Sapporo Food: Mohan Dish

OK, I really, really should have blogged about this place a long time ago, because Mohan Dish serves the best Indian food I've had in Japan. I also go there pretty darn regularly, so I have no qualms in recommending it wholeheartedly to the denizens of this fair city.

Here it is, in all it's new-premised glory:


It just moved y'see. Before, it was the best Indian food in Sapporo served in the worst premises - a tiny, shabby little restaurant that didn't even have its own toilet and where the refrigerators were out in the restaurant because there was no room for them in the tiny kitchen.

But the owners must be doing something right because just this month they moved from the backstreets to Hokkudai Dori, the main drag that leads North out of Sapporo through Kita 24 Jyou, and you probably can't miss it. The whole front of the store is like photo montage of assorted Indian food, I might even go so far as to call it a little gaudy.

But if gaudy brings in the customers then I'm all for it, because the people who work there seem nice and their food is great. Really great, flavoursome and satisfying, and although the big fancy new restaurant seems to have necessitated a small price hike, the vegetable spinach curry (fig. i below) was better than ever, with a wider variety of vegetables that seemed a lot fresher too.


The menu's a little bigger too, with more naans to choose from and I think more curries too. The spice level at Mohan Dish is pretty modest, I think my acquaintance ML went off the top of the 1-5 chart one time to hit a 7 and it didn't trouble him unduly (he can set me straight on that though). I forgot that they pitch it pretty low and got a 3 the other day and it was mild.

So please, if you live in Sapporo - patronise the place. It's better than the most well known chain Taj Mahal by a country mile and I really hope they can keep packing people in to maintain their new, sparkly restaurant. Although I do wish they'd go back to the bollywood music - the classy lift muzak they were playing the other day was horrible.

Check it the hell out on Kumaboshi's Sapporo Map!