Sapporo Ramen

The ramen in Sapporo is one of the famous local food. Therefore, there is a small lane here called Ramen Yokocho with 16 ramen shops crammed in.

It can be quite difficult to find because it is off from the main street. I failed in my first attempt and settled for this Shin (New) Ramen Yokocho.

The rule of thumb in finding good food is: look for the shop with the least number of empty seats or the length of the queue. However, I prefer the former.

After I had found an empty seat, I started to look through the menu. One good thing about the food menu in Japan is that it usually comes with pictures. So, I ordered this:

The toppings consisted of a large slice of chasu (roasted pork), mussels, a type of seashell and a whole squid. The noodles were very much like the curly egg noodles of the Chinese.

After I finished this bowl of noodles, I kept exploring this area and I finally found the original Ramen Yokocho! It is actually directly behind Shin Ramen Yokocho but one has to make a big round turn to reach there. There is no bypass that one can cut through.

So, I went back there on another day to look for a bowl of authentic Sapporo ramen.

Out of the 16 shops, I picked this one because the most famous shop was jam-packed with a very long queue.

Another reason that I entered this shop was due to the mouth-watering grilled chasu in the picture menu outside of the shop.

This shop is run by a white-bearded guy who looks very much like an experienced chef and a food connoisseur. I knew I had entered the right shop!

Although the time taken for him to serve one bowl of ramen was a little longer than in the other shops, but he prepared every bowl from scratch. I could see his sincerity in serving us the freshest ramen that we could offer. He even grilled the chasu there and then before serving it!

The one that I ordered came with toppings of grilled chasu, two halves of half-boiled egg, one shrimp wantan (dumpling) and one scallop wantan. The soup base was black-bean miso.

The noodles were the curly egg noodles, very much like the Chinese noodles. They were springy and crunchy. Eaten together with the fragrantly-grilled chasu, it was food made in heaven!