Seafood for breakfast? When it’s this fresh, of course!
With Goryokaku Park and Mt. Hakodate the night before, I was already thoroughly satisfied with my time in Hakodate. I planned to leave Hokkaido by ferry and cross the Tsugaru Strait to go back to Honshu, but before leaving I couldn’t say no to another serving (or two) of fresh uni.
The best place for fresh seafood is Hakodate’s own fish market, Asaichi, literally “morning market.” As with any market I passed through a couple of times inspecting the stalls to see what looked good. I saw one vendor selling uni right out of the shell. I couldn’t resist and got some of the beautiful glowing orange sea urchin roe for myself. As I ate the creamy roe a Chinese tour guide with a microphone came up to me asking how I liked it, so I could tell his crowd that this delicacy was in fact delicious. Which I gladly did.
Also from the same vendor were scallops grilled in butter in a half shell. It looked way too good to pass up.
Not knowing when I would be back in Hokkaido, I decided to have one more donburi, this time a sanshoku-don at Kikuyo Shokudo. Sanshoku means three colors, in this case those colors were represented by scallops, ikura and more uni.
Katsu-ika is part activity and adventurous eating rolled together. Crowds of people surround a pool of of squid, each participant waiting their turn to fish one out for themselves. Once a squid is caught, it is prepared immediately to be eaten. What makes it katsu, meaning lively? Well, these squid are so fresh that the tentacles are still moving even when cut. I didn’t have it this time as I was full from my two breakfasts, but I have had something similar in Busan, South Korea except with moving octopus legs. So I will say, it is totally a mind over matter thing. It is like eating any other fresh sashimi, but yes it may squirm a bit between your chopsticks.
Hakodate was very good to me and redeemed a Hokkaido trip that started out a little underwhelming. I headed to the ferry launch and waited for my ferry to cross the strait to get to Aomori. Following my three day trip to the northernmost main island of Japan I would travel to another two prefectures up north, Aomori and Iwate.
As the ferry headed out of Hakodate Bay I watched Mt. Hakodate passing by, saying goodbye for now.
One thought on “Hakodate Asaichi”
I like my food motionless (lol).
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