[Hokkaido] Day 1 : Arrived in Sapporo - Hunting Food at Sapporo Station & Around

It's been a while I never write an update of my travel journey. Just realized it when I saw my drafts, full with unfinished posts about traveling. Well, since it's going to be winter season, and most of you must be planning for a winter trip, let me start by write about my last winter trip to Hokkaido, Japan. Actually we're not just going to Hokkaido. We also visited Tokyo which is the capital city of Japan. Hmmm. It's like a mandatory to visit Tokyo when you're traveling to Japan. Tokyo is our favorite city, precisely for culinary. But I'll write about Tokyo another time, because it's more "complicated" and I want to write it completely for you ^^

Landed at New Chitose Airport

Take JR Rapid Airport to Sapporo Station

We started our trip in Hokkaido from its capital city, Sapporo. Sapporo has an international airport named New Chitose Airport (CTS), which could be easily reached with any airlines internationally. If you come from Tokyo, you can choose either take a flight (in 2 hours), or take shinkansen (in 7 hours) to reach Sapporo. Since Sapporo is the first city that we visited, we chose to take a flight with Thai Airways which has a direct flight from Bangkok. Once we arrived, we took JR Rapid Airport (¥1590) which brought as to Sapporo Station only in 40 minutes. From there, we took another train (¥200) to reach our hotel - Ibis Style Sapporo. Actually there's another simple way to reach the hotel, by taking New Chitose Airport Limousine Bus which only costs $1030. However, the bus journey takes  80 minutes and since it's winter (when the road covered by snow), bus ride is not recommended.

Start our food hunting day

At the first day, we didn't go too far. We were too tired after the long stopover in Bangkok (9 hours). Otherwise, the kids also got a very bad cold and they looked not feeling well. So we just went back to Sapporo Station, and looking for a good lunch. First stop was Hanamaru Sushi. I've heard about good reviews of this sushi restaurant before, and so curious about their sushi. Hanamaru Sushi located at 6F of Stellar Place which connected with Sapporo Station and other 2 shopping malls, Daimaru and Sapporo Esta. Beside the delicacy of their sushi, I also knew that there's gonna be a very long queue - in anytime - to have a dine in here. But it's beyond my expectation to be waited for 2 hours only for having lunch. Since we were starving, so we went to Sapporo Ramen Republic at Sapporo Esta, and have some bowls of ramen first while waiting for our turn.

At the entrance of Sapporo Ramen Republic

Sapporo Ramen Republic is a "food court" which only have ramen food stalls. It's located at 10F of Sapporo Esta. At this place you can find many kind of ramen from different regions in Hokkaido, and (of course) they are write in Japanese letter. I have no idea which one is the best. I just randomly get in to the restaurant which has no queue, because mostly they all have long queue and we were extremely hungry at that time. After got a table and saw the menu, we just knew they serve Hakodate style ramen. This restaurant called Menchubo Ajisai. 

Left : normal size | Right : for kids

Hakodate style ramen at Menchubo Ajisai, Sapporo Ramen Republic

Hakodate ramen known for the clear broth shio ramen. The soup made from kombu seaweed stock which makes savory taste with brown color. Even though it's lighter than miso ramen (Sapporo style ramen), but it's still too salty for my tongue. I prefer Tonkotsu ramen (such as Ichiran) which doesn't taste too salty.

After filled half of our tummy, we felt better and ready to continue our food hunting day. Since it's still 1 hour until our turn, we were walking around from Sapporo Esta to Daimaru. As usual, Daimaru always have tons of delicious food on their Basement level. Not a "heavy" food, but they offer many kind of sweet treats, which really hard to be denied. Stepped out from the elevator, we were greeted by LeTao's food stall. LeTao is one of the famous dessert in Hokkaido, which comes from Otaru. However, since we gonna go to Otaru at the next day, we just passed it and looking for other tempting dessert.

Fresh mochi at Daifukudo, Daimaru Sapporo

At the end we bought some fresh mochi with red bean as a filling from Daifukudo and also cream puffs by Kitakaro. Yup, the famous cream puff that can't be missed when you're in Hokkaido. Actually Kitakaro also has a big outlet in Otaru. But at that time I thought they only have 1 stall (at Daimaru only), so I decided to give them a try. There are 2 types of cream puff, with and without whipped cream. The popular one is the cream puff with whipped cream in it, which has a soft texture puff. However if you don't like whipped cream, you can choose the other one which has a crisp puff.

Left : with whipped cream | Right : without whipped cream

Finally, it's the time for us to eat at the famous conveyor belt sushi restaurant, Hanamaru Sushi. Hanamaru Sushi comes from the town at East Hokkaido, Nemuro. It's being popular for its freshness and comes with affordable price. Due to its popularity, they open more outlets in Sapporo and Tokyo. Once we got a table, the waitress gave us the menu, with a form for order. At the menu, there are many options of the sushi, complete with the number of the sushi. To order it, we just simply write the number of the sushi that we wanted, and put a tick at the next box whether we want it with wasabi or not. It's much easier than try to talk in Japanese with them :P

Hanamaru Sushi is on the left at Stellar Dining

In front of Hanamaru Sushi

Sushi bar at Hanamaru Sushi

As I was expecting, the topping was really fresh. For a person who not a fan of raw fish, their sushi was acceptable. No fishy smells, and even "strange" taste that usually comes in unfresh sushi. However, the taste was just so so, and I thought waiting for 2 hours is not worth it. I've tried other random sushi restaurant in Tokyo, and they have a better taste. However it's not too bad if you want to try a conveyor belt sushi restaurant with affordable prices.

All sushi come with very fresh topping

They also accept takeaway sushi box

Late lunch at Hanamaru Sushi was ended our first day in Sapporo. We went back straight to the hotel, and slept earlier, because at the next day we'd have a daytrip to Otaru.