you can only dangle for an hour and a half. We got a slice of meat and potato quiche as a snack. It was good, but small. The guy kept telling us it was small, but when it came it was actually smaller than we expected. It was warm, which I think is possibly a mistake about quiche that is commonly made in Japan, but one for which I am grateful since I don't really like cold quiche.

The drinks come in these cool two-tone light plastic mugs. Almost camping style, which I guess goes with the hammocks and the fake grass underneath them.

The coffee was fine. Nothing to write home about, which I kind of guessed because they only had the one coffee drink on their menu.

Hammock Base has all the other trappings of a creative cafe too: handmade crafts for sale, a weirdly eclectic bookshelf to browse, flyers and posters for all sorts of stuff. It's a good place and I'll head back, even if I'm a little worried about trying to eat while sitting in a hammock. Oh, and motion sickness is a possibility.

As I said, Hammock Base Cafe is under Fabulous Cafe, along with another few cool looking places. The closest station is Bus Centre Mae, and we got there, avoiding the snow, by walking along the long underground passage from Odori Station. I'll mark it on my map, and if you don't hate hammocks it's worth checking out.

Sapporo Food: Curry Shop 'S' (soup curry)

Soup curry again everyone!

Before we get into this let's get the disclaimers out of the way. Soup curry is a really personal thing. Different people like different places, so it's probably best for everyone to take my recommendations as places worth checking out that I really like. Not that any of that really applies this time since I'm not all that fond of S.

But S is famous, and popular with a lot of people including my girlfriend. Famous enough to have signed autograph cards on their walls from celebrities based outside of Hokkaido (there are quite a few soup curry places around with autographs from local newscasters, sports-people and members of the local TV comedy group TEAM NACS). Famous enough that in an episode of a TV show I saw, when a bunch of really famous comedians came to Hokkaido, S was the place they went to try soup curry. Hell, famous enough that in the new video game Ryuu ga Gotoku 5, apparently you can go to S in Sapporo and have soup curry. They even have a collaborative line of soups! I really want to try that game but sadly don't have the hardware... Or the cash... Oh well...

In fact, instead of posting a real photo of the outside of the place, here's how it looks (outside and inside) in the game. In tiny pictures I found on the interweb:

There's no alleyway there in real life.

He's huge!

Recently the aforementioned TEAM NACS guys made a TV drama series called Soup Curry about a group of friends living in Sapporo, that was tied together with a general soup curry/spice of life theme. They filmed in some real soup curry joints and featured one or two places over the end credits every week. S was one of the ones that showed up there and that was what spurred me into finally trying it out.

S does soup curry and also a thicker, more standard roux curry, along with some tandoori-style chicken. The place is good, and I do like it, but it's not amazing and I'm pretty mystified as to why S is one of the more famous soup curry restaurants in town. The soup is delicious, I mean, it's really, really good, but it's just so thin! I've eaten a lot of soup curry, and for S to be one of those places that folks from outside of Sapporo go to try the dish just seems weird because it's really unlike the majority of soup curry places. Maybe they're just really, really good at self-promotion.

Here's one of their standard soup curries, with their Sapporo-style ramen noodle topping (which is a really nice idea, served with the ramen spoon too, another nice touch) and - c'mon - that just looks like ramen with extra veg.

Here's a half-and-half dish they do of their soup-curry and their roux curry.

For me neither one was satisfying and I didn't really feel like I got my money's worth on the quantity side either. I didn't really like the roux curry, didn't think much of the chicken, and the soup curry was basically a side-serving.

In general I haven't been impressed with the vegetables or the meat there, and the menu is pretty limited. Jesus, looking back at this it reads like I'm basically trashing the place. I'm trying my best not to, and since I started sticking to just basic soup curry with that good noodle topping I've left pretty satisfied a couple of times. But while the soup flavour is wonderful, I find everything else about the place just 'ok'.

