Food Glorious Food: Japanese food halls and konbini

Food is king in Japan. You'd be hard pressed to walk down a city street without seeing a restaurant, shop or vending machine offering all sorts of weird and wonderful food. It's tasty, convenient and absolute paradise for food lovers.

Sushi rolls at a Japanese department store

Walking into a Japanese department store basement is like walking into a David Jones Foodhall on steroids. There are literally food stalls as far as the eye can see, selling cakes, fresh fruit and vegetables, ready-to-eat food, snack food on sticks, carefully packaged gift boxes of food - it seriously just goes on and on. The first time I saw one of these was in the tunnels of Sapporo station and I was gobsmacked by the amount of food on offer (which turned out to be nothing compared to the huge department stores of Tokyo!)

Fresh fruit at the department store

I was keen to see the super expensive fresh fruit that I'd heard about in Japan, and yes, you can definitely buy 15 strawberries for 6680 yen (about $63AUD, or $4 a strawberry!)

Money is no object when it comes to fresh fruit in gift boxes

We also saw beautifully presented boxes of cherries at a cool 6480 yen per box (~$60AUD)... right next to the almost-tennis-ball-sized strawberries which were 1620 yen for two (~$15AUD).

Fresh fish and seafood section in a Japanese department store

Aside from the exquisitely packaged but expensive fruit, there was also other fresh food to be purchased. The meat section had prepackaged cuts of beef, pork and chicken, including the most incredibly marbled cuts of wagyu! The fish section offered lots of fresh fish and seafood to be taken home for cooking, including many types that I hadn't seen before.

Fresh octopus, pre-packaged and ready to take home

I was particularly surprised to see thinly sliced fugu sashimi available for purchase at department stores. Fugu isn't something I would eat anywhere except for a specialised fugu restaurant where I knew the chef was qualified and had knowledge on how to prepare it properly without poisoning me! I wasn't game enough to try it in a department store, but if you want to try fugu without going to a restaurant, just head to your local department store fish section.

Fugu for sale at a Japanese department store

The Choc Pot, Burwood

Calling all chocaholics! By now you've probably been to Max Brenner, Lindt cafe, Oliver Brown and the like, so it's time to put The Choc Pot on the top of your chocolate cafe list and get there stat! Mainly because of this....

Molten choc pot - $12

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Molten choc pot - $12

This is The Choc Pot's signature dessert, the molten choc pot. It's like a chocolate fondant, complete with a gooey, molten centre and in case there wasn't enough chocolate, some extra molten milk and dark chocolate has been drizzled on top.

Sexy chocolate innards

Pizza Autentico, Surry Hills

I used to love buffets. The thought of being able to eat as much as you want was like heaven for me and invariably, it would result in us paying loads of money, stuffing our faces to ensure we get value for money (don't even think about wasting stomach space on bread!), and then feeling ill for the rest of the night.

Now, I'm much more inclined to spend my money on smaller portions of better quality food, at a place that focuses on one type of food and does it well, rather than going somewhere where I can eat huge quantities but not so great food. Well, it turns out these don't have to be mutually exclusive. At Pizza Autentico, a mere $20 gets you all you can eat, high-quality pizza and pasta made fresh by Italian chefs for 90 minutes straight.

Menu

The unlimited pizza and pasta menu has over 10 pizzas and 5 pastas to choose from, which waiters bring out straight from the kitchen. The pizzas and pastas are served to each diner so you get the opportunity to taste a little bit of everything.

Marinated olives, olive tapenade, house made bread

Before we get started on the pizzas and pastas though, a small board of olives, olive tapenade, olive oil and house made bread is brought out to whet the appetite. All the fresh ingredients used at Pizza Autentico are sourced from Salt Meats Cheese in Alexandria, so you know it's going to be good!

N'duja pizza

It doesn't take long for the pizzas to start flowing. Each pizza is brought around and you're asked if you want a slice. Um... yes please! The first one we try is the n'duja pizza, a napoli sauce base with spicy Italian pork sausage and mozzarella.

Clockwise from top left: Vatillinese, Siciliana, Capricciosa and Margherita pizzas

The Butcher's Block, Wahroonga

Back in the day when I still lived at home, Wahroonga was my hood. There wasn't much around there at the time - a few takeaway food stores, a book store, a florist and a chicken shop (which was also good for post-school munchies) but nothing to shout about.

A lot has changed since those days. The chicken shop is still there, as are some of the takeaway food stores, but some new cafes have popped up and word on the street is that there's good coffee, the food is delicious and Instagram-worthy, even.

So of course, I had to go and check it out. The Butcher's Block was one cafe that I'd heard lots of good things about, so it wasn't a surprise to me when we arrived on a Saturday lunchtime that there was a full house and a 15-minute wait for a table.

Raspberry and rose soda - $4

We ordered some drinks once we were seated, and apart from the usual coffees, juices and shakes offered at cafes, The Butcher's Block also has some sodas like raspberry and rose, and blackberry flavoured sodas. The raspberry and rose soda proved to be quite the refreshing drink and not too sweet either.

Iced coffee - $5

Coffees were also on the money with the iced coffee being a simple espresso shot mixed with milk on ice.

Pulled pork and cheese quesadilla - $18

The menu was very enticing and it took us quite a while to decide what to get. The pulled pork and cheese quesadilla came with a generous serve of sour cream on the side. The quesadilla wedges were topped with an onion and tomato salsa while inside the toasted quesadilla housed some juicy pulled pork and melty cheese.

Wagyu beef burger - $20

A Day in Otaru, Hokkaido

There are a number of different ways to get around Japan, but we found that one of the most convenient ways to travel from city to city is using Japan Rail. Japan Rail (JR) passes are special passes that are only available for overseas tourists, allowing you to travel on any of the JR train and local bus lines within the region specified on your pass. The passes can be bought as 7, 14, or 21 day passes to be used consecutively from the date of exchange. We bought a 14-day Japan Rail Pass from JTB Travel (about 46,000 JPY or 485 AUD) which covered almost of our days in Japan.

Sapporo JR Station

The pass itself isn't cheap, so we had to do some research and planning to ensure that it was the best option for us in terms of how much we were going to be travelling using the JR pass. To make the most of it, we took day trips out to different towns and cities from where we were staying using the JR pass. Our first day trip was to Otaru, a port city northwest of Sapporo that is affectionately known as "The Town of Hills".



The train ride from Sapporo takes a little over 30 minutes on a semi-rapid train on the JR Hakodate line (~640 JPY one way). The train ride is quite pleasant, especially as we can reserve seats for free with our JR Pass. The view is quite scenic as the Hakodate line follows the Hokkaido shoreline, so you get beautiful views of Ishikari Bay as you approach Otaru Station.

View of Ishikari Bay on the train ride to Otaru

Being a port town and in such close proximity to the sea, it's no surprise that seafood is everywhere in Otaru. A hop, skip and a jump away from Otaru JR Station is the Sankaku Fish Markets (三角市場). It's not nearly as big as Nijo Markets in Sapporo, but it still has several stores in the triangular-shaped building (sankaku means triangle) including ones where you can sit down and eat your freshly prepared seafood.

Sankaku Fish Markets

Live crab and oysters

Dried fish, uni (sea urchin) and ikura (salmon roe)