Sapporo Food: Cheese Cheese

Cheese Cheese, located on the ground floor of the somewhat unbalanced Norbesa Building in Odori, does not (luckily or unluckily) serve only cheese. It is instead a good Italian restaurant. I suppose that cheese is an integral part of Italian cuisine, and is pretty alien to Japanese cooking so emphasizing the presence of cheese in the name of the store is probably justified. Still, it's not that cheesy.

I've been to Cheese Cheese a few times now, and I really like it. Not just because it does Italian food that's a sight more satisfying that most Italian restaurants in Japan, but because they seem to have a nicely showy approach to serving some of their dishes that makes things look all the more delicious. The salad we ordered was mixed and spun in a massive bowl-within-a-bowl thing, and then we were given a choice of cheeses and told to say when. We left that girl grating for a pre-tty long time.

They mix some of their cheese-based dishes inside a massive, hollowed out cheese for maximum cheesiness, and when the dude ground our pepper, he did so in a somewhat scatter-shot way. Plus they give you coloured pencils and a big white paper place mat that you're encouraged to draw on (hints of our work can be spotted throughout these pictures). That's just plain fun.

That pasta was delicious, and I can't resist ordering a pizza when I go there because decent pizzas are a thing to be cherished in Japan. I think the chef won some international pizza competition - anyway, good pizza. Of course with a somewhat Japanese bent, but then... this is Japan.

So I like the place and I recommend it. It's in Norbesa, which has a bloody great ferris wheel on top so you can't miss it, and I've marked it on my map too. Speaking of pizza though, just a quick shout to say a while back I finally thoroughly enjoyed a delivery pizza in Japan. It was from Pizza-La, and after unsatisfactory orders from every other chain I can think of, I'm gonna stick with them from now on.

Moments from Opera (1987)

Sapporo Food: Grabstri UPDATED

EDIT! UPDATE AND EDIT! Grabstri closed down. Then they demolished the building too, which is a little extreme but, well, it wasn't that great really. Don't worry about the Meer Lounge people though, they opened a new place in Susukino called PEACE with really uncomfortable stools. I'll leave this post up for posterity but kill the tags. Is that ok?

Oh boy, pretty soon every trendy, somewhat bohemian bar and restaurant in Sapporo is going to be owned by the Meer Lounge dude. I wonder if he could be described as 'shadowy'? That would be cool. Hot on the heels of World Japanese Foodin' EN, that I blogged about last year, January saw the interestingly monikered Grabstri open in Kita 24 Jyo.

I'm really not trying to plug this little chain of bars too much, honestly. I was in Kita 24 Jyo and picked up a flyer for the place, then didn't know it had anything to do with Meer Lounge or EN until we went there and saw the menu. The flyer, by the way, features their slogan - "Let's Tacos", which I would hope a lot of people will find grating (the common "Let's [NOUN]" construction of Japanese ad copy tends to grate on most native English speakers) but for me just shows how inured I've become, in that it didn't bug me that much. Also I kinda fancied Tacos, which really aren't common in Japan.

Well, turns out that much like EN, Grabstri offers a contemporary Japanese take on the dish. All the food we had was great, and I'd certainly recommend the place, but I don't think their tacos are all that taco-like in anything other than basic construction. Then, I'm English! What the hell do I know about Mexican food? Only Americans know about Mexican food. Eh, Mexicans too probably.

Grabstri is a smaller, more humble looking place than EN (though it shares a few quirks of decor), less of a restaurant, more of a bar with food, but they had a pretty big menu to choose from. The tacos (soft or deep fried) are the centre-piece, but we also had these deep fried shrimp cakes that were just incredible.

It's located really centrally to Kita 24 Jyo, about a minute from the North exit of the subway, and I've marked it on the map too! Good food, perfectly good beer and a nice feel to the place, so go check it out.

