Outside Ottawa

Donbe is a seafood restaurant located inside Nijo Market, one of Sapporo’s most well-known food markets. The restaurant specializes in sashimi rice bowls (kaisendon), a style of dish that highlights raw seafood served generously over rice. Like many market-based eateries in Japan, Donbe is focused on freshness, speed, and quality rather than atmosphere or presentation flair.

The setting is casual and busy, designed to handle a steady flow of customers throughout the day. You’re here to eat well, not linger. That market-style efficiency fits perfectly with the food being served. When a restaurant like this works, it’s because the ingredients do the heavy lifting – and Donbe clearly leans into that philosophy.

This stop was part of my Japan Food Series and felt like a natural choice given its location and focus. If you’re coming to Nijo Market expecting seafood, this is exactly the kind of restaurant you hope to find.

Otaru Fuku Sushi is a traditional sushi restaurant located in the coastal town of Otaru, a short train ride from Sapporo. The restaurant fits naturally into Otaru’s slower, more nostalgic atmosphere. It’s not flashy or modern, and it doesn’t feel designed for social media or tourists chasing trends. Instead, it presents itself as a classic sushi restaurant—formal enough to feel like a proper sit-down meal, but still approachable.

The interior leans traditional, with a calm, quiet dining environment that contrasts sharply with the busier, high-energy sushi spots found in places like Sapporo Station. Coming here felt like a deliberate pause in the trip rather than a quick meal between destinations.

Misogin is another ramen shop located inside Ramen Alley, one of the most famous ramen destinations in Sapporo. By this point in the trip, Ramen Alley had already become a familiar place—narrow, atmospheric, and packed with small ramen stalls, each claiming its own take on Sapporo-style ramen. Misogin fits perfectly into this environment: compact, focused, and clearly centred around miso ramen, the style that made Sapporo famous.

Before visiting, we fully expected Ramen Alley to be busy and lined up, especially given its reputation. Because of that, we deliberately planned to go at a non-peak time, thinking we’d at least encounter a few lines and have to wait. Instead, we were pleasantly surprised. We arrived around 2 pm, and there were hardly any lineups at all. That made the experience much more relaxed and allowed us to choose a shop based purely on interest rather than convenience. Misogin ended up being one of the places we tried under those circumstances.

The interior is small, as expected for Ramen Alley. Seating is limited, the kitchen is close, and everything feels efficient and purposeful. There’s no wasted space and no unnecessary decoration. It’s the kind of ramen shop where you sit down, order quickly, and let the bowl speak for itself.

Hanamaru Sushi is a well-known sushi chain in Hokkaido, and its location inside Sapporo Station makes it one of the most convenient and popular sushi spots for both locals and travellers. Being situated in a major transit hub means it sees a constant flow of customers throughout the day—people grabbing a quick meal before boarding a train, commuters stopping by after work, and tourists looking to fit in one last sushi meal before leaving the city.

Hanamaru operates in a casual, conveyor-belt sushi (kaiten-zushi) format, but it’s generally regarded as being a step above what many people associate with conveyor sushi outside Japan. The focus is still on speed and accessibility, but there’s a clear emphasis on ingredient quality, particularly seafood sourced from Hokkaido. That reputation is what drew me here, especially after having sushi experiences in more traditional sit-down restaurants earlier in the trip.

This visit was part of my Japan Food Series and offered an interesting contrast: sushi in a busy station, served quickly, versus the more relaxed, refined sushi meals I had elsewhere in Sapporo.

Onsen Ichiba is a seafood-focused restaurant located in Noboribetsu, a town best known for its hot springs rather than its dining scene. The restaurant feels intentionally tied to the area’s tourism culture – welcoming, casual, and clearly designed to showcase Hokkaido’s seafood in a way that’s accessible to visitors. One of the first things you notice upon entering is the presence of live seafood tanks inside the restaurant. Seeing live fish and shellfish swimming just steps away from the dining area immediately sets expectations around freshness.

The space itself isn’t flashy or modern. Instead, it leans into a market-style atmosphere, where the food is meant to be the centre of attention. It felt like a natural stop after exploring Noboribetsu’s hot spring areas, especially for travellers looking to have a satisfying meal that reflects Hokkaido’s strengths rather than something generic.

