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Sunday, April 28, 2013

MASAZO (MASA蔵)| Ramen and Tsukemen Restaurant | Iwamizawa

I'm so happy to find a wonderful ramen restaurant in Iwamizawa today.
This is "MASAZO (MASA蔵)"↓, 15 minutes' walk from JR Iwamizawa station (JR岩見沢駅).

Let's enter the restaurant!
This is a very compact restaurant like this, and always packed with a lot of ramen lovers!!

When you come here, you should order tsukemen (つけ麺), ramen accompanied with soup for dipping.

Their broth is made of pork bones and shrimp, which is very very recommendable!!!

I orderd soy-sauce flavored tsukemen (海老醤油つけめん)↓

Look at the noodles! They are much much thicker than normal ramen!!

The dipping soup has strong impact with shrimps and soy sauce! Yummy x 2!!!

The very thick noodles go well with very rich shrimp soup!! I love it!

If you love shrimps, you can add shrimp broth to the dipping soup.

Now Shrimp flavor outweighs to pork bone flavor!!

 How about "shrimp rice with roasted pork (炙りチャーマヨ丼)"?

I really recommend it!

The pork is additionally grilled, and covered with mayonnaise!!

Under the pork, there is rice cooked with shrimp broth. Perfect!!

We were also interested in their ramen, and ordered special miso ramen (2代目味噌), which they serve only 10 sets a day!

Voila!
Looks very yummy x 2!!

The noodles are thick like tsukemen.

And the soup is milder than tsukemen.

I think this ramen goes well with simple shrimp rice cooked with shrimp broth (えび飯).

This looks like rice donated to the Buddhist altar!! Hahaha!
Anyway, it tastes very shrimp and very rich!

I really recommend this ramen restaurant, and will come back here soon to eat spicy miso ramen!!!

■Where is "MASAZO (MASA蔵)"?


View Larger Map


■Tour guide information■
Do you need a nationally-licensed English-speaking tour guide when you travel to Hokkaido?
I'll guide you! Plz click here!

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Kitamura Onsen (北村温泉)| Hot Spring Inn | Iwamizawa

I always introduce famous hot spring hotels to my readers, but are you interested in local and homely hot springs, too?
Today we went to "Kitamura Onsen (北村温泉)", a local small hot spring hotel in Iwamizawa (岩見沢), which is blessed with very high-quality natural water↓

The onsen is never diluted with tap water, and we can enjoy 100% pure natural hot spring here. The water is rich in salt (ナトリウム-塩化物強塩泉), which is effective to nerve and muscle pains especially. Sounds wonderful!

There are three kinds of hot spring including Jacuzzi and sauna inside. Naturally or Surprisingly almost all guests here are local citizens. When we went there today, we are the only persons from outside of this area! Hahaha!

Let's go to outdoor hot spring area!

Look at the brownish yellow collar, which looks very healthy and natural!!

We moved to another bathtub! As it is a little cold outside, we felt very comfortable for a while, soaking into this very salt-rich water.

Wow! Wow! Wow!
The water is always overflowing!!

If I lived this town, I would come here every day to relax and make my skin younger! Actually after taking this onsen, my skin looks 7 years younger than what it was! Hahaha!

■Where is "Kitamura Onsen (北村温泉)"?


View Larger Map


■Tour guide information■
Do you need a nationally-licensed English-speaking tour guide when you travel to Hokkaido?
I'll guide you! Plz click here!

Kaisen-Shokudo Kitano Gourmet-tei (海鮮食堂 北のグルメ亭)| Seafood Restaurant | Sapporo

If you are looking for fresh seasonal seafood, how about coming to the Sapporo Central Wholesale Off-board Maket(札幌市中央卸売場外市場)?

There are 64 seafood stores in the market and we chose one of the popular ones for lunch today!

"Kaisen-Shokudo Kitano Gourmet-tei (海鮮食堂 北のグルメ亭)", a seafood restaurant, is located inside of "Kitano Gourmet", a seafood store in the market. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

They have a wide variety of high-quality seafood caught mainly off Hokkaido!