Moments from Inferno (1980)

Japanese Music: Shinsei Kamatte-chan

This is what you miss out on, not having Tower Records in the rest of the world any more, suckers! I went to Tower Records in Sapporo, I forget what I went for, but I was wandering around listening to pretty much everything that looked interesting and there was a pretty big display for the two new albums from Shinsei Kamatte-chan. I had no idea who that was (despite them getting an assload of press last year, I don't keep up with everything, though I've been working on feeds and readers to make keeping up with anything easier recently) but they had albums by Midori on the same display, who were great but split up recently, so I gave them a listen. And then I bought both of their new albums

I cannot remember the last time I've been sold, so completely after the first few tracks of an album. It turned out I was listening to Tsumanne ("Boring"), their major label debut, but that they'd also released an album on their original indie label on the same day at the end of 2010. TWO ALBUMS ON THE SAME DAY? It's been done many times before, but let me tell you I cannot help but eat that shit right up. It hits my 'artistic follies' sweet spot just 'so'. Also it brings their total for 2010 to three albums and a separate single, which is a more than respectable output.

Another awesome, ridiculous thing they do is hidden tracks. Their debut has an unlisted track, their single (which is two tracks, one being an instrumental of the other) has more music stuck on the end of the second track after a silent gap. Best of all 'Tsumanne' has an unlisted track that's actually THREE more songs put into one twelve-minute track. It's so stupid, but it's so great.

A lot of people seem to like to flail around trying to describe Shinsei Kamatte-chan's music, and if that's good enough for everyone else, well... anyway. They're a noisy, messy, arty, avante-ish punk pop band, with good tunes and a chaotic approach to... pretty much everything it seems. They've got a massive youth following from live-streaming, uploading shitloads of videos and generally working the internet for all they're worth. And the videos often seem to be entirely different mixes of the songs to the ones they end up releasing (like the one at the top there). The frontman doesn't give interviews, and a lot of their songs pitch-shift his vocals so much that I really did assume that they had a female singer too at first.

Wow, this sounds like an utter puff-piece so far. But, I mean, they're not the best thing ever in the world. Just calling their albums 'Tsumanne' ("Boring") and 'Minna Shine' ("Everyone Fuck Off And Die" as jrawk.com wonderfully translated it) makes me want to not like them, even though it's almost important to have somebody taking that approach to things. I can see why their first album, 'Tomodachi Koroshite Made' was so popular: it's catchy and aggressive and crazy and fun. But when they lean on the piano for songs it makes me think of Midori - but less-so (the single is probably the worst offender for that I suppose). I think it's a good album, so's their other indie record 'Minna Shine', but I don't love either of those records.

I fucking LOVE 'Tsumanne'. For me, musically it's like a quantum leap forwards. It sounds like nothing else, despite bringing to mind a load of music I like. There's still shreds of that simple, snotty punk sound, bits of Midori, but it's drunk, woozy, smothered with deranged, over-chorused vocals and stranger melodies than before. Oh, ok, when I first put it on and was blown away I thought - Holy shit, it's the punk-rock Yapoos I've been waiting for. And now, jrawk says (in the review linked above) that they've been hanging around with Togawa Jun of Yapoos? Makes perfect fucking sense. Then, the best thing is that in the end after living with it - it doesn't sound like Yapoos. It's entirely its own thing, but it has that same, weirdly other-worldy vibe to it. Maybe it ate a bunch of Yapoos vinyl before it turned up to the party, I don't know, but I do love it.

And for all I know whatever they do next will be completely different and that will be awesome too. They're a great fucking band and I think I've been paying too much attention to pop music recently. Time to pick up another free zine and check out every band in it again I guess. Also, check out all the albums on jrawk's best of 2010.

Sapporo Food: Daruma Jingisukan

I was um-ing and ah-ing for a while over the best way to write jingisukan in roma-ji, and I'm delighted that my straight phoneticization of it is the same way that wikipedia went. Since wikipedia is never wrong, I think I'm probably on safe ground.

So yes, I've probably mentioned it before: jingisukan is basically mutton barbecue (named after Genghis Khan, of course), cooked on a dome-shaped hotplate and accompanied with a special jingisukan sauce that's a little different everywhere. It's a local speciality in Hokkaido, and - as meat seared on hot metal is wont to be - it's generally delicious.

Daruma's jingisukan is especially delicious.

Daruma has three stores around Susukino and is, I think, one of the more famous jingisukan restaurants. The meat is good, the sauce is delicious and it's really worth going if you like meat and/or smoke.

