Day 15: Last day of eating

Today is a special day.
It was only 15 days ago we were on a flight to come to Japan to eat.
One day ago, we got sick of ramen.
Today is the first morning I have awoken and not craved a ball of rice wrapped in seaweed.

Is it really the end??

Breakfast @ Nijo Fish Market

3 streets worth of "fish market". i.e, showing off the world's hugest crabs. And roe.
There was a recurring theme with ppl talking to us at this place:
1. Are you from Hong Kong? (do we really look that honky? Or do a lot of honkies just come here)
2. Oh, Australia.... Summer? (our sushi chef followed this up by: "Santa claus... t-shirt?" "No, he wears the full suit." "Ah, very hot!")
3. Try? Try?

We had brunch at the stand-up sushi bar in the middle of the fish markets. It was a tiny place, but served super super fresh sushi.

We both had the kakashi set, which included (left top, clockwise to left bottom):
usame (ie fish called halibut), toro (ie fatty tuna), scallops, sweet prawn, surf clam, egg, crab, salmon roe, sea urchin (uni), salmon

The toro was a bit lacking, but the rest was super yummy.
Came with seafood miso soup (with 2 prawn heads each!) Gave the miso soup that extra sweetness.

Score: 9/10
(minus 1 for the sadly disappointing toro, which i left til 2nd last to eat! The toro I had in sydney was 5X better...)

ROYCE Shop + Cafe
If you don't know about Royce, it's one of the most famous chocolate brands from Japan.
They have a cafe in Sapporo near Odori Park, so we went in to excape from the snow storm that had just started. Their Chocolat Chaud (pictured below) was super creamy & super chocolate-y - definately recommended for anyone making a stop at Sapporo. It came with a little chocolate piece by the name of "frommage"... but it didn't taste anything like cheese.... just white chocolate....


More shopping + Daimaru Depachika
A bit of shopping afterwards at the conveniently placed underground shopping centres (did i mention that like 1/3 of the city is underground - you can kinda understand it if you spend a day in winter here...) & a much-anticipated visit to the Depa-chika (ie B1 floor ie food floor) of Daimaru. Filled, as expected, with lots of things to taste & yummy food to look at. One of the food-tasting-servers (whatever they're actually called) was over-enthusiastic with practicing his English (which, interestingly, also consisted of "Ah, Australia, Summer? Very Hot!".... hm... recurring theme anyone? or is that all they were taught?). Luckily for us, due to this, he gave us a bit to try of everything there.... as opposed to the lady in front of us who only got 1 dish.

And then an early return to our hotel room to try to convince our luggage to fit everything we've acquired on this wonderful trip. The suitacases seem to have an appetite as great as our stomachs.

Dinner @ Apia

Location: Apia
Type: Udon joint



Clara craved udon, and Dee needed somewhere cheap to eat (we're seriously running out of cash...) so we picked this Udon joint.
Food:
1. Cold udon set + tempura fish sticks (+hot rice + pickles)
2. Hot special udon

The cold udon set was topped with shreds of nori, bonito flakes, grated daikon on a shiso leaf (perilla), and 2 huge sticks of tempura'ed fish stick (the type which is a cylinder, but halved lengthwise). All i can say is YUM. Along with a sauce to add of course. And chopped green spring onion + ginger to add to taste. YUM. The only problem is that its cold, and snowing outside, but I've acclimatised in the last 3 days walking through snow, so it doesn't bother me.

Clara's hot special udon was a mix of 5 udons - topped with kitsune, tempura, soft poached egg, hairy seaweed and wakame seaweed. It was yum apparently. "Yum" says she.

Overall rating: 8.5/10
The udon wasn't handmade, but for a decent price everything else tasted tops.

Kinokuniya
Then we bummed in big book shop. Clara buy books. Denise go to children book section and read picture book in english and be amused.



The last note
This ends the official part of our blog journey. Thank you all for reading and exploring Japan with us and our stomachs. :) Its definitely given me plenty of new ideas to try my hands at back home in the kitchen, so we hope its been inspiring for you too!

If you'd like to try to replicate any of these foods, however crazy it may be, let me (Dee) know and I'd love to cook with you.