Restaurant #11: Kyokarou, Sapporo

On last Wednesday, I finished the first appointment earlier than I expected, and I needed to kill some time by the evening. So I went to this restaurant, Kyokarou (京花樓), a Chinese restaurant located at Daimaru department store.

I found it unfortunate that the restaurant is located in the corner of the floor, and sometimes people miss it after getting off from the escalator. Yet, some people were there, which is a good sign. When I was in the U.S., I enjoyed Chinese food as big quantity, reasonable, tasty food, although there are many expensive Chinese restaurants. This restaurant is a bit expensive, and is a place to bring some friends to share the dishes. So it is good to go for lunch; they prepare the lunch menu and some dishes with affordable price.

Around 3pm, there were still some people enjoying their lunch menu. The décor was modern and neat. All waitresses were wearing Chinese dress, and they were beautiful! Their service was polite and appropriate. Their lunch menu was attractive, but I had a dinner appointment, so I simply ordered Liki Tan Tan Men (李記坦々麺) (980 yen).

Liki Tan Tan Men

Tan Tan Men was supposed to be spicy, and it looked spicy. It was, however, not spicy enough! The soup was beautifully layout with red spicy soup, and under that, you find rich sesame flavored soup. This rich flavored soup is so creamy, and it really matched with the hot soup. I tasted some Chinese herbs… If you don’t like herbs, be careful to order this. Ingredients were beautifully shredded Negi (ネギ: Japanese green onion), ground pork (or beef & pork), Bok Choy and sprout. Negi was fresh, and it matched with the spicy soup. Their noodle was thick and yellow. Actually it was ramen, although it was delicious. I ate Tan Tan Men in different restaurant before, and they used flat Chinese noodle… This dish gave me the idea of spicy miso ramen. It is delicious, but not sure if you are satisfied with this style… Anyways, I definitely enjoyed the food and atmosphere, compared with the anger towards Din Tai Fung at Arcadia, CA.

I have been to this restaurant twice. Their careful preparation of the food and service make me satisfied. The only thing I should mention is that their taste is a little bit stronger than other Chinese places, in my opinion. So it depends on your taste. Personally, I would like to go there again and try dim sum next time.

Total: 980 yen

Kyokarou, Chinese Restaurant
8F, Daimaru department store
Kita 5-jo Nishi 4-chome, Chuou-ku
Sapporo
011-219-6888
http://www.daimaru.co.jp/sapporo/restaurant/index.html