Because the Daruma that I've been to twice (the one I'm going to mark on the map - not the original store but one nearby) is one smoky-ass place. There are so many burnt sheep particles floating around above your head as you eat that - under the same probability laws that say a million monkeys bashing away on typewriters will eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare - eventually the billions of sheep atoms in the air there will spontaneously align in such a way as to recreate a whole sheep. Seriously, if you're going then be ready to throw your clothes in the wash straight after. Or invest heavily in Febreze.

After we went there we ended up in some shops, then karaoke and all the while leaving this miasma of burnt sheep everywhere we went. It's a small store - just one bar, no tables - and it's been packed and full of people waiting to eat both times I've been. I think their extractor fans do their best but they just can't keep up.

Doesn't help that apparently lamb is a stinky, smoky meat to cook.

But all that's really by the by because it's a great place.

I always love places with menus that don't mess around (witness Hamburger Risa's entire menu: Hamburger) and this place has jingisukan... and then side dishes such as rice and kimchee. And that's it. Their kimchee was very good too, but not exactly the point. You can also get those great dai-jockey beers (as illustrated above) that are about the size of your head. In that photo everything looks pretty small, but it's really not, it's just that the beers are comically large.

It's famous for good reason, it's the best jingisukan I've had and I've stuck at least one of their stores on my map so off you go. Go stink of dead sheep like I did.

Sapporo Cafes: Cafe Morihiko & Wallpaper City Guide - Sapporo

Well, a very happy new year to all of you. I trust you have had a healthy and profitable holiday season? Everyone? Wonderful.

Cafe Morihiko is a wonderful looking place. A beautiful, old-fashioned house converted into a cosy, intimate coffee shop; I'd strongly recommend it to those who like to hunt down good coffee, or who like almost meditatively beautiful little cafes.

No photos of the inside I'm afraid - I just didn't think I could do it justice. It's so snug and enclosed and partitioned into little areas that it wouldn't look right in my amateur photos. It's really something though, and while the assorted fancy bric-a-brac might be a touch too much (a stack of old books and an antique sewing machine in the middle of our large table for example) it's nothing you can criticise considering how comfortable the place feels.

It was busy too, and we had no choice of where to sit when we arrived. Then again, it is a very small place and even though it's split over two floors I doubt they have many seats at all. We shared a large table with the aforementioned sewing machine and a guy who seemed to be working on some kind of complex diagrams, which should give you a clue about the kind of clientele the place attracts.

As you can probably guess if you check their website, they take coffee very seriously too. I had a good rich number which was really delicious. It should go without saying that it's an expensive place, but really it's about par for the course for this kind of place - 500yen and up for a cup of coffee. Their cake cabinet looked bloody delicious too, it's a shame I wasn't in the mood for any.

Morihiko might be a little off the beaten path for some since it's in Maruyama, but if you're around there or fancy the trip it's the kind of place that guidebooks might refer to as a 'gem'. Here it is on my map.

Speaking of guidebooks (oh, see what I did there? like a goddamn blogging ninja I am) the whole reason I found the place and went there on the way back from the shrine (this year's omikuji - kichi, a big step down from last years dai-kichi) was that I found it in this little Christmas present from my Dad:

That's the kind of guidebook that booksellers might refer to as a 'gem'. The Wallpaper City Guide for Sapporo was published very recently, and while it is far (far!) from an exhaustive guide to the city it's a great list of some of the lesser known, cooler areas and nicer shops.

I don't think the Wallpaper guides are aimed at the casual, budget traveller, you know? This book is full of high-end design shops, restaurants that only serve five customers a night and cafes that are also art galleries. However it is also full of the kind of cool, fun, friendly, awesome places that are never normally mentioned in guidebooks.

It certainly won't tell you everything you need to know about Sapporo, but it's a very classy little book, well written and very heavy on the super-stylish photos that make everywhere look awesome and like a place that you want to visit. Also, since it pretty much eschews most of the big places and the chains it's well worth picking up by people who live here. It made me a little smug to find that I know a bunch of the places in here (and that I'd blogged about a few too) but it's also giving me a lot of other great-looking places to check out in the future.

Most of which I will probably blog about in turn, which is how the world works. Don't worry! I'll give credit!