Obento and sashimi

Aside from the family-skiing experience, our Hokkaido trip reminded me again about the day-to-day differences in how Japanese people and Westerners eat. In Japan, the food preparation is more straightforward, without (for the most part) dairy products and elaborate sauces. Even the colors on the plate seem different to me.

I've written before about "obento" box lunches for children, and I got a good look at obento for grownups on this trip. In Haneda airport, across from the check-in counter, was a bustling, upscale shop...


... with elaborate obento boxes for travelers to take on planes. The second photograph shows a potpourri of seafood and a platter of sliced eel. (Click pix for close-ups.)



At the Minami-Chitose train station, a lady sold obento in this small shack on the train platform.


Lucinda chose a nicely wrapped wooden box that contained tofu stuffed with sweetened rice and a crab-and-cucumber roll.



At the ski area, the offerings included French fries and chicken nuggets acceptable to a certain 3-year-old American boy. But most dishes were suited for Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese visitors.

The breakfast buffet included salad, cold poached eggs with soy sauce (not great, in my opinion), cod roe, eggs with a side of ketchup, cod roe, and miso soup, plus toast. On my breakfast tray: sausage patty with cheese, cukes, cooked cabbage with corn salad, crab croquette, a roll, tofu and slices of cold "omelette" eggs.


For lunch at the ski area, we had udon-noodle soup.


For supper, the buffet restaurant had a huge array of sashimi, pickled fish and salads, plus some fried foods for Westerners and a few Chinese dishes. It's so different think of sashimi as the main meal rather than a restaurant delicacy.

Supper one night was: salad with lettuce, daikon radish, corn, edamame and kidney beans; small steak with soy sauce; steamed potato, carrots and onion; slice of duck and 1 chili shrimp; and a bowl of tuna and salmon sashimi, crabmeat and salmon roe.


Here's a close-up of the sashimi. Real wasabi has a more subtle horseradish flavor than the green spicy paste at US sushi restaurants.


On the way home, we had 50 minutes between train and plane at the Sapporo airport, and Veli, Ako's husband, suggested we make a quick stop in the airport's third-floor noodle hall, which has a half-dozen noodle restaurants.

You find seats (low stools) at long tables and order your noodles (880 yen, or $8.80), which arrive in about 3 minutes.


Veli chose red miso (in photograph) and white miso noodles, plus "gyoza" dumplings with (I think) ground scallions and maybe pork.


Before the noodles arrived, Arno sat on the floor and had a full-on tantrum about the seating arrangements before digging in and trying every dish. All the kids slurped their noodles like professionals.