For Relaxing Times, It's Jingisukan Time....

22nd May, 2008 - It's MEAT-EATING TIME.... ok, I wouldn't win any awards for subtlety or sensitivity (especially to the vegetarians out there)... but let's face it. It's hard to dress this wolf up in lamb's clothing... coz if you did, you'd just end up eating wolf as well.

This post is about one of my all time favourite eating experiences in Sapporo. Jingisukan. BBQ Sheep. I've talked a LOT about this (from way back on my first trip to Sapporo). And indeed... if you check out my other Adelaide Blog, Raising Adelaide, you'll find a how-to guide to cooking Jingisukan (T-chan-style).

The place I'll talk about is known as the Sapporo Beer Museum, or the Sapporo Beer Garden... and it's a Sapporo "Must-Do Experience"... but I have to say that it's not that easy to get to. The map below shows it's location relative to Sapporo Station.

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According to the Sapporo Beer Garden website itself, the best ways to get there are:

Subway:Toho Subway Line, get off at "Higashikuyakusho Mae" and walk 10 min.

Bus: Take the Chuo Bus Factory Line (Kan 88) and get off at Sapporo Beer Garden, about a 1 min. walk from there.

I suspect the best way to get there is by car, with a designated driver... but that's not very practical for most visitors to Sapporo.

Actually, it breaks my heart a little bit now when I come here as in the last 7 years, the lovely grounds that surrounded it have made way for a giant shopping centre. The original building remains intact (on the right of picture below), but much of the ambiance has gone. Still, the real story is on the inside.

Sapporo Beer Museum care of Google StreetView

Once you're through the doors however, it's full steam ahead. A typical Jingisukan meal costs about 3,500-3,700 yen per person... including an all-you-can-drink-in-100-mins drinks option. Jingisukan, at least in Sapporo is typically a mutton-based BBQ... where mutton is older sheep that have lived a long and happy life... they also offer seafood and pork based versions... but for me it's mutton or it's just not Jingisukan.

You'll first be brought to your table and given both an apron AND a plastic bag (the bag is for you to put any jackets in to avoid them smelling of... well...sheep). The Jingisukan is cook-your-own style eating, so you might need to ask for some help with the basics to get you started. It's pretty simple though. First things first is heat up the "hat" hotplate and then melt a wad of lard till it's nice an sizzly... then add the meat (here they came as mutton rounds).

Around the base of the hot plate go the vegetables, that sort of stew in all the juices... and when I say juices, I'm including the quite intoxicating vapours that envelop the BBQ and you. Or was that intoxication from the beer? Actually, just to show that there's more than one way to BBQ a sheep, the style of Jingisukan here is to use a dipping sauce for the flavour. The way we do it at home is to marinate the meat first. Also we use lamb rather than mutton.  

You know it's a small world when you come to Sapporo to eat Australian sheep on a BBQ. And for those kiwi's out there, you can even buy New Zealand meat as well... of course to the Japanese, this typically represents the cheaper (and of course inferior) meat. Enough said on that though.

And beer is something that you're never far from in the Sapporo Beer Garden. The hall is huge, and there's a beautiful atmosphere to it. I've not actually (strange as this may seem) been to the beer museum itself, but it's apparently quite good as well. I'm quite partial to the Yebisu dark beer, and also the Classic Sapporo Beer... and the best of both worlds is known as the "half and half"... no prizes for guessing what that means.

So with a final kampai!, I wish you a happy weekend, and if you're in or around Sapporo, please give Jingisukan a try. It's a great social event to come to have Jingisukan (even for lunch like we did on this day), but leave plenty of room for the BBQ, the beer, and lots of good hearty cheer. And for those of you that aren't in Sapporo, pop on over to my other site to see the magic behind the scenes. 

By the way... Sapporo Beer Garden is almost always busy, so if you can... make a booking before you go.

Jingisukan... By Any Other Name... Not.

17th October, 2006 - After a quiet day, and some considerable anticipation, T-chan's family head off to one of the local Jingisukan restaurants. Only to find that it wasn't open. Ok... deep breaths. It's not the end of the world. Not nearly.

Anyhow - after a lot of brain-wracking, we came up with an alternative that was all the way towards the city centre. It was a small shop and a bit pricey - but we were all hanging out for some yummy BBQ mutton.

As an aside - we're still busily trying to find our own recipe... and if it wasn't for us also stressing out about our son's 3rd birthday party and the rapidly approaching departure of T-chan and L-kun then I'd likely have torn the house down looking for it.

In the mean-time... back to the story. The shop had a couple of rooms... but given that it was a tuesday we were the only customers. Not a good feeling in any eating place. The meal was... basic. It wasn't "bad" as such... just ordinary. Anyhow - the shop is called Yoshitsune in Chuoku.

We had our fill - and although our stomachs were full, our hearts were not... this was not good Jingisukan. We all felt somewhat disappointed. Expectation can be a mood spoiler when it's not met. Especially after about an hour of running around getting here. My glass was definitely more than half empty...

The only one of us that wasn't disappointed (or at least not because of the BBQ) was T-chan, who would have given anything at that time to have been able to taste even so-so Jingisukan. Over the last few days her feeling in the morning had definitely taken a turn for the worse. Morning sickness. What a brilliant idea Nature. At times like these I feel very happy to be a man. Then again - I most probably feel that way most of the time.

We had started having some pretty serious discussions around this time. We had already booked over two weeks in Kansai (due to start in few days), and we'd spent the better part of the last 3 months planning meticulously. Pregnancy has a way of changing things, and it's not always easy to anticipate in advance. T-chan knew how much my heart had been put into the Kansai trip - but we both knew how hard this would be.

Quietly her family and friends were a little worried about us running around doing heavy duty touristy stuff with T-chan starting to feel the effects of her pregnancy. Not to mention the fact that the first trimester is the most dangerous in terms of miscarriage. We had lots of thinking to do ahead of us... and that included coming up with lists of hospitals in Kyoto - just in case.

Jingisukan Time...

13th Jan, 2005 - Sapporo is reasonably famous in Japan for it's Jingisukan, which is a variation on Mongolian BBQ.  The metal "hat" or "helmet" is the central part of the dish - along with the lashings of marinated lamb. Of course beer makes a  very suitable accompaniment! Sapporo beer of course. We've come down to a small local Jigisukan... from memory there were only a couple of large tables and about a dozen couple-sized tables. A very small place; and very unpretentious.


Generally Jingisukan starts off by lashing of lard on the heating plate... that's just to get it started. Then you tend to have the marinated lamb on the middle with an assortment of vegetables such as onion, entoki mushrooms etc around the edge, cooking in the juices.

It may not look that appealing on the hot-plate, and you do have to like lamb - but if you can get past those two things it's incredibly yumm-o! It's also very much a communal dish, the whole family helping out to cook... as they are eating. I'm a big fan of this sort of table-cooking. Feels very inclusive.

Here's T-chan's recipe for Jingisukan sauce... first off, you need some... what was that T-chan? A family secret?.... Ok. Looks like you need to ask for her favourite sauce recipe.

Day 13 - Rest Day (Sapporo)

12th February, 2003 - After the last few days, we had a rest day (on our last full day in Sapporo). It was also the perfect opportunity to do something typically Aussie stoopid. Like eat icecream in your t-shirt outside. Don't ask - Just STOOPID! Anyway, it was a much needed chance for T-chan to catch up with her mum, after being away for 6 months. I sometimes forgot that for me it was an adventure of a lifetime (or to that point at least) - but to her, it was coming home.


The last day we had a family get together - a last meal - at Sapporo Beer Factory. No - it's not a beer diet, but rather a Jingisukan restaurant (i.e. a Mongolian Mutton BBQ that is one of the highlights of coming to Sappporo food-wise...named after Genghis Khan). I LOVE IT!. The funny thing is that they give you these little plastic bags to put your coats in - and a nifty little plastic apron to wear... coz the atmosphere is absolutely full with the smell of cooking meat, and you end up absorbing it in your clothes, hair, and possibly even your soul (it's that good).

We had a long evening that night... lots of drinking (otousan), and lots of eating. It was also the time when the questions started getting more difficult, "so what are your plans with our daughter?" Gulp. The moment of truth. Let's just say that things turned out well, although the other guests may have been a bit bemused as to why there was so much crying going on at the table with funny looking gaijin.

It was a good night, as befitted the last in Sapporo. Little did I know then that I would be back before too long, for an even more painful moment of truth. This is the last day in Sapporo. Next stop - a return to Tokyo... but the holiday had changed completely now, and in a way it had already climaxed. Thus ended the second chapter of our great first trip to Japan.... Stay tuned!