We had a serve of vegetable gyoza. The five dumplings had the delicious contrast of textures that make gyoza so pleasurable to eat – soft on the underside, browned on the topside, chewy overall. The sauce served with them was blow-your-socks-off hot, way hotter than the hot chilli dipping sauce we’ve had with gyoza from Poppo. I ended up eating my gyoza without the sauce. I didn’t really need sauce anyway – they were really delicious on their own. I really loved their soft, chewy texture.

If any Japanese readers know exactly what vegetable gyoza filling typically consists of, please feel free to let me know via comment. I know there’s cabbage in it, but there’s something else that gives it a distinctive flavour… what is it? I could dig around Jac’s recipe book collection and find out, but frankly, I’m feeling lazy. :) Next time I might have to order two lots of gyoza – they’re so yummy! I ate three, Jac ate two – but I was still craving more. They were pretty oily (not that that bothered me at all) – can you see the oily shine on my fingers?)

For my main course I chose the katsudon – crumbed chicken and egg served on rice. You may notice near the top of the container there’s a little cooked onion – it was beautifully sweet. I enjoyed this immensely.

Jac didn’t feel like a hot meal. She got herself a serve of California roll sushi. I like how they “separated” the wasabi and pickled ginger from the sushi with a piece of baran (decorative divider fake grass).

The California roll was made with seafood extender, egg, avocado, tomato, cucumber and carrot. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a California roll fan mainly because I don’t like seafood extender. I think Sapporo’s version looks especially colourful and appealing, though.