S's soup is really light, and that's probably one of the reasons my girlfriend really likes the place. And god knows that it's good to have a range of soup curry places to choose from. You don't always want the kind of thick, heavy flavour-fight you can get at nearby Samurai. So if you want a light, delicious, spicy soup then you should go. But I don't think I'd head back if I didn't eat so often with someone who loves the place. That said, it's certainly no hardship to eat there. That broth is really tasty.

S is really centrally located, about two minutes walk from Susukino station on Eki-mae Dori. It's south of Tanuki Koji, down in the same basement as Hendix Art Cafe, whose sign is pretty visible when you're walking down the street. I'll mark it on my map of course, and would encourage everyone to check it out. You're not kids any more! You've got to make up your own minds about these things.

Sapporo Cafes: DxM

DxM is one of a chain of quite ridiculously stylish coffee shops in Sapporo run by Morihiko Coffee. These include the beautiful cafe converted from an old wooden house in Maruyama (which I cannot recommend highly enough, even if it is so small it's hard to get a seat a lot of the time) and Atelier Morihiko on the street-car line in West Odori, where I once had an almost transcendentally delicious pear tart. Seriously, I had no idea anything made with pears could be that good.

DxM's concept is to pair the same amazing coffee that Morihiko serve everywhere with luxurious doughnuts by  David (which is, I think, a bakery rather than just some dude named David). The coffee is wonderful and the doughnuts are really fancy, expensive doughnuts. And of course the interior is just excessively stylish, a minimalist collision of industrial trappings and an old school house. That makes it sound a little messy, it's not. The place is a gorgeous combination of metal and wood, and it's not until you look at the chain-link fence and industrial lights, then notice the blackboards and school desks that you realise they've gone for some crazy factory/school approach. But not scary and fascistic like Pink Floyd's The Wall. Y'know, the cool industrial schoolhouse approach.

If you like super-stylish, somewhat expensive coffee places then you have to pay the place a visit. I don't really have a whole lot more to add, except to reiterate that the coffee is really good (they roast their own coffee, and note the hourglass they gave me showing how long to let it brew before pouring it) and that the doughnuts really are fancy.

To be completely honest I don't need my doughnuts this fancy, and just nice hearty Mister Donut doughnuts are fine by me, but it was certainly no hardship at all to eat these ones.

It's pretty close to Sapporo Factory shopping mall and I would guess that the closest subway station would be Bus Centre Mae on the Tozai line. Perhaps a fifteen minute walk from Sapporo Station? Let's say so. I'll put it on my map, so go and try the place for yourself!

Welcome To Sapporo!

Welcome to Sapporo! Or appropriate sentiment if you already live here!

A while ago I decided to drop the personal side of my blog and just use it as a guide to things in Sapporo (mostly cafés and restaurants) for English speakers living or coming here. There are similar things out there, but every little helps when you're in a country whose language you're not all that comfortable in. Recently I've been far too busy to update regularly, or in fact check comments and messages, but I've heard from people who find this thing useful and I'm really glad I could be of some help to somebody. Getting comments and the like makes me want to pull my finger out of... wherever it was stuck and at least post a little more. So I will be trying to send out a few more dispatches in case anyone finds them of any use. Don't call it a New Year's Resolution! Ha ha, but seriously I wouldn't trust myself to keep it if it were.

If you're moving here or have just moved here I hope you can find some info here you can use too, and I'm always happy to answer questions and try and help out. But there are other places I'd recommend too.

For jobs, local information, sales of belongings and more you should really check out The Hokkaido Insider. There's a free mailing list to get local news and details of people with items for sale, and for a small charge you can sign up for an extremely useful mailing list with jobs available in the area.

After I finished working full time and was looking for work I went to the job centre Hello Work a few times. They weren't at all set up to help out foreigners though, and would generally recommend I check the big Japanese Jobs for foreigners site Gaijin Pot Jobs or The Hokkaido Insider. Since Gaijin Pot never seems to carry any jobs for Hokkaido (in my experience) The Hokkaido Insider is an invaluable resource for people looking for work up here.

