Raw seafood breakfasts are one of my very favourite things about eating out in Japan (see here and here for my accounts of breakfast sushi in Tokyo on our first and last days in the city last summer). Given that Hokkaido is famous for its seafood, it was a given that we were going to eat raw seafood for breakfast at least once during our week on the island. It came to pass on the morning of our first full day in Sapporo. You will remember that we had arrived from Seoul in the middle of the previous day and had eaten ramen for lunch at the airport and shabu shabu etc. for dinner. And so we were primed for some good raw seafood. I had looked on Tabelog for kaisendon places near us with strong ratings and Kitchen Nagamori in Nijo Market seemed like a good call. So it proved to be.
It was a cool, drizzly morning as we set out from our hotel and the brisk walk got our appetites up by the time we arrived at Nijo Market. With a little bit of effort we managed to located Kitchen Nagamori (there’s no English signage but the pictures of the storefront on Tabelog reviews made it easy once it occurred to me to look there). As per Tabelog, there’s usually at least a bit of a wait. The restaurant is small and a little cramped—there are only 16 seats at a counter that wraps around the central cooking area—and is only open till 2 pm. And being located in Nijo Market, it attracts tourists like us. But perhaps due to the rain we only had to wait for a couple of minutes before we were seated. There was a longer line as we were leaving.
Even though most of the other customers there when we were eating were Japanese, you can tell they get a lot of international custom as they have an English menu. The regular menu is posted above the counter in Japanese and there are also daily specials listed there. On the counter you can find picture menus, including an English menu. What’s on offer is largely a wide selection of seafood bowls or kaisendon, along with some a la carte offerings of grilled fish and sashimi. Many things looked very enticing to us—including the fresh harvest Hokkaido asparagus displayed on the counter—but we stuck with our plan and each got a seafood bowl.
The younger boy got the tuna and salmon bowl, which featured generous cuts of lean and fatty tuna along with salmon over warm rice. The older boy got the squid, salmon and scallop bowl with an extra topping of ikura/salmon roe. The missus got the kaisen bowl, which featured tuna, scallop, octopus, shrimp, flying fish roe and salmon. I got the hokkai bowl, which featured uni, ikura and salmon. As the missus’ bowl did not have any uni, she got some uni sashimi on the side; I likewise rounded out my bowl with an a la carte order of scallop sashimi. All the bowls came with miso soup, which we upgraded to miso-crab broth for a slight upcharge. Unlike most of the diners, we skipped the opportunity to drink beer for breakfast and stuck with tea.
The fish/seafood was all of very high quality and we enjoyed it very much (though we were to eat some far superior kaisendon etc. a couple of days later at a restaurant at the tip of the Shakotan Peninsula). For a look at the restaurant and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much this meal cost and to see what’s coming next.
All in, this came to 19,100 yen, which is just about $120 at the current exchange rate. Not cheap by Japan standards but a raging steal compared to anything in the US.
Alright, coming next on the food front will be another Hokkaido report. That’ll go up on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I’ll have a report on our dinner last night at Diane’s Place in Minneapolis. Later in the week: more from Seoul and Hokkaido, and also, finally, that increasingly delayed review of my dinner at Masque in Bombay in April.