Asia > Japan > Hokkaido > Sapporo > Articles > Sapporo Bier Garten

If Hokkaido is the bread basket of Japan, and the city of Sapporo the melting pot where all the regions fresh produce comes together, then the Sapporo Bier Garten is the enticing plate, made for supping some of the most delectable food in Japan!

Even as you walk from the car park towards the theme park-style Sapporo brewery with its beer museum and numerous food courts, the aromas of the BBQ work as a radar for your nose. On a warm weekend evening the outdoor cafe, stores and restaurants are buzzing with activity. Visitors fill in time before securing a table by stocking up in the sweetie store: corn candy, milky caramels, and the mouthwatering Royce chocolate.

The barn-like Genghis Khan food hall is a haze of smoke from the numerous table-centered grills. But ever prepared, the welcoming Japanese staff provide plastic bags for your bags and jackets and thigh length paper bibs to capture the splatter and spills from the grill. This is Japanese cooking at its best – simple fresh meat and vegetables cooked right at the table. Meal choices range from simple plates of lamb or beef - including the local specialty of paper-thin lamb, to challenging all you can eat “King Viking” banquets of meats and vegetables where the quantity offered is only limited by time (100 minutes). Young groups of university students demonstrate the required technique, piling the hot grill high with raw meat with all chopsticks on deck to work the meat from raw pink to golden brown with lightening-fast speed. In the well around the edge of the grill are placed the slower-cooking vegetables – cabbage, pumpkin and sprouts.

Must-order side dishes to accompany your cooking include the famous Hokkaido potato dressed with Hokkaido butter, best described as globes of heaven dripping with pure gold! To understand the uniqueness of this dish, the potatoes are used as prizes in Japan newspaper competitions, and the butter inspires lengthy queues when it appears in stores in the eastern regions of the country.

If you still have room, you can choose between the sausage platter featuring chopped wiener and piruka sausages or lush, crisp asparagus. What am I saying, you order both!

It’s noisy, crowded and smoky, but the Sapporo Bier Garten is the only place to eat on a Saturday night in Sapporo - and the beer’s not half bad either.

Articles

• More from Susan Miles