Day 10 (Feb 6th) - Izakaya Dining Experience

Location: Sapporo
Weather: -1 deg
Author: Chrissie

Ohayou minnasan! I'm backtracking to Day 10 since I realised we've missed a couple of days in between.

Today was another 'take-it-easy' day for us as we had plans to meet up with Yuri and her sister later that night for dinner. As I mentioned earlier, we did not have internet connection at the 3rd accommodation we had just moved to so we decided to head to a place with free wifi to catch up on our mails.

We went to Tully's Coffee (a coffee chain in Japan) at the Sapporo train station where we knew they offered free internet connection. Tully's Coffee was located on the 6th floor of Stellar Plaza in Sapporo and we managed to get window counter seats with a great view.

Our view from Tully's Coffee. You can see Seibu Dept store opposite with the triangular roof.

As you can see from the picture, it was snowing pretty heavily outside. The snowflakes were dancing violently outside the window in front of us. It's actually quite mesmerising to watch!

Anyway, we spent a couple of hours in Tully's before heading off to meet with Yuri. Yuri had also brought her younger sister (Yumi) along to meet us. We thought their names were pretty cute!

Yuri brought us to a very stylish Izakaya restaurant. An Izakaya is basically a place for drinking, although they also serve food to accompany the drinks. Amy had mentioned earlier that she had wanted to try a seafood hotpot and this particular Izakaya offered an 8-course dinner for about 4000 yen per person including unlimited drinks. Anyway, let's get to the good part, the pictures!!

Us before dinner was served. Yuri is on the left, Yumi on the right. I'm checking out Yuri's Jap-Eng translator!
The happy group! Our drinks had been served by then. Sapporo beer is pretty good...
Our first course - silky white tofu with spring onions

2nd course - 5 varieties of sashimi including tuna, mackeral and bream. Veerry ooishii!!
3rd course - vietnamese spring rolls with a thin slice of raw beef on top. Thumbs up for presentation.
4th course and the piece de resistance!! A seafood nabe with prawns, mussels, scallops, mushrooms and vegetables in an egg broth. Taste-bud tingling deliciousness!!!

The nabe pot was set on top of a portable stove to keep the food hot, but the waitress also placed something special in the nabe pot itself to make the broth extra hot. Can you spot it in the photo below?

Yup! They placed a very large hot rock right inside the pot! It started bubbling madly, I think you can see the steam in the photo!
Here's Yuri fishing the stone out for us to give us a better photo. According to Yuri, placing a rock in the nabe is quite rare. They've never seen it done before either.
Close up of our nabe stew. By now, we were already feeling pretty full!!
5th course - sweet potato tempura served with salt and seafood balls
6th course - Salmon sashimi and fish roe sushi

By now we had all gone beyond full to bursting, there was so much food!! The waitress later put rice into the nabe pot to soak up the flavour of the soup and finally we were served a white chocolate mousse dessert. Amy loved the dessert! Needless to say, we all felt like we needed to go for a good walk and exercise.

After the meal, Yuri wanted to take us to her favourite bar which was owned by close friends of hers she had met through salsa dancing. The bar owner's wife had apparently travelled around Australia about 10 years ago. We found out she was a scuba diving instructor and guide and had worked in Exmouth for a few months as well as Perth. Her english was still very good even after 10 years!

That was about it for our Day 10. The food and the company was excellent! Thanks to Yuri for giving us such a great experience!