Thought I'd do a round-up post of the fair on its final day.

This is the most "on" I've ever been at the Hokkaido Fair, visiting it 5 days out of the 10 days that it's here. There were some hits, some not-so-hits, and some misses. Here goes:







Day 1 (Monday 6 Jul)

Croquettes are pretty common actually, I used to buy one from Mos Burger every Friday night after Jap class, but they had a bunch of flavours (pumpkin, sweet onion, curry, vegetable, etc) here, so I bought a White Curry Cream one. I liked it. It's the sweet and spicey Jap curry type, not the hot Singaporean type. But found it a bit overpriced at $3. I mean, the Mos burger one costs $1.80, and personally I prefer it over the one I bought at the fair.


Now this was definitely one of the hits. It's a sweet potato pie ($3.50). Chocolate sauce drizzled over a pudding, below which is a layer of mashed sweet potato. The whole pie might've been a little overwhelming for me, but I shared it with ma and yipuo, so it was just nice, and all of us liked it. They had other stuff at the same stall, like this box of cute little chocolate sweet potato balls, but my stomach can only hold so many things in one night, and I didn't want to buy stuff back and keep in the fridge.


Day 2 (Tues 7 Jul)

Curry bun ($2.80). From the Pullman Bakery stall which won the TV Chef contest. Presumably for this. It's like a donut covered with bread crumbs and stuffed with curry and potato cubes. Yummy. I loved this, regret not having bought another one.


Moisture souffle ($2.80). No, it's really called that. Does it mean that normal souffles are not moisturised? Anyhow. It's a little bundle of extra-soft and extra-light cheese cake. Though I'd give more points to presentation than actual taste.







Day 3 (Wed 8 Jul)

Salt caramel croissant ($2.60). From the same Pullman Bakery with the famous TV Chef curry bun. Or maybe the croissant was the reason it won the contest. The taste was savoury and sweet. I never thought salt and caramel would go so well together, but they did. It's a teeeeny little croissant though. Guess some of the best things in life do come in small (and expensive) packages.





Fruit omelette ($4). Apricot, another fruit (I forget which), whipped cream and a generous dollop of custard sandwiched in a piece of flat, round cake. Fruits are usually not my thing, but I really enjoyed this. Again, just really smart combination. The fruits were the stand-out flavour, while the cream and custard played supporting roles, and the cake was soft and light. Perfect.

Day 4 (Thurs 9 Jul)

Snow crab ($4.50) and Scallop with pizza sauce ($4.20) paos. I bought the frozen ones, 'cos I didn't think I could eat them after dinner, so they're still sitting in my freezer. Did try the snow crab pao today at the fair, though, they were going at the last-day bargain price of $3 (argh). Sad to say, rather disappointing. It looked like coleslaw filling, but tasted quite bland. I guess they were going for the natural, healthy taste, which ended up ... well, tasteless. Guess that explains the $3 bargain today. Fingers crossed for the scallop one.

Hokodate chocolate cheese cake, box of 4 ($10). This is melt-in-your-mouth chocolate heaven. You hardly taste the cheese at all. Well, not a bad thing, in my book. At $2.50 for a minuscule piece, though, I was practically counting the cents at every bite. Like I'd take a bite and go, "Oh that's 20 cents... OK big bite for 50... oops, that piece fell on the floor, 10 cents into the rubbish bin."











Day 5 (Sun 12 Jul)
Zundo Gyokai Shio ramen ($12). Well this left me with all the wrong memories. The first few spoonfuls were tasty enough (they followed the snow crab pao), but beyond that, the intense saltiness of the fish stock starts to get really cloying. Repeated gulps of mineral water did not much to cleanse the palate. The ramen were the thick yellow type, not my favourite. And the pork slices were too much fat, too little pork. Maybe I should have gone for the pork-based soup ramen.

Sakura mochi and green tea ice cream ($5.50). The whole Hokkaido fair experience ended on a sweet note for me. The ice cream stall was undoubtedly one of the more popular ones at the fair. They had rope barriers for the perpetual queue in front of this stall, and even two security guards controlling the crowd. This was like the not-to-be-missed highlight of the fair. They had only a few flavours - milk, cheese, strawberry yogurt, blueberry, green tea and sakura mochi. I picked green tea 'cos I thought the Japs, of all people, would know how to make decent green tea-flavoured ice cream, and sakura mochi 'cos it looked pretty and sounded exotic. Loved both. The green tea was sweet, but tasted of tea minus the bitterness, and the sakura mochi reminds me of the pink ice cream you get at roadside ice cream stalls, with little chewy mochi bits. Only complaint was that the ice cream didn't really melt into the cone, and when you finish, you get a whole empty cone with nothing to go with.

Overall, I'm pleased with my 收获 at the fair this year. Already looking forward to next year's!