Tacos tacos tacos, Mañana, Kutchan

Another K-towner Mañana, is a new kid on the block built this year by pro snowboarder Hiromasa Ihara looking for something else to do.



With a good range of Mexican beers and killer soft beef tacos - seriously I could eat a million of these things! warm soft taco, seared fingers of succulent beef, lettuce, cheese and a little bowl of salsa on the side, they just melt in your mouth, and vanish far too fast.

P.S don't forget to get some death wings while you're at it, the skull and cross bones level is nice and warming.

Mañana
Eki Mae Dori (just up from the train station on the right)

Cafe Kaku, Kutchan, Japan

Down on the main street of K town there's a former buddhist monk who tosses a mighty fine pizza. Kaku is where we can be found most days off enjoying someone else making us a great coffee, and some times partaking of the excelent wholemeal based pizzas. Shukin also stocks Coopers pale ale which is great for when you feel like something different. There's always something going on whether it be live jazz, or fresh baked focaccias just pulled from the oven.


Buffalo chicken pizza with blue cheese


The cowboy with mushroom, bacon and olive


Coopers

Mmmmmm monkalicious.

Cafe Kaku

or this

Cafe kaku

Shunsei, Kutchan

Shunsei is another place that took us all season to get too. It's on Ekimae heading away from the station just a few doors from the corner with the wooden entrance. We tried on several occasions for lunch and for dinner. Then we worked out they're closed on Sundays .. gosh! And many other times we tried they'd been full.



They do an amazing value lunch set for 1000¥. It includes soup, salad, rice, pickles, main course (we had the Ezo deer), soft drink and chocolate rocks.




It's our last dinner in Hokkaido before we leave for our holiday's. There's 6 of us, and Ange has called ahead to make sure we can get a table. We've decided on the 3500¥ set course. They do a few courses, ranging from 2500¥ up to 8000¥. We arrive smack on 7pm and see our table waiting. Each place setting already has a plate of salad awaiting our arrival. The salad is very similar to the one served at lunch, with little pieces of diced prosciutto, tofu, mini tomato, greens and sprouts. As soon as we sit down and order drinks, someone appears with a jug of dressing and each salad is dressed before our eyes.



We're all pretty hungry and the salad disappears in no time! The next course to arrive is a trio of seared seafood. There's a beautifully seared piece of salmon, white fish and a scallop. It's resting on 3 half green asparagus spears that are so crisp and vibrant. There's a generous spoon of a chunky tartare like sauce, laced with gherkins, capers, herbs and hard boiled eggs. There's salmon roe around the plate and caviar (black herring roe) on top with a nice sprig of chervil. Even I like this dish, despite my usual aversion to cooked salmon.



Wow! We had seen the venison dish before when we'd enjoyed lunch here. But we still are all quite shocked with just how much colour makes it onto this one plate. The venison itself is delicious and rich, and cooked perfectly. It's covered in a mild onion sauce and then there's the eccentric selection of vegetables ... everything from broccoli, cauliflower, beans, carrots and green and purple cabbage. The flavours are all really nice, but we still find it quite strange that the vegetables are cold?! (same as when we had this dish for lunch)



Now for some kitch-a-rama! A half avocado is scooped out and frozen. There's an avocado mayonnaise binding a crab salad that is resting back in the frozen shell with a slice of smoked salmon draped over the top. I don't mind it, but Ange devours hers in about 2 seconds flat and I see just how much she enjoys it, so have no problem offering the rest of mine for her to enjoy.



The next dish was definitely my favorite of the evening. A nice chunk of crispy, delicious, fatty pork sitting on a disc of brasied daikon. There was loads of freshly grated mountain wasabi, which is like a wild Hokkaido horseradish, which cut through the richness of the dish and just added such depth to the flavour and complexity of the meat. Mmm.



Then, Kim thinks this was rather strange, well, we all did, mid-meal we just get a little saltine cracker with cream cheese and prosciutto. I mean, it was tasty, but maybe better left to Mum's book club or something ...



