Today we're looking round a fish market in Sapporo in Hokkaido
There's actually markets like this in a lot of places around Japan
Especially near the coast
If you like seafood, they're a great place to get really fresh sushi & rice bowls
Or kaisendon
Which is fish (mostly raw fish or sashimi)
On a bowl of rice
We're going to have breakfast at the market
Or really more like lunch
It's not that early
We'll meet a giant crab
And buy an expensive apple
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We've come for breakfast/lunch (brunch)
At Sapporo Central Wholesale Market
We were going to go to Nijo Market
Whihc is in central Sapporo
But I heard that one's a bit touristy
And this one's more where the locals go
As well as tourists
And it's a lot bigger
You have to take a train from Sapporo central station
On the JR line (just 1 stop)
Then we walked a bit
To start off with it was a bit confusing
To work out where to go
We went in one building & everything was shut
Then we walked around & found a street with lots of restaurants on
They all do pretty similar things by the look of it
Lots of sushi, seafood rice bowls
And a lot of them have sweetcorn & butter
And melon
There's actually a really big choice on the menu
Every variation of seafood & rice bowl you can think of
This is fairly typical of most places at the market
They all seemed to have a big choice
Of quite similar items
All the tuna!
That's what I couldn't find on there, oh well...
I don't like seafood
But there were a couple of options
Ah I didn't see that! Potato mochi
Everyone gets free green tea
Nice to warm my hands up
Phil's got a rice bowl with salmon, tuna and - what's this one?
I'm going to say squid
But I'm not 100% sure
I'll try it
We were a bit rushed when we were ordering
It's got pickled ginger, wasabi...
That looks like grated radish
That's quite a lot of rice in there actually
I've got a jaga bata
Butter baked potato
There's the butter melting in there
Hokkaido's known for potatoes
Here's my white sweetcorn
Hokkaido's known for white sweetcorn
I'm not sure of the difference between the white & the normal yellow corn
I think there's one that has white & yellow kernels on it as well
I can really smell how this has been grilled
Eating a potato with chopsticks is a bit challenging!
It's quite a floury potato
Phil, you said that was better than the one you had the other day at the fish market in Hakodate?
Yes, so I've been to 3 markets recently
I've been to Tsukiji
We went to the Hakodate Morning Market
And I've come here
Quite the fish mrket connoisseur now
In terms of food
Tsukiji was significantly better than the other two
But I did pay quite a lot of money for it
So you kind of expect that
It was really good quality
It was well prepared
It was a nice experience
The one I had yesterday
In Hakodate
That was not so good
The scallops were really nice
And the rice was really nice
But the tuna & salmon were a bit questionable
They just weren't very nice cuts
I questioned how fresh it was
It wasn't bad
It just wasn't very good
The mistake I made there
Was I bought from the first place I saw where we could both eat
Whereas I should have really looked around a little bit more
So that place did a lot of grilled stuff as well
So it probably wasn't the right decision to buy from
But nevermind
What I had today
Was excellent
Very good
I had tuna, which was great, really nice flavour
It wasn't fatty tuna
It was a fairly standard cut
But a good cut of it
The salmon was really nice
Then I had squid, and I'm not a big squid fan
I find it a bit rubbery
I quite like it when it's cooked
But not so much raw
But this was really really nice
I'm not sure I'd go rushing out & have it again
Because I don't really like the texture
But the freshness sort of compensated for it
For the price, I thought that was an excellent meal
Good!
My potato was nice!
