Jinbei 魚河岸甚平 (Sapporo, JAPAN) ★★☆☆☆

For nostalgia's sake, I decided to go back to Jinbei (魚河岸甚平), a Japanese seafood restaurant located in the basement level of ESTA JR Tower for our first dinner of this Sapporo trip. It's been 5 years since I last visited this place on my only trip to Hokkaido. They have this crab leg tempura don that had me drooling whenever I think of it all these years so I knew I had to get my hands on it tonight.



Deep-fried Hokkaido oysters - While these looked kind of tiny comparing to oysters from Hiroshima, they were equally tasty and creamy. For 700yen, it's definitely value for money.



Assorted skewer platter - I really didn't expect them to blow me away with this and they didn't. The chicken and bacon wrapped asparagus skewers were quite decent. It was nice to see some shishito peppers too coz I love shishito peppers.



To see their chicken meatball skewers so heavily featured on their menu, I thought it would be the best skewer coming out of the bunch but sadly, it turned out to be the least tasty.



Tokujo three colors bowl (特上三色丼) - Jelloman had their signature rice bowl with crab legs, sea urchin and salmon roes last time around and she got her wish to check it out once again. I didn't try this out myself but judging from the presentation, it really didn't look all that promising (at least not a signature item).



Prawn tempura don - This is not a typo. I came 3,400km for my crab leg tempura don but only to be told that it's no longer on their food menu. I was of course heartbroken and this underwhelming prawn tempura don did very little to cheer me up. 



And just when I thought my night couldn't get any worse...after finishing up my meal, I went to the little man's room and on my way back, look what I found from the restaurant's window display right next to the prawn tempura don - crab leg tempura don. And for 500yen more only!~

Obviously, our young waitress didn't understand the word "crab" and of course, I was partially to blame too, for trusting her (I did show her a photo of the crab leg tempura I had 5 years ago so...). Now, I have to live with this regret of not having my crab leg tempura for the rest of my life. Life is so cruel.....



Trip got off to a horrible start for me.....





Food Rating: 3.5/10
Price: ￥￥￥
Address: Shop #18, Paseo West Dining B1F (Sapporo Station), Kita 6 Jonishi 4, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-0806 Japan
Closest Metro Station: Sapporo
Tel: +81 11-213-5555
Website: www.jinbei-sapporo.com