Allthough we were a little puzzled as to where the meal was going as it kept going up and down. We thought with Mum's cracker that may have been the cheese course? and maybe just dessert to come. But we were all surprised when a plate of Hokkaido lamb arrived. The lamb was cooked to a beautiful blush pink. It was sitting on a velvetly smooth eggplant half and covered in crispy fried shallots. The sauce was spiked with seeded mustard and it definately didn't need anything that was sitting to the side (especially when we'd already had so many courses). There was a piece of marron (chestnut) one lonely piece of broccoli and half a mini tomato.



All on the verge of exploding, we're thoroughly relieved when dessert arrives as a single scoop of vanilla ice-cream with half a strawberry on top.



But the little chocolate rocks that are placed on the table are just so cool. Look like rocks, taste like chocolate.



I would have to say that each individual dish worked better on it's own, as it was a bit hard to see any sort of cohesion in the whole menu. But the thing I most love about Shunsei is the personable service and humble space. It does feel like a privilege to be allowed into this space, like you've been invited into the families private abode and each and everyone of them treated us to feel comfortable and welcome.

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 

Mini burger cookies, too cute!

We popped into Pelican burger before we left for holiday to say goodbye. It was nice to just sit down and chew the fat. The burger shop was also closed, they were just there cleaning up, and it was Gyu+ bar's closing party the following night (can't believe we missed it by one day!)

We were sitting and enjoying a nice cup of freshly brewed Iwata organic coffee when Joanna runs to the fridge and unveils something so amazing cute! Baby burger cookies! They were a delicious crumbly almost shortbread like cookie. It was the same dough just flavored and coloured and shaped into it's little burger shapes. The bun was vanilla, topped with a few sesame seeds. The patty, chocolate and the lettuce matcha - green tea. There was even a dollop of icing for the cheese. Joanna was asking what we thought about somehow adding a 'tomato'. My first though was a slice of dehydrated strawberry. But that may decrease the shelf life, and honestly, they were cute enough and I don't think it really needed it.



How freakin' cool are they? and they were absolutely delicious ....

TsubaraTsubara

To drive past you wouldn’t even think that such treats could lie within; I mean it just looks like a pile of shipping containers stacked up next to a paintball field. But with an inside tip that there was much more than meets the eye to these containers we went to investigate. Soup curry is big in Japan and like I’ve said before I’m not a big fan of Japanese style curry (I’m coming round slowly) but here at TsubaraTsubara we were told, was a good thing. We peeked inside and were surprised to see the interior of a restaurant, had you somehow been magiked inside from some other place you would not know the exterior was a shipping container, and to add to our surprise all the seats were full. We were lucky enough that someone was just finishing up so with but a brief wait we were on our way.



The menu is a choose your own adventure, starting you choose the filling for the soup from five choices: chicken leg, pork and leek, prawn, all vegetables or chicken meatball. Then it’s on to your soup of choice; original or with added coconut cream, now onto additional extras from fried wonton skins (50¥) through to roast pork (300¥) with a multitude of other choices in-between. How hungry are exactly is the next question as you pick the size of your rice 140g through to 260g with the choice also of oatmeal rice, a mixed grain rice with all sorts of things in it. Lastly how hot do you want to go, this is an interesting concept as chilli is not really an acquired taste here in cabbage country, so to have a scale that goes from one to twenty with a recommended heat level of 5 is nice for someone who likes the spice.

We went through the adventure Kat having a coconut soup with chicken, additional chicken meatballs and fried garlic with a spicing of 8, myself having the original soup with pork, leek and boiled egg, additional sausage and a spicing of 8. Kat also has the oatmeal rice which is a good and a bad thing, good because it’s so tasty, bad because since then they’ve always been sold out of it leaving us craving.
My soup is tasty and flavourful, the spice heat is good (I’d like to see someone attempt the 20) as well as the pork, leek and egg there is maitake mushroom and roast capsicum, it a generous portion.



Kats soup with the addition of the coconut cream makes the taste similar to a Thai Khao soy, again it’s a generous portion and the additional meatballs, well, next time I’m going to have a bowlful of just them, they’re sooooo delicious.



I guess the moral of the story is: walk into many strange buildings because there’s delicious food in side or not all shipping containers are created equal, something like that.

Address
On the corner at the first set of traffic lights out of Hirafu towards Kutchan.