Sapporo Curb Market (Jogai Ichiba)

The Sapporo Curb Market — Jogai Ichiba, literally the "outside-the-wall market" — is the public-facing companion to Sapporo's giant central wholesale market, and the best place in the city to see, buy and eat Hokkaido's famous produce. Around sixty shops and restaurants line a single block in the Chuo ward, their stalls piled with the island's signature bounty: king and hairy crab, salmon roe, sea urchin, scallops, dried squid, and in summer the prized orange-fleshed Yubari melons.

Hokkaido is Japan's larder, supplying much of the nation's seafood and dairy, and the Curb Market is where that abundance is on cheerful display. Vendors call out prices, hand over samples of grilled scallop or crab leg, and will vacuum-pack and ship purchases anywhere in Japan — a boon for travellers who want to send fresh crab home without lugging it around. Even if you buy nothing, walking the aisles is a vivid, sensory lesson in what the northern island produces.

The market's real secret, though, is breakfast. Several of the shops run small attached restaurants serving kaisen-don, bowls of vinegared rice heaped with glistening slices of raw seafood chosen from the cases out front. You can build your own bowl — a row of salmon, a lobe of uni, a spoon of ikura, a few sweet shrimp — for a fraction of what a downtown restaurant would charge, and the fish could hardly be fresher. Grilled crab, miso soup thick with crab shell, and freshly shucked oysters round out the offering.

The market opens early, around six in the morning, which suits its trade; by mid-afternoon many shops are winding down. Coming early rewards you with the liveliest atmosphere and the best pick of the day's catch, and it makes an excellent start to a day of Sapporo sightseeing. Prices are generally lower than at the more tourist-oriented Nijo Market downtown, and the crowds are thinner, though a steady stream of visitors now finds its way here.

Getting there takes a short subway ride and an eight-minute walk from Nijuyonken station on the Tozai line, slightly out of the central grid but easy enough to reach. Bring cash, since not every stall takes cards, and come hungry. Winter is the classic season for crab, but the market is worth a visit any time of year for the sheer variety on show. Whether you are assembling a picnic of grilled seafood, arranging a shipment of hairy crab, or simply sitting down to the best-value seafood bowl of your trip, the Curb Market delivers Hokkaido on a plate.