Ramen Baisensha is a small ramen shop tucked inside Ramen Alley, one of Sapporo’s most famous food destinations. Ramen Alley is exactly what it sounds like—a narrow alley lined with compact ramen shops, each specializing in its own interpretation of Sapporo-style ramen. Many of these shops have been operating for decades, contributing to the alley’s reputation as a must-visit spot for ramen lovers.

Baisensha itself is extremely small, with seating for roughly seven people. It’s intimate, quiet, and very focused. When I visited around 2 pm, there was no lineup at all, which felt almost surprising given how popular ramen alley is. That timing made for a relaxed experience and gave me a chance to really pay attention to the food rather than rushing through a crowded meal.

The space is simple and functional, very much what you’d expect from a traditional ramen shop in Japan. There’s no excess décor or attempt to modernize the experience. The kitchen is close, the seating is tight, and everything about the setup reinforces the idea that you’re here for one thing only: ramen.

Tonkotsu Ramen Taiga is a ramen shop in Sapporo that focuses on one thing and does it with confidence: tonkotsu ramen. The restaurant doesn’t try to cover every ramen style under the sun. Instead, it leans heavily into a rich, pork-bone–based broth and builds variations around that foundation. The space itself is casual and functional, very much in line with what you’d expect from a dedicated ramen shop in Japan.

This wasn’t a place I stumbled into randomly. Like many of my meals in Sapporo, it was discovered after actively searching for local ramen spots and learning about the different styles available in the city. While Sapporo is best known internationally for miso ramen, tonkotsu ramen still has a strong presence, especially for those craving something heavier and more indulgent. Taiga fits squarely into that category.

As part of my Japan Food Series, this visit offered a good contrast to other ramen experiences I had on the trip. It wasn’t about subtlety or lightness—it was about richness, depth, and comfort.

The Sapporo Beer Garden is one of the most iconic food destinations in the city and a place that feels deeply tied to Hokkaido’s identity. Located in a historic red-brick building that was originally constructed in the late 1800s as a beer brewery, the site is closely connected to the origins of Sapporo Beer, Japan’s oldest beer brand. Walking onto the grounds, there’s an immediate sense of history—this isn’t just a restaurant, but a landmark that reflects how beer culture and food culture developed together in Hokkaido.

The beer garden today functions as both a restaurant complex and a cultural experience. Large dining halls, communal seating, and an atmosphere built around sharing food and beer make it feel lively without being chaotic. It’s a place locals bring visiting friends, and where travellers go specifically to experience something uniquely Sapporo. Unlike many restaurants I visited on this trip, this one felt intentionally large-scale and celebratory.

Before coming to Sapporo, I already knew the city was associated with beer, but it wasn’t until arriving and researching places to eat that I realized how closely the beer garden is tied to another regional specialty: Genghis Khan (jingisukan) lamb barbecue.

Sama is a soup curry restaurant located in Sapporo’s Kita Ward, tucked away on the ground floor of a quiet building near residential streets rather than in a busy tourist area. The setting feels local and relaxed, the kind of place you’d stumble upon while deliberately searching for something specific rather than walking in by accident. Inside, the atmosphere is casual and comfortable, with a clear focus on the food rather than décor or presentation.

This was one of the places I visited after learning about soup curry, a regional specialty that’s closely associated with Sapporo and Hokkaido. Before arriving in Sapporo, soup curry wasn’t something I was familiar with at all. It wasn’t until I started looking up restaurants and local food culture that I realized how important this dish is to the city.

Being able to try all sorts of sushi restaurants while in Japan was the main point of this trip. One of the sushi restaurants we went to was Damairu Sushizen.

Damairu Sushizen is a well-established sushi restaurant in Sapporo that focuses on quality ingredients and traditional execution rather than theatrics. It feels refined but not intimidating, making it approachable even if you’re not deeply familiar with Japanese sushi culture. The atmosphere is calm and comfortable, the kind of place where the food clearly takes priority over flashy presentation.

Like many good sushi restaurants in Japan, Damairu Sushizen emphasizes balance—between fish and rice, seasoning and restraint, simplicity and precision. This was another stop on my Japan Food Series and, while very different from my usual Ottawa restaurant reviews, it reinforced just how high the baseline for sushi is in Japan compared to back home.