Probably because of all the butter
I think it had some salt on as well
That tasted nice, good to have something hot
The corn - I had white corn
Whihc is something Hokkaido's known for
It was less sweet than normal yellow sweetcorn
I think I actually preferred the yellow one
Glad I tried it though
The bill was 2631 yen
So it's not cheap
But you're getting quality - as fresh fish as you can get anywhere really
It was fresh
The experience wasn't classy or anything
The place where you eat is sort of "no frills"
It's just a table, they've stuck some plastic up to keep people warm
Really basic
That's what it is
The thing about this though, compared to other places we've been
Is the variety
This one place, and a few we've seen down this street
Have a lot more than just a couple of dishes
This one had loads of stuff
A big menu
Which made me wonder if it was going to be good
And it was
It seemed to have a lot of people coming in and out
I don't know if they're locals or tourists
But it was very nice
This is the street with all the shops & restaurants on
It's a separate place from the other bit of the market we went into
This seems to be the bit for consumers & tourists
Just look at these huge piles of snow
These were everywhere in Hokkaido
This is the one we ate at
I don't know what it's called
It's got a picture of a crab on it
They've all got pictures of the dishes outside
Havign said this market's less touristy
Here's all the tourist buses
Of people come on coach trips
There are definitely tourists around
But I think it's less touristy than Nijo Market
Which is in the centre of Sapporo
Sapporo is way more white than this!
Where's the snow?!
When you find a photo opportunity like thi
You've got to make the most of it
Time to warm up with a hot drink from the vending machine
You can tell which vending machine drinks are going to be hot
Because they have red on the price signs
And the cold drinks have blue
Here we've got different types of coffee in a can
That's a tea
Hot chocolate
And green teas at the end
This one's got lots of coffee in a can
I'm wondering what this rainbow blend is
This is cocoa
Bistro boss
Is tomato soup & sweetcorn soup
There's milk tea
And some more coffees there
Look there's a special Japanese version of Pepsi
J-cola
They changed the flavour slightly
It's not that different though
Fish markets are also a place to find fruit
I'd been looking forward to trying some
Because they have different varieties in Japan
That have different flavours
I've been seeing these giant apples everywhere
So I wanted to see what they're like
I think they might be from Aomori
Which is in North Japan
That's a place that's famous for apples
Here it is!
They're all individually packaged
In polystyrene foam
He said this was a honey apple
He said it's really sweet
So that'll be good
It was 380 yen
Which is abotu £2.80
For one apple
The most expensive apple I've ever bought
Fruit here is so expensive
There's way more expensive fruit than this
I was really tempted to try these grapes at the market in Hakodate
Maybe I'll save up for next time
I was excited to try different varieties
Because I think they have different species of fruit here
Compared to the same ones we have at home
So they might have a different flavour
I got a bit confused with the money
And the different coins
When I was paying
Which sounds really dumb
But even after all this time
I still get them mixed up sometimes
So don't worry if that happens
Just say "Sumimasen"
Which means sorry
Try again
He gave you some money off because of it
He sold it to me for 300 yen
A very nice man
There's also lots of ice cream here
Soft serve ice cream
They've got some interesting-looking flavours
Like melon and ramune
Which looks really good
But in this snowy weather
It's -6 degrees
Although it's not so bad in the sun here
Ice cream is probably the last thing I want right now
But the milk in Hokkaido's supposed to be really good so the ice cream's supposed to be really nice
This market's actually the smallest of the markets we've been to
Tsukiji was a lot bigger
According to Phil
I didn't go there!
The one in Hakodate was a lot bigger as well
That had about 250 stalls
And this one's got about 60 stalls
I've heard that this market's bigger than Nijo market in central Sapporo
So there you go
There's still a good choice of places to eat
And plenty of seafood here
We got a bit confused on the way here
And went to a place that I think was trade only
And a lot of the stalls were shut
Because it's about midday
And it opens at 5am
It turns out the confusion was
We went to Sapporo wholesale fish market
And the one you want is Sapporo Fish Market
There were a couple of restaurants in that other one
They weren't open though were they?
A couple of them were
The walk between this market and the wholesale one
Is about 5 minutes
They're really close together
It might be worth having a look around if you're early enough anyway
But to start off with we weren't sure where to go
Then when we came round the corner
You could see all the shops with the big signs of all the fish & everything
That's how you know you're in the right place
After this we hopped on the train to Otaru
For the Snow Light Path Festival
There's already a video about it on my channel
I'll put the link in the description
If you haven't seen it
Take a look
It was absolutely magical
And the best thing we did in Hokkaido
I hope you enjoyed this look around the market
As I said, there are fish markets in lots of places around Japan
Especially on the coast
And they're an interesting place to look round
And get breakfast or lunch
Let me know if you've been to any
And I'll be back next week
I'll see you on Thursday!