Here we are!
Let's enter "Kaisen-Shokudo Kitano Gourmet-tei (海鮮食堂 北のグルメ亭)"!

It is packed with seafood lovers especially during the lunch hours!

Look at these celebrities' signatures! Yes! It is a very popular seafood restaurant!

Here is the menu!

They serve something fresh and delicious only!

Cheers!
We first enjoyed Sapporo Classic, limited-production beer served only in Hokkaido!

Voila!
This is a dish of assorted sashimi set including scallop, tuna, botanebi prawns, Sakhalin surf clam, squid, and whelk! All of them are veeeeeeeeeeeery fresh!

If you like shellfish, how about shellfish sashimi assort (お刺身貝づくし)?

Of course, we can order our favorite sashimi only. For example...............

Chutoro (中トロ)
If you like tuna, you must try it!!

or how about Ootoro (大トロ), the highest graded tuna? Yummy x 2!!

I know it is too much for a lot of non-Japanese, but this is very fresh squid sashimi, which is still moving when it is served on the table! Hahaha!

■Octopus sahimi (たこ刺)
We Japanese think octopus is very delicious. How about you???

They also serve grilled fish, too.

■Grilled Kichiji rockfish (網走釣り生きんき焼)
It is not caught with a fishing net, but a fishing rod.

I think this is the king of grilled fish in Hokkaido!

■Grilled sablefish
This fish is marinated with special miso paste named "saikyo miso", which has distinctive aroma and really suits with plain rice! Yummy x 2!

■Grilled shishamo smelt
I've never seen such plump smelt ever! It has a lot of fish eggs (row) and we really enjoyed it!

See?? It's very fleshy!!!

■Grilled salmon
Hokkaido reminds a lot of people of salmon. Please enjoy very juicy salmon here!

■Grilled Scallop (焼ほたて)
Hokkaido scallops are huge and super super delicious!

Do you like crabs?
We can choose our favorite crabs sold on the fish store, and then the chef cooks it.

■King crab (タラバガニ)
This is one of our choices (before being cooked)↓

Actually we ordered to have it both grilled and

boiled! Do we eat too much???
I personally recommend grilled ones because it is sweeter and more juicy although it takes longer time to cook it.

Last but not least, I'll introduce their delicious seafood bowl!!

■Seafood bowl (海鮮丼)
If you cannot decide which seafood bowl is the best, Please order it because it has almost all kinds of seafood they serve↓

■King crab & tuna bowl (たらば・トロ丼)
This is not on their menu, but one of my guests loves tuna and crab very much and I asked the chef to make this original bowl! I like this restaurant partly because the menu is very flexible like this♪

Boranebi prawns and selected shellfish bowl
This is what I ordered! Every seafood bowl comes with miso soup and a small dish↓

Tada!
The botanebi prawns are HUGE!!!
I also fully enjoyed a few kinds of local shellfish such as scallop, Sakhalin surf clam, and whelk! Actually after customers order seafood bowls or sashimi sets, the chef shuke a clam in this restaurant! That's why their seafood is very delicious!

I was very happy to eat such giant botanebi prawns today!

I especially like this head part! It's very tasty!

How about a scallop and salmon bowl or

a salmon, salmon roe and pink shrimp bowl? Hokkaido is a seafood paradise!

They serve a wide variety of seafood bowls!!
Do we order all of them below? Yes! Hahaha!


■Sea Urchin bowl
How gorgeous it is! I really love fresh creamy sea urchin!!

We also ordered crab soup! Perfect!!

After the lunch, we enjoyed shopping at the fish market!
Of course, hairy crabs are alive in sea-water tanks.

Look at the gigantic Atka mackerel!

I love these local shellfish; whelk and Sakhalin surf clam!

The sea urchin looks very brilliant! It is very fresh without any preservatives. Perfect!

I really enjoyed a wonderful lunch in the fish market restaurant with my very lovely tour guests today!!

■Where is "Kaisen-Shokudo Kitano Gourmet-tei (海鮮食堂 北のグルメ亭)?

View Larger Map

■Tour guide information■
Do you need a nationally-licensed English-speaking tour guide when you travel to Hokkaido?
I'll guide you! Plz click here!