29 and 30 August 2023
On both mornings of my stay in Otaru, we had breakfast at the Sankaku Market (三角市場).
Why?
Sankaku Market is one of the few places in Otaru that opens early for breakfast. There are not many options for breakfast unless you fancy fast food joints like MOS Burger, Burger King, McDonald’s or Sukiya, the local fast food restaurant chain.
Sankaku Market is a great place to get a hearty breakfast of Hokkaido’s fresh seafood. Fresh as in the sea critters, such as the live king crabs, are still alive and kicking in the tanks or plastic tubs And live king crab is one of the things we wanted to try while in Hokkaido.
It is also conveniently located next to the Otaru JR train station and within walking distance from our hotel.
The market is actually not very big. The name “Sankaku”, which means “triangle”, came from the shape of the roof and also the land that the market sits on. There are about 16 shops lined up on both sides of a narrow 200-meter-long, 2-meter-wide lane. These shops sell sea food such as crabs, sea urchins, scallops and fish, as well as vegetables, fruits, and daily necessities.
Browsing at the menu and products on offer in the Sankaku Market. Note the relatively “empty” market in the early morning.
The market is a “must visit” for visitors to Otaru or even Sapporo. Hence it will get very crowded when day trippers from Sapporo arrives by train. It is good that we went early on both mornings.
Kawashima Fresh Fish Store and Restaurant
On our first visit to Sankaku Market, we were not pressed for time. So, we could have a leisurely feast of live crabs for breakfast.
After a quick browse through the market, we decided on Kawashima Fresh Fish Store, partly because of their impressive display of live crabs and partly because of the charisma of the seller in the shop we spoke to.
We ordered a “small” 1.8 kg King Crab at 15000 Yen per kg and a 700 g Hanasaki Crab at 9000 Yen per kg. The staff at the shop suggested that the King Crab be cooked two ways (half of the crab to be grilled and the other half boiled) while the entire Hanasaki crab is boiled.
When boiled, the Hanasaki Crab turns bright red like a flower ("hana" means "flower" in Japanese).
Our selected crabs were prepared and cooked in the restaurant next to the store. It took about 20 minutes for the crabs to be cooked.
The friendly seller was happy to pick out crabs from his tanks for us to do a photo shoot while waiting for our orders to be cook.
The restaurant’s chef expertly cut the cooked crabs so it was very easy for us to eat without getting pricked by the thorny shells, especially the Hanasaki Crab.
Grilled King crab.
Boiled King Crab.
The King Crab has the best sweetness and I think is the best tasting crab. Personally, I prefer the texture of the boiled crab over the grilled crab which was sweeter but a little drier after cooking.
Boiled Hanasaki Crab. Bright red like a flower.
The slightly yellowish flesh of the boiled Hanasaki crab.
It was good that we had the chance to try the Hanasaki Crab. This seasonal crab is less likely to be available outside Hokkaido. The Hanasaki crab has a richer body taste and a shrimp-like flavour.
The prices of the crabs at the touristy Sankaku Market is probably higher compared to the local markets but I have no regrets to splurge a little to enjoy quality products and unique experiences. Freshly boiled live crab is especially delicious compared to the frozen ones we usually eat back home. It also features a crisp and elastic texture.
Kawashima Fresh Fish Store and Restaurant also offers other seafood dishes as shown by the menu on the wall.
Maruki Takinami Shoten Kita no Donburiya Restaurant
Our second visit to the Sankaku market was the morning before our train ride from the Otaru JR Station to the Nikka Distillery located in Yochi.
We chose to try the popular kaisen donburi (seafood rice bowl) at the Maruki Takinami Shoten Kita no Donburiya Restaurant. On an earlier visit, we noticed that this is one of the most popular kaisen donburi restaurants in the market with long queue of waiting customers.
Even at 8 am in the morning, we had to register our names on a notepad in front of the restaurant and wait for seats. The small restaurant has about 2 rows of 4 tables and maximum 4 persons per table.
There is a row of chairs at the side of the restaurant for the people in the queue. Since we were early (the restaurant opens at 8 AM), we did not have to wait very long. Only 10 minutes.
This shows how popular this restaurant is. Having to queue even when the overall market is not crowded.
Various kaisen donburi combinations are available at the restaurant.
We could also create our own seafood donburi by selecting our own favorite seafood items. The flexible menu lets us choose from 3 or 4 combinations of sashimi on rice and how much rice we want (either normal or large size).
The sashimi options includes salmon roe (ikura), salmon, crab, tuna, botan shrimp, amaebi or cold water northern shrimp, live scallops, cured prawn roe (ebiko) and sea-urchin roe (uni). The more expensive sea urchin roe requires a top up of 330 Yen.
I think this is really value for money. No wonder this restaurant is so popular.
Co-incidentally (or great minds think alike), we all chose to have the same 3-items rice bowls with salmon sashimi, ikura (salmon roe) and uni (sea-urchin roe). For me, I chose the ikura and uni plainly because it is difficult to get fresh and high quality ikura and uni back home and I do not like the taste of raw shrimps and scallops.
Our chosen combination of kaisendon with salmon sashimi, ikura (salmon roe) and uni (sea-urchin roe).
There is also a bowl of complimentary soup served with the kaisen-don.
We could not resist having more of our favourite shellfish. We ordered the grilled scallops for only 330 yen each! Much cheaper than what we had paid at other restaurants in this trip.
Grilled scallops for 330 yen each.
We enjoyed our breakfast of fresh seafood kaisen donburi for at Sankaku Market. We actually ate quite fast because we had a train bound for Yochi to catch at the Otaru JR Train Station located next to the market. We spent about 40 minutes in the restaurant (order, wait for food to be served and enjoying our meal).
Imagine how long the queue would be(probably an hour or more) during the peak hours.
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