otaru day 3

Day 3 started with the Hotel Nord's breakfast buffet which I wasn't too impressed with, not many "Hokkaido" ingredients used.

Though, I did like their special pudding, nice and creamy.

After checking-out, we walked around the Kita Unga (North Canal) area.

I enjoyed looking at the New Years decorations, they are different from Osaka, a little more vibrant.

We were also amazed with the icicles. Though you have to be careful where you walk, you don't want snow from the rooftops to come crashing down on you nor the icicles.

One thing we saw was this statue of a dog named Bunko, he was apparently a dog with the fire department and lived 24 years or 100 years in dog years. He was always the first on on the truck when an emergency arose.

On the way to the Authent Hotel we bought a piroshki from Inomata, which we heard was good.

The outside is crunchy and the inside had bits of gobo and water chestnuts along with some minced pork.

Kind of Asian...different but good.

We also came across another panju place, Nishikawa panju.

This place has been in business for 50 years plus!

These domes were bigger than the ones we tried from Kuwataya and the owner said that they make their an (sweet bean paste) from scratch.

The thing we liked about these were that he gave us two fresh out of the molds so they were piping hot. Perfect on an icy day.

After checking out some sights and fish markets, we went to the "sushi street" to look for lunch.

We stopped into Maruyama.

A tiny shop but look at this chirashizushi that I ordered...pretty, yeah?! Delicious too.

Satoshi went with the nigiri, but I thought his sushi was skimpy for the price. (a little higher than my dish)

After lunch, Satoshi wanted to check out a Japanese sweet shop, little did we know that it was just around the corner from Maruyama.

Niikuraya specializes in different types of dango (dumplings).

We chose their anko (sweet bean paste), matcha (green tea), kurogoma (black sesame seed) and mitarashi (sweet shoyu sauce).

If you eat your dango at the shop, they serve you free tea...whoo! You cannot complain that there isn't enough bean paste, there is actually too much.

We then walked to Sakaiya, a retro-cafe. This cafe is inside an old warehouse.

The coffee was good here, plus they don't allow smoking.

After coffee, we tried Kameju's cream pan. Soft brioche style bread filled with different creams.

I tried the chocolate while Satoshi tried the strawberry.

At this point, I was really full, I ate some cabbage salad from New Sanko.

This salad was interesting with bacon bits and shiofuki konbu (seasoned kelp). Satoshi had sashimi, fried ika geso (squid legs) and tsukune (chicken patty).

Another full day with lots of walking and eating.

Inomata
3-1-1 Inaho
Otaru, Hokkaido
Phone: 0134.22.7905

Nishikawa Panju
2-12-16 Inaho
Otaru, Hokkaido
Phone: 0134.22.4297

Maruyama
1-13-1 Ironai
Otaru, Hokkaido
Phone: 0134.25.6625

Niikuraya
1-3-1 Hanazono
Otaru, Hokkaido
Phone: 0134.27.2121

Sakaiya
4-4 Sakai-machi
Otaru, Hokkaido
Phone: 0134.29.0105

Kameju
1-5-12 Irifune
Otaru, Hokkaido
Phone: 0134.33.8044

New Sanko
1-3-6 Inaho
Otaru, Hokkaido
Phone: 0134.33.3500

Authent Hotel
2-15-1 Inaho
Otaru, Hokkaido
Phone: 0134.27.8100