Just kinda stumbled on it. Ran into Mitsuwa to slurp down a hot bowl of raman and there it was. A huge selection of top shelf Japanese food. So after my raman fix the wife and I stroll the aisles of fancy premium food to go. Just beautiful.

Avoid Sweet Pumpkin Obanyaki at all cost. Especially the red bean flavor - way to sweet for me. Skip the line as it's not worth it. Curry soup and crab meat croquette are highly recommend.

Man these things are always hectic. I've never had to park in the neighborhood's residential section before at Mitsuwa. Guess there's a first for everything. However the hard to find food items are good to score and I like that these special vendors come in. Just wish the parking wasnt such a shit show from the already not so great it starts with

A special 4 days event not to be missed if you are a fan of Japanese food. Here you will find a lot of goodies imported from Hokkaido region in Japan. The highