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Hokkaido's regional food includes excellent seafood, beef, lamb, corn on the cob, and potatoes. Dining out is generally much cheaper than in Tokyo and Osaka. Look for lunch and dinner tabehodai (all-you-can-eat) smorgasbords (called baikingu, from the word Viking; long story) ranging from ¥1,000 to ¥3,000. Many restaurants have
Hokkaido's regional food includes excellent seafood, beef, lamb, corn on the cob, and potatoes. Dining out is generally much cheaper than in Tokyo and Osaka. Look for lunch and dinner tabehodai (all-you-can-eat) smorgasbords (called baikingu, from the word Viking; long
Hokkaido's regional food includes excellent seafood, beef, lamb, corn on the cob, and potatoes. Dining out is generally
Hokkaido's regional food includes excellent seafood, beef, lamb, corn on the cob, and potatoes. Dining out is generally much cheaper than in Tokyo and Osaka. Look for lunch and dinner tabehodai (all-you-can-eat) smorgasbords (called baikingu, from the word Viking; long story) ranging from ¥1,000 to ¥3,000. Many restaurants have picture menus or a visual display made of plastic in the window. Lead the waiter outside to the window display and point if necessary.
Outside the cities there may not be many dining choices in the evening, and many resort towns (where meals are included in hotel stays) may offer nothing but noodles and booze. Further, dinner reservations at guesthouses are required, and if you arrive without a reservation and are able to secure a room, you will generally have to eat elsewhere. Not to worry—you won’t starve: There are 24-hour convenience stores (konbini) in any Hokkaido settlement, where you can pick up a bento box lunch, sandwiches, or just about any amenity necessary. While large hot-spring hotels often have huge buffet dinners, the smaller guesthouses excel in food that is locally caught, raised, and picked. Given the overall high quality of dining throughout Japan, you probably won’t even need to leave your hotel to get a decent meal.
Claws emerging from a bed of fresh-cut crab and darkly gleaming red salmon eggs piled high on a bowl of rice are just two of the famous raw-fish options at this 50-year-old family restaurant in the middle of the noisy fish market. They also have lighter options like fresh shellfish and simple grilled fish, rice, and miso lunch sets. The menus have plenty of pictures and a bit of English to make ordering easier. The restaurant also houses a fishmonger known as Takeda Sengyoten.
A European-style restaurant set in a tranquil garden, with very friendly staff, Boyotei (which literally means "View of Mt. Yotei") charms with its stone floor, low beams, long-legged tables, and family photos dating back for decades. There are English menus available.
36--12 Toyako Onsen, Toyako-cho, Hokkaido, 049-5721, Japan
Below the red sign depicting a roly-poly mustachioed doll, this establishment founded in 1954 serves the city's freshest barbecued lamb jingisukan. The slices of lamb are served steaming atop heaps of vegetables. At the end of the meal you're given hot tea to mix with what's left of your dipping sauce—mixed together, they're oddly delicious. Be sure to wear your least-favorite clothes and don the paper bib that's provided, then feast away until you become roly-poly yourself.
Minami 5 Nishi 4, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 064-0805, Japan
011-552–6013
Known For
Popular (can be a line in the evening)
Local Sapporo atmosphere
Good-value lamb plates
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No lunch, Reservations not accepted
On a narrow street near the Mitsukoshi department store, Ebi-Ten Bun-Ten is as friendly a tempura place as you're likely to find in Hokkaido. The sliding doors behind a blue banner reveal a quiet, homey restaurant, managed for two generations by the friendly Yamada family. Seating is available at the counter, at tables, and in tatami rooms with cushions. A rudimentary English menu is available.
Minami 2 Nishi 4, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-0062, Japan
This spacious, laid-back restaurant—all soaring beams and wide windows overlooking Mt. Yotei—on the second floor of Niseko Adventure Center is busy all day with guides and their nervous or elated customers. The platters here overflow with nourishing meals for adventurers, including an all-Hokkaido burger with only local ingredients. Jo-Jo's sells drinks from 9:30, but doesn't start serving food until 11.
179--53 Aza-Yamada, Niseko, Hokkaido, 044-0081, Japan
This bustling village eatery serves steaming crab curry, golden sea urchin on rice, and anything else they can make out of the morning's catch. They often give customers free crab legs to suck on while they wait. It's near the harbor down from the Shiretoko Grand Hotel and across the street from the 7-Eleven; picture menus are available for easy ordering.
Utoro Higashi 151, Shiretoko, Hokkaido, 099-4355, Japan
0152-24–2910
Known For
Unidon (rice bowl topped with sea urchin) for ¥4,000
This seaside hall serves seafood as well as a huge variety of other foods from pastas to salads that can keep just about anyone satisfied. The soaring rafters are beautiful and the atmosphere is lively. Its spaciousness and conviviality are typical of Hokkaido and, although it's in a tourist complex, even locals like the wide range of seasonal specials from a menu that changes monthly.
14--12 Suehiro-cho, Hakodate, Hokkaido, 040-0064, Japan
Nakano-san presides over the catch of the day in a small restaurant, run since the 1970s by the same family. Take a seat at the wooden counter, over which Nakano-san offers you whatever seafood is in season. Open from midday to midnight.
Minami 2 Nishi 2, Abashiri, Hokkaido, 093-0012, Japan
0152-43–3447
Known For
Grilled seafood such as plump scallops (hotate)
Sushi sets
Seafood donburi, a bowl of rice topped with sea urchin (uni), salmon roe (ikura), or other in-season produce
Standing apart from all the sushi joints in Otaru is this lamb barbecue heaven at the easy-to-find branch of a famous jingisukan restaurant. Purchase a plate of tender, succulent lamb, which you cook tyourself on a dome-shaped griddle with side orders of alfalfa sprouts (moyashi) and leeks (negi). If you're still hungry, pick up a crepe or a treat on your way out from one of the shops in the cute collection of buildings. Reservations are required on weekends.
Although squid is not the only thing on the menu, it is fresh—your squid is pulled flapping from the tank and might return minutes later sliced, with squid-ink black rice, delicious slivers of still-twitching flesh, soup, and pickles. If squid isn't your thing, don't fret, the restaurant has plenty of other seafood, and a picture menu for easy selection. Look for a sign with red letters on a yellow background.
9--15 Wakamatsu-cho, Hakodate, Hokkaido, 040-0063, Japan
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