Winter natives

Just a few picture of ostrichs in their native snow enviroment.







The famer says they love it. From the way they were pelting around it looked like it didn't bother them. Was quite funny to watch though.

Hana Yoshi

This is a little something we wrote for Powderlife magazine over winter (cause we really weren't busy enough already, lol)

SUSHI – when it’s good, it’s very, very good. And lucky for us, we're off to long-time Niseko Town favourite, Hanayoshi, which is one the best around.

With a warm welcome and a quick switch of menus for those of us yet to grasp reading Japanese, we’re good to go.

We start off with a couple of tuna nigiri, a grapefruit chu-hai (shochu and fresh grapefruit juice over ice), and a warm sake with a fugu (puffer fish) tail infusing in the cup (a winter special only). The sushi meets our expectations. Generous and super-fresh! The fugu sake is interesting. Not at all fishy and definitely worth a try.





Next up, grilled sea eel nigiri, and lightly glazed and vinegar-marinated mackerel, each continuing the fresh-and-delicious tone.



We follow this with Hanayoshi’s renowned seafood salad – their signature dish. It’s a spectacular salad of fresh greens and seafood (tuna, scallop, octopus and squid) piled high with crispy fried potato rings and hidden treasures of salmon roe throughout. It looks good and tastes even better.



We move on to a silky soft round of braised diakon topped with a succulent layer of monkfish liver pate. The daikon is braised expertly to remove the sometimes bitter bite of the radish, and the monkfish liver lives up to its foie-gras-from-the-sea reputation.



To follow, we order a couple of otoro nigiri – otoro being the fattiest and most highly prized part of the tuna belly. The fish is pure heaven. We finish these off in time for the grilled Chilean sea bass marinated in miso. It's a dish of Japanese origin made famous by celebrity chefs, such as Nobu. The delicate fish flavour is teased out by the caramelised miso, and garnished by a pickled ginger spear.



Just as we finish off tonight’s delicacies, we are both greeted with a warm cup of green tea. A perfect ending to a wonderful night.

It’s no wonder Hanayoshi is known around town as the place to go for great sushi at great prices – just don’t forget the rest of the menu is just as good.


Hanayoshi: 80-2 Hondori Niseko-cho, Abuta-gun, Hokkaido.
Open: 5pm-11pm, last order 10.30pm, Closed Mondays
Tel: 0136-44-3444.

Here piggy, piggy, piggy ...

A festival, but not any festival. A festival dedicated to pork, but not any pork - Makkari herb pork. Yah, a Makkari herb pork festival. Be still my racing heart, and someone get me a napkin for my drool. No Seriously. Makkari herb pork is made by feeding the pigs a diet of herbs and spice in the last few months of their glorious lives, giving a delicate herb flavor to the flesh.
To celebrate this wonderful product once a year people gather to sit around drink and snack on different forms of the herb pork. We had heard in everyones disscussion of the festival "don't miss the katsu sando" over and over. So when we turned up it was straight off to find that sando stand only to be told the Katsu stall only sets up at 6 o'clock so we we forced to sit and eat and drink various other forms of deliciousness until the katsu stall was up and running. Tough!

We started off with a few succelent slices of herb pork draped over salad vegetables with an almond dressing. The pork soft and juicy, the veg fresh, yum.



Next we had a a treat from our favourite local bakery, Jin (who has kindly asked us not not to blog the bakery as they are already to busy so this peek at the festival food is all you'll get), two thick slices of pork chunky pate baked into a rich buttery pastry sided with slices of the fantstic Jin baked bread and pickled purple cauliflower. So TASTY!!! And that's all we'll not say about Boulangerie Jin.





By now we were a good way through a bottle of Rica Kerner (a Hokkaido white wine) and feeling pretty good, so we headed back into the fray to pick up a bowl of pork miso soup and a plate of grilled pork.



The Miso soup with two kinds of pork, one long simmered and one just cooked lets me use the not oft used word untuous, nice.



The grilled pork also two types, one with salt and pepper the other marinated, along with a mound of grated diakon to smooth it all down is all smokey and delicious.



Still killing time waiting for the katsu sando we pick up a bowl of pork shabu shabu. Quickly blanched in stock and topped with toasted sesame seeds it's a nice snack.



By now we notice the whole crowd seems to be on edge, furtive glances re being thrown in the direction of the katsu stand where activity is finally being seen. It seems everyone here is waiting for the katsu .. Kat and Michi nochalanty wander over to see how long before the sando will be ready, and this is all it takes to tip an avalanche of people piling towards the stand. There's no woman and children first here, it was thrown chairs, pushing and shoving all the way. Sweet delicious food driven rioting.!

After the dust had settled there's Kat and Michi standing at the head of a several hundred person queue.





Madness. We wander and once you pay your monies your given a small card with a picture of a pig being propelled by a gaseous stomach, you then hand the card over at the sando construction site to recieve your much coverted prize. There is even a one sandwich per person limit ....



The sando consists of two slices of brown bread lighty toasted and filled with shredded cabbage the katsu and the most delicious japanese bbq sauce with a hint of miso. The katsu in question is a one thick slice of juicy pork crumbed and fried. This is the king of all katsu sandos, all others shall fall before it's mighty mightyness.



