Evening at Sapporo’s Susukino and Crab Miso Ramen dinner

1 September 2023

Susukino is Sapporo’s main entertainment area with many of Sapporo’s best restaurants, bars, cafes, clubs, cinemas, karaoke parlors, and hotels located here. It is also the home of Sapporo’s red-light district with many “adult-entertainment” establishments. It could be compared to Tokyo‘s Kabukicho.

We cannot come to Sapporo and not visit Susukino. The best time to visit Susukino is at night when the neon lights are lit and the entertainment joints are opened for business. Although there are many things to entertain us, we just came to see the lights, soak in the atmosphere and get dinner.

Getting to Susukino from our hotel which is near the Sapporo subway station was easy. It was just a 4 minutes subway ride on the Namboku Line to the Susukino Station.

Exiting the subway station, we headed southwards and came to the Susukino Crossing. This intersection, located at the intersection of Sapporo Ekimae Street and Tsukisamu Street, is famous for the bright neon lights, among which is the famous Nikka Whisky emblem.

The heart of the Susukino district is at the Susukino Crossing with the distinct Nikka Whisky emblem. The wet road made the photo even nicer, with the neon lights reflecting off the road surface.

   The Asahi advertisement is across from the Nikka Whisky advertisement.

One of the adult-entertainment establishments.     

Despite the weather, Susukino is full of people. After soaking in the vibrant atmosphere and a bit of light rain, we decided to end our visit to Susukino with dinner at one of the ramen restaurants before heading back to our hotel.

With so many restaurants to choose from, we decided to eat crab miso ramen at a shop called the Crab Gang.

The chopsticks were moving up and down on this large bowl of noodles outside the Crab Gang shop. 

This is a small shop with seats for about 8 to 9 persons. There tables were all occupied but a few counter seats were available.

The shop was manned by only one person. We had to buy a meal ticket from the vending machine based on the menu with pictures posted on the wall. Once done, we handed the tickets over the chef and wait for our food.

All of us ordered the same Standard ramen. There are options to add toppings like onsen egg or go for the Special ramen which will include crab tomalley.

Crab miso ramen with thin slices of pork, bamboo shoots, wakame seaweed, leek and diced crabmeat on the spoon.

A stack of bowls in front of our counter seat.

The crab miso ramen was excellent. The thing that stood out for me was the delicious broth which is probably made with crab as one of the ingredients. It is sweet and had plenty of umami. We added some chilli powder from the table to make the broth spicier. Overall, I would say it is the perfect comfort food on a chilly night.

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Crab Hotpot Lunch at Kani Honke Sapporo

2 September 2023

Hokkaido is famous for fresh seafood and crabs are one of the must-eat foods in Hokkaido. We had tried the live crabs in Otaru at the Sankaku Market and we wanted a different experience in Sapporo. There are many restaurants specialized in crab dishes in Hokkaido and we chose to go to a crab specialty restaurant.

A well-known Hokkaido crab restaurant chain is Sapporo Kani-Honke, serving crab in the kaiseki style, with outlets all across Japan. This chain had been rated as the best crab restaurant in Japan and serves king crabs, snow crabs, and other crab dishes.

Their original restaurant in Sapporo happened to be very near our hotel which was just across the Sapporo JR station. The restaurant cannot be missed. It has this giant red crab figure posted on the building that we could see from far away.  

A crab specialty restaurant usually has this giant crab figures outside to attract customers.

 

Entrance to the Kani Honke Sapporo.

I had made a reservation for lunch at 11.30 AM (their opening time) via their online reservation website and arrived at the restaurant punctually.

While waiting to be shown to our seats, there was time to take some pictures of the lobby with a crab pond and a statue of a Hokkaido brown bear catching a salmon. The restaurant has the overall ambience of a traditional Japanese ryokan.

Statue of a brown bear with a salmon.

Pond with live crabs at the lobby. We actually saw a staff catching some to bring to the kitchen.

We had to remove our shoes at the lobby, put on the in-house sandals and take a lift to an upper floor. A lady, cladded in kimono, led us to a private dining room with a traditional low table but with leg space beneath so we did not have to sit cross legged.

The restaurant has an extensive menu that includes crab kaiseki (course by course meal), kanisuki and kanishabu course (hot pot style course meal) and ala-carte. A way to eat delicious crab dishes at lower costs is to come at lunch time and eat their lunch set which is a cheaper but lighter version of the kaiseki meal.

Instead of the kaiseki, we decided to have the ala-carte kanisuki.  Kanisuki (Crab hot pot) is one of their most popular dishes. There are options for Snow Crab Kanisuki, King Crab Kanisuki, or Assorted Crab Kanisuki at slightly different prices. We chose the Snow Crab Kanisuki which costs 6,500 yen per person.

Portion for 3 persons. In kanisuki, the crab is cooked with the shell while in kanishabu, the crab is cooked without the shell.

The hot pot was served with snow crabs and various vegetables cooked together in Kani-honke's original broth. Kani-honke's broth uses high-class bonito flakes and Kombu seaweed from Hokkaido.

We were attended to by a female staff in Japanese kimono. She brought in the food, prepared the hot pot and did the cooking.

The staff did the cooking in front of us and told us when the crab is ready to eat.

After the hot pot was boiled, she added the crab and cooked them for about 1 to 2 minutes. The best timing to enjoy the crab meat is when it becomes fluffy and the contrast of the red and white becomes clear. If cooked too long, the sweetness of the crab meat will be lost to the broth.

The hot pot includes transparent rice noodles, enoki mushrooms, soft tofu and various vegetables in the broth.

The meal also came with a small portion of crab tomalley (crab innards) for us to try. We could eat this straight or add the grey creamy stuff into our bowl (not into the hot-pot) for additional umami taste.

  Crab tomalley or innards. Although it looked yucky, this was surprisingly delicious.

After finishing the ingredients in the hot pot, we could order either rice porridge (660 yen/person) or Kishimen Udon (484 yen/person). We ordered 3 portions of rice porridge and the service staff was helpful to suggest that 2 portions would be more than enough for the three of us to share.

The staff cooked the rice porridge by adding egg and rice to the remaining thick tasty broth from the hot pot.

Rice porridge made from the remaining broth in the hotpot.

It was a really delicious and relaxing lunch at the Sapporo Kani Honke restaurant. This marked the end of our fantastic time in Hokkaido.

We went back to Gracery Hotel Sapporo to collect our luggage and took the airport limousine bus to the airport. The bus stop was located just outside our hotel and the service is quite frequent. Although the travel time by bus may be slightly longer, I felt this was more comfortable and easier than taking the train from the JR Sapporo Station, especially with luggage.

Waiting for the limousine bus at the bus stop just outside our hotel. The bus timetable is posted on the bus stop.

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