Also worth checking out is Best of Sapporo Japan a great general site about Sapporo run by a friend of mine. Food, events, general living advice, he covers pretty much everything.

More links in the sidebar over there, so go click.

This year in Sapporo we're having a freezing December with a bumper load of snow. Earlier in the year the beloved local baseball team Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters won the Pacific League, but lost out in the Japan series to the cursed Yomiuri Giants, champions of the Central League. Nonetheless, there was a massive parade in the city centre and everything was covered in confetti for a while. My favourite Japanese album of the year was Stories by Zazen Boys, but take that with a pinch of salt because they've been my favourite Japanese band for years and I didn't find much new Japanese music I really liked this year.

So, are we all up to speed? Then let's continue into the new year! Boys Be! And so on.

Sapporo Food: Voyage Soup Curry

Ok! It's the holidays and I am finally on holiday. Therefore I should be able to find the time to post something, right? Well here is something, and this something is long overdue.

Soup curry, that glorious and uniquely Sapporo fusion of 'curry' and 'soup' is a great love of mine. That said I know a lot of really great soup curry places but I wouldn't go so far as to label any of them 'the best'. No one soup curry place is exactly like any other and subjectivity has a huge part to play, as you can see from some old comments I got saying they didn't like the place I liked, and recommending a couple of places that I really want to go to, but still haven't been able to since I neither live, nor work, anywhere near them.

The best soup curry I can remember having was at Lavi Lavi in Kita 24 Jo, but it was their monthly special and so it was gone almost as soon as I found it. After that I found Lavi Lavi to be a great place, but one day I went and it just wasn't as good for some reason, and it's never reached the heights it used to since. Oh, but the new branch in Sapporo Station's ESTA mall is a really convenient place to get a decent dish.

So soup curry shops vary wildly in quality, style and reliability, but the place that I would recommend to pretty much anybody is Voyage in Kita 24 Jo.

I'm sorry, soup calyi, my mistake.

Voyage is run by the same people that run Xysa nearby and Picante, which has a couple of locations now. All three are similar I think, but not exactly the same, and I like Voyage, possibly because I've been there much more often.

The food at voyage is great, and it seems to be consistently great. I've never had a lousy curry there, and I always leave glad that I made the trip. Their vegetables and meat are delicious and well cooked (something which seems a little hit and miss with some places) and they don't skimp on the veggies too, which is something I'm always happy to see. You can always choose a basic soup or a rich soup (the rich soup varies by day of the week too, just to keep things interesting) and both are delicious. It costs more to take your curry above spice level 2, but spice level 2 seems just perfect so I never bother. Add to this the tremendous toppings they do and while Voyage might not be the best I really find it hard to believe anyone would be disappointed to go there.

Oh look! Photos!

Crunchy herb chicken with  fried gyoza and potato dumpling with cheese toppings. That potato and cheese thing... oh my God.

Herb Lamb with... um, the same toppings.

Basic vegetable with just the gyoza topping. They also do a deluxe vegetable curry just crammed with stuff.

The menu at Voyage seems to change pretty regularly, but some things, like the crunchy herb chicken above are always there. Voyage soups are served in these unique bowls with this big raised section in the middle. You can't see them in those photos but imagine that the actual soup is in a donut shaped section, while the middle acts like a kind of table for you to cut things up on. It's interesting, and pretty useful when you get used to it. A cynical man might say it makes it look like you get more than you do, but I am not that man, and I always leave sated so I have no complaints.

I'll say it again, I'm not promising that Voyage will blow you away but in my experience it is always very, very good. I've been meaning to blog about it ever since I started this thing and it comes strongly recommended. It's a three or four minute walk from Kita 24 Jo station on the Namboku line of the subway, and I've marked it on my map.

The Book of Mansion Names 10