As we sat back in a food induced eyes glazed state, we see the line of hopefulls shuffle forward one by one untill, thats it, no more - sold out till next year, better luck next time. And just like that the stand is packed up and gone. Magic.

Having experienced the mayhem first hand I'll be sharpening up my elbows and practicing my "slip between the crowd" technique for next year.

Score one for the hippies

Tonuts, yeah sounds real delicious. Even when the the dubious word is explained to be doughnuts made from tofu there's still a fair amount of trepidation. Doughnuts should be fried, coated in sugar and cinnamon and all things anti tofu.....apparently.
We rock up to the springs at the base Mt Yotei. The springs being a great piece of work done by the council, piping into the natural springs at the base of the mountain so you can come and fill up bottles of the most delicious natural water for nada, nitz, zero how good is that?



Taking advantage of the abundance of water a small tofu shop sits on the side of the springs producing tofu from the pristine water.



Now tofu is tofu and it's all tofu, but this is the best tofu we've tasted so maybe it's not all tofu after all. They have plain tofu, flavoured tofu, tofu drinks, tofu patties all able to be tasted as well my fav is the chilli tofu skin.


tofu keep under running spring water


Black sesame and matcha tofu drinks


Flavoured tofu skins


Tofu condiments


The tasting table

The other tasting table

And then we came to the tonuts......looks like a doughnut....smells and tastes like a tasty, light, perfectly cooked doughnut,



hmmmmmm maybe we had to buy a few packets for further testing.

Tasting notes: tastes far better than many full blooded doughnuts.

More stick food, Sapporo.

Ten types down sixty five to go. Well sixty two now, stopped by the other day and knocked chicken with leek sauce, tsukone with cheese and potato with butter off the menu of our favourite yakitori place in Sapporo.





The tsukone with cheese was a surprise favourite. Didn't think that the combination would be at all pleasant, but the crisp on the outside chicken mince containing the melty cheese was really good. Maybe we've started going local..........or maybe it's just good.

The quest will go on.

Torimatsu

Getting taken to a local spot by locals is always a sweet deal, you get the fast lane to a hot spot with out having to chance lady luck (though we have a fairly high sucess rate with random walk ins).

On this night we were out with Yoanna and Hisashi of Gyu+ fame, they were keen to show us their favourite iyzakaya in K-town.  Torimatsu has been running for many years and is wildly popular amongst those in the know, the getting to be in the know is the hard part, another great restaurant another small inconspicuous no english marked building.



The place was pumping but we managed to secure 4 spots at the bar right in front of the master, the whole night he was a constant blur of movement but still finding time to have a few words.

We left the ordering in capable hands and just sat back and waited.  First up with our first beer a snack plate of pickled octopus and seaweed.

Then a selection of yakitori; tsukone, this time the chicken mince rolled into little balls and skewered with the traditional egg yolk on the side.



Chicken breast spaced with lightly charred onion.



Pork belly grilled golden, mmmmmm porksicles.



And a new one for us pork lung, not one to say no, it tasted mild offaly with a firm texture, I quite liked it, but then I quite like offal.



We then moved onto a parcel of green onion wrapped in beancurd skin and grilled, wow so yummy.

Starting to feel quite good at this point, but that was just a warm up now the food really started flowing.

A fine sashimi plater of scallop, conch, octopus,mackeral, red snapper, himachi, a real cornicopia.



We were also presented with a do it yourself grill of squid unfortunatly the pics are a little blurry.  Then a delivery of two very fine grilled fish, one with a long dragon shaped head (names anyone??) First we pulled off the skin and reutrned it to the master, while we proceded to pick the flesh from the bones he grilled the skin crispy then returned it to our plates, lovely.



The other fish much more of a round shape, butterflied and grilled skin side down for the most of the process then quickly cooked on the glazed side. This fish had so much fat it was like a whole fish made of salmon belly, incredible, when we get the names we'll update ya.



The next dish took several repertitions as we could not quite believe what we were being told and then that no-one had told us earlier....ostrich sashimi. Not only ostrich but farmed just down the road, I mean seriously Hokkaido has every thing. Lean and a little gamey, very good.



A half chicken crispy fried and served with lemon and a pair of sissors, the name sake of the restaurant, Torimatsu. Super crispy skin but soft moist flesh, it vanished in a flash. I loved the sissors as the cutting tool so messy and interactive without being deadly.



"Now for dessert" sweet, sweets. Not your usual kinda sweet offerings but in this case meant as what Y and H usually have to end the meal.

Rice soup with umeboshi plum (which we have since found out is an apricot). Love rice soup and with it's subtle ume flavor this one was no exception.



Mochi cheese-u was the next to follow, wheels of soft potato stuffed with cheese and deep fried. I love these desserts.



By now we were all ready to bust but now due to the fact Yoanna had done the translation of the menu to english and that they were very much regulars there was a very special little treat for us that night. A whole hairy crab, wow!

Yoanna eagerly showed how to dismember the wee beasty. So sweet and very deserved of it's reputation as one of the worlds finest crustateans.




As we bid all a good night and rolled out there was some careful landmark noting to ensure a return visit will be possible.



Torimatsu
0136-23-2893.
North 3, West 1

Kutchan-cho, Hokkaido