Friday 7 January 2011

Sapporo Food: Daruma Jingisukan

I was um-ing and ah-ing for a while over the best way to write jingisukan in roma-ji, and I'm delighted that my straight phoneticization of it is the same way that wikipedia went. Since wikipedia is never wrong, I think I'm probably on safe ground.

So yes, I've probably mentioned it before: jingisukan is basically mutton barbecue (named after Genghis Khan, of course), cooked on a dome-shaped hotplate and accompanied with a special jingisukan sauce that's a little different everywhere. It's a local speciality in Hokkaido, and - as meat seared on hot metal is wont to be - it's generally delicious.

Daruma's jingisukan is especially delicious.


Daruma has three stores around Susukino and is, I think, one of the more famous jingisukan restaurants. The meat is good, the sauce is delicious and it's really worth going if you like meat and/or smoke.

Because the Daruma that I've been to twice (the one I'm going to mark on the map - not the original store but one nearby) is one smoky-ass place. There are so many burnt sheep particles floating around above your head as you eat that - under the same probability laws that say a million monkeys bashing away on typewriters will eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare - eventually the billions of sheep atoms in the air there will spontaneously align in such a way as to recreate a whole sheep. Seriously, if you're going then be ready to throw your clothes in the wash straight after. Or invest heavily in Febreze.

After we went there we ended up in some shops, then karaoke and all the while leaving this miasma of burnt sheep everywhere we went. It's a small store - just one bar, no tables - and it's been packed and full of people waiting to eat both times I've been. I think their extractor fans do their best but they just can't keep up.

Doesn't help that apparently lamb is a stinky, smoky meat to cook.

But all that's really by the by because it's a great place.


I always love places with menus that don't mess around (witness Hamburger Risa's entire menu: Hamburger) and this place has jingisukan... and then side dishes such as rice and kimchee. And that's it. Their kimchee was very good too, but not exactly the point. You can also get those great dai-jockey beers (as illustrated above) that are about the size of your head. In that photo everything looks pretty small, but it's really not, it's just that the beers are comically large.

It's famous for good reason, it's the best jingisukan I've had and I've stuck at least one of their stores on my map so off you go. Go stink of dead sheep like I did.

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