Once again I will be straying away from Tokyo for this post. Just came back from another weekend of skiing in Niseko and it is slowly becoming a food mecca for me. I found another gem of a restaurant that I just have to share with you. This time it is a small soba restaurant called Rakuichi.

 

Finding this restaurant takes a little effort. It was practically hidden behind mountains of snow when we went searching for it. You had to walk over a wooden bridge until you arrived at a cozy little wooden hut. I’d imagine it to be really lovely in summer as well. A husband and wife team dressed elegantly in a kimono and yukata greeted us and showed us to our counter seats. The restaurant only has 12 counter seats and serves soba for lunch and a set menu for dinner that costs roughly about 5000 yen per course.

The first course was a shabu-shabu set :

I loved how graciously the wife served our meals while the husband cooked away in the small kitchen behind the counter.

The second set was small appetizers :

Followed by some delicious scallop and mackerel sashimi. I have never tasted raw scallop so sweet.

Then came the fresh and scrumptious oyster :

Followed by a plate of crunchy vegetable tempura with green tea salt on the side :

We watched how our soba was hand-made as we munched on our tempura.

And for the final course, a bowl of hot duck soba noodles with some onion tempura topping. Absolutely delicious and perfect to heat up the body on a cold day.

If you ever find yourself in Niseko and looking for a place to eat, I suggest you try this little gem. It might be a bit of a hassle if you don’t speak or read Japanese because there are no english menus and the english spoken by the husband and wife team is very limited, but still, if you eat whatever is offered to you, you’ll be fine.

RAKUICHI

431 Niseko, Niseko-cho, Abuta-gun, Hokkaido

phone : 0136583170

Ps. I’ll be going on vacation for the next 2 weeks. Will catch up on posts after.