RAMAI — Restaurant in Sapporo

I had soup curry in December, 2022 in Hokkaido. It was so good. So I planned this trip to revisit Hokkaido. I found this restaurant from social network. Maybe my expectations are set too high, I am a little bit disappointed.

We arrived on Sunday around 6pm. There is a short line. You need to put down your name and wait to be called. There are a lot of decorations from Indian culture and made us doubt whether this is a restaurant that serves Indian food.

There is no English menu. It didn’t say where does the ingredients come from. However, most Japanese restaurants would proudly say their ingredients are locally produced.

The food is reasonably priced. The portion is large. The food comes fast after we ordered. Meat(chicken leg and beef) is not tender enough. All soup curry comes with a lot of kind of vegetables including cabbage, pumpkin, eggplant, green pepper and so on. But the vegetables are not as sweet as I expected. I guess the vegetables are not...

This curry rice spot is evidently a Hokkaido specialty. There are 5 stages of creating your dish, but only 4 necessary ones:

1. protein [veg, beef, chicken, pork, tofu, etc]
2. amount of soup [3 choices, basically S M or L]
3. amount of rice [again S M or L]
4. level of spice [scale from 1-10: 1-3 is mild, 7 gets real hot, 9 is "god," and 10 is "devil fujin" whatever that means.
5. OPTIONAL: toppings. Options like extra meat, broccoli, and some other stuff. About 14 choices.

I had beef, medium, medium, 5. The spice was excellent, a hot spice but not a burning one. Not like habanero seeds, more like a dull cayenne but curry flavor. Your bowl also comes with a pot of complimentary items, such as squash, quail eggs, radish, lotus root, etc.

Not too expensive and...

This has got to be the best curry house. If you're thinking of others, do go but come back and compare. Portions are big, upsize soup at no charge. No English menu but the staff are amazing to help you with the translation. Smoking tables available. I'm guessing they have that Balinese/indon fusion with Japanese curry. It may read weird but the taste will blow you...