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The Local Food of Hokkaido

Sapporo Ramen (Sapporo City)

As the birthplace of miso ramen noodles, miso ramen is Sapporo’s main ramen dish. It is made with lard in a pork bone soup base with thick and wavy noodles.
Soy sauce ramen used to be the norm in Sapporo until 50 years ago when ramen made on white miso was sold by the restaurant “Aji no Sampei”, who became the inventor of modern day Sapporo ramen.


Genghis Khan (Lamb BBQ) (Sapporo City)

Soul food for natives of Hokkaido.
Flourishing as a sheep rearing area in the Taisho period (1912-1926), agricultural laboratories in Sapporo researched ways to cook lamb and thus the Genghis Khan BBQ style began.
In Hokkaido it is most common to eat Genghis Khan at home or outdoors with a beer in one hand.


Soup Curry (Sapporo City)

Despite its lack of history, there are few people who haven’t heard of soup curry.
Instead of curry stock, soup curry is made on a soup of spices with chicken or pork and large chunks of vegetables, which give the curry its unique appearance.


Seafood Bowl (Katte-don) (Kushiro City)

Washo-ichiba is a popular market in Kushiro city with over 50 years of history. Its seafood bowl is comprised of rice topped with seafood chosen from the different stalls in the market. The customer chooses the seafood themselves, giving the dish the name “katte-don” (katte means selfish).


Ishikari Hot Pot (Ishikari City)

In autumn salmon travel upstream in the Ishikari River.
The original Ishikari hot pot began in the area around the Ishikari river mouth in the early Meiji period (1868-1912).

Chunks of salmon meat are cooked with offcuts of salmon on the bone, cabbage and onion for vegetable sweetness, and other ingredients such as tofu and konjac. Miso is used to flavor the mix and the addition of Japanese pepper at the end tempers the strong flavors of the fish and miso.


Octopus Shabu (Wakkanai City)

Wakkanai city is the biggest producer of freshly caught octopus in Japan.
In this dish, very thin slices (around 0.5mm) of North Pacific giant octopus are blanched in a hot pot of stock and eaten with a dipping sauce in the shabu shabu style.

The idea for octopus shabu began when 3 company CEOs from Wakkanai were in Kobe eating beef shabu shabu and they began to discuss how they could add value to Wakkanai octopus and the rest is history.