Drewby: Japan

TJ's 100 Day Celebration

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 00:42:30 GMT

Turning 100 days old in Japan is a big deal. So TJ had a bunch of pictures taken. I've uploaded a few in my photo album.

Got Squid?

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:49:17 GMT

This past weekend we took a short trip to Hakodate which is about 3 hours by train from my in-laws house in Sapporo. Hakodate has a famous "morning market" where we went to have Sushi for breakfast. Actually, I had Sea Urchin (Uni) and Salmon eggs (Ikura) on a bed of rice. It was a GREAT breakfast.

However, in the afternoon, we had a completely new and different experience at the market. We passed a tank of squid (Ika) and stopped to watch them swim a little bit. Then my wife saw the sign: for about $10, we could have someone pull a squid out of the tank, cut it up and serve it to us within a few minutes. Of course, it was the freshest squid I've ever had. It had a sweet flavor and didn't have the usual chewiness of squid.

Hakodate is famous for its squid products. We had some squid sausage which was completely black due to the squid ink. We passed on the squid ink ice cream.

Ranku Ramen Restaurant in Sapporo

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:13:34 GMT

In the off chance that someone reading this blog might be in the area of my in-laws house in Sapporo, Japan, I must recommend the best Ramen I've had so far in Japan.

I'm not talking about the square packages of dried noodles that you survived on in college. This is the real thing.

Hokkaido is famous for it's Ramen, so we've had a lot of Ramen in our many visits to my wife's hometown. Sapporo has a whole street dedicated to Ramen restaurants. Lots of the Ramen restaurants in Japan are individually owned, and the owners have their own recipe for the soup. If the recipe is not good, their shop will not survive.

We were all very surprised to find a great Ramen restaurant right down the street from my wife's home. It is called Ranku (蘭句). The owners are a very nice couple. The restaurant only seats about 10 people and has always been full when we are there.

I've had their Shoyu (soy sauce) based soup, their Miso based soup and today I had the spicy Miso based soup. All were excellent, but I think the spicy Miso is my favorite so far.

So if you are in Sapporo and happen to pass through this area, try to find Ranku and give their Ramen a try. Mmmmmmm.

Here's a map for Ranku.