Keep on trucking

Two more ticked off our favourite yakitori's impressive list.

Grilled chillis, mild and deliciously smokey.



And beef liver.



As well as these we revisited a host of past favourites as our used stick jar can testify to.



Each visit we chip away a little more of the list, maybe with some dedicated effort we could finish it off this year.

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.

Yakitori Yosaku

I love how in Japan every available space in/on/around a building is used. It could be the smallest alcove only able to fit two seats and some one will have a built a two seat ramen shop or such. In this case the space being used is in the under category. Wedged in under what was formally Pow Pow now Kila is Yakitori Yosaku. A small bar in the front and a few tables in the back, I don't know about the darts board on the wall, they either aren't expecting many people or those that come have very thick skin, literally.





We get some Tako-age to start, a small bowl of crispy fried octopus with a wedge of lemon, it's tasty, the octopus not chewy or over fried.



Being in a place called Yakitori we had to get a few sticks, the pork belly was nice covered with glaze, though it could have done with a bit more grilling to crisp up the outside for my liking.



The chorizo was two mini sausages with little heat but good spicing.



The lamb is the first lamb we have seen on a yakitori menu, it's tasty lightly glazed and sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.



The chicken skin is the best example of this most glorious stickfood that we've seen to date. The skin has been cooked long enough to crisp it up most of the way through, rendering all the fat out. It's crunchy flavorful goodness.



The final snack for tonight is five types of Japanese mushroom with lemon, soy and butter wrapped in foil and grilled. I'm pretty sure I only counted three types of mushroom but, they tasted good all the same.

Hirafu-area
TEL. 0136-23-4390

Mmmm Stick food

We love food on a stick and both agree with the line in Something about Mary that there should be more meats on sticks. Theres something about non candy items on sticks that blends childhood nostalgia with adult eating wonderfully, so when we were faced with a menu containing over 75 types of Yakitori there was as you’d expect a little excited hyperventilation.

The big glass window showing off the guns on the grill drew us in, a good metre and a half long and near full of tasty stick treats. So with the “ya don’t know if ya don’t go” attitude in we went. The place is jumping, packed with all walks eating, drinking and talking, the wait staff yelling their orders over the top of it all. It had this vibe, we were welcome and we wanted to stay.

The room is sporadically divided with swiss cheesed partitions so you’re on your own but in the middle of all at the same time. With so many choices we ordered a couple of beers and some edamame while we perused. The menu is huge, with three chicken sections, minced, breast, and all the bits, a pork section, a beef section, a seafood section, a veg section and an all the rest section. How’s a guy supposed to decide??

We end up choosing 6 sticks to start, first up eggplant wrapped in caul fat, the outside grilled crispy, the fat adding richness to the creamy interior.

The next a porky platter with bacon wrapped mochi, pork cheeks and kim chi wrapped in pork. I love the gooey texture of hot mochi and wrapped in bacon, I mean what’s not good wrapped in bacon. The pork with kim chi, tasty tasty tasty and the pork cheek well, the fat grilled golden and cruchy, oh man it’s love on a stick.

Sticks 5 and 6 arrive, a minced chicken with green onion and a decadent stick of chicken skin concertinaed up and spaced with negi. You know how good roast chicken skin is?? This way you don’t have to roast a whole bird to get the goods. Sweet.

We stop for a quick beer refuel this time trying a half half, a mix of half dark half light yebisu. The result, a beer with the flavour of the dark but not so heavy.
After the beer break we were ready for round two ordering up another 4 types.

Beef fillet with grated daikon and soy .

The cryptically titled “mayonnaise of the lobster” turned out to be small school prawns with seeded mustard mayo.

Chicken breast with daikon and soy.

And finally minced chicken with ume and shiso, the sour plum goes so well with the smoky grilled chicken and herbal shiso.

We’d had ten types of stick food when we decided to make a move, that being the case we’d have come back seven more times just to try everything on the menu, so I guess this is just part one…..

To be continued….

If anyone can read the street sign and let us know what it’s called that would be cool.

Sen chou, Niseko Hirafu

Okay, so we've only been in Japan a week, and the thing is there's just not much concession made to non-Japanese speakers. Not that we're complaining, it's just that we have no idea what anything is .... In the convenience stores, the road signs, the menu's .... Thank goodness for pictures! Our new technique is if it smells good, we're going in. So far we haven't walked into any one's house ... although we have been tempted!

Sen chou has a big neon scrolling sign that leaves you with no doubt it is an eatery. But what sort? They have a few photo's on the board out the front, with a variety of sets, seafood, meat and smaller dishes on display. But what we've discovered after our first venture is that they're actually an izakaya, a Japanese version of a Tapas bar. The place is small with only a half a dozen tables and seats at the sushi bar and mostly full, seated and quickly supplied with essential beverages and snacks that go with said beverages, in this case the beer was accompanied with a small plate of crispy squid and kewpie, the greatest mayo in the world. We browsed the menu, well the pictures mostly.

Settling on a few things we sat back, unaware of how delicious the night was going to become.

The first to arrive were the chicken and pork yakitori, the chicken minced served with an aoli and raw egg yolk to mix in, it was delicious the meat moist and flavorful, the film of egg yolk and aoli making it wonderfully rich.

The pork was a skewer threaded with marinated sliced of pork belly grilled to a crisp crust on the outside that crunched open as you bit it to let to melted fat and juices run out, the first mouthful was rapturous, then the agonizing decision, to keep eating it or save it till last. yeah right, as if we had the will power to save it...... it was gone in a matter or seconds.

Next came an eggplant sliced and stuffed with chicken before being steamed in a dashi broth and topped with fresh grated diakon, needless to say, but will anyway, yum. The eggplant all silky smooth and the chicken just cooked all in drenched in the smokey dashi.

Then the tuna with fresh wasabi, oh the joy of fresh wasabi, once you've had it the green powdery junk that gets passed off in tubes as wasabi around the world will disgust you. The tuna was swimming fresh and just melted in our mouths.

Marinated mackerel with fresh ginger was next up and wow, I mean wow. It was nothing like any that had come before the texture transformed from the pickling, firm but not cooked. The flavour of the pickle not overpowering the fish but enhancing it. This was my favourite dish of the night.

And finally Hokkaido lamb with asparagus and roast potato's, coming out on a pottery hot plate still cooking the smell was captivating, upon lifting the lid to the cooker we found four fat slices of lamb, some asparagus and the famed Hokkaido potatoes all sizzling away. The lamb was already at a perfect medium rare so we dived straight in............mmmmmm so juicy and tender. the potatoes were out of this world soft and floury in side with the most terrific crunchy exterior.

We both agree that this was a fine end result for the smell and see technique.

All through the night the beer and then the sweet potato shochu had kept coming so we were well insulated against the cold for the walk home.

On the way we reasoned that would really need to return several times as we had only just touched on the menu and Sen chou really deserved a thorough reviewing. All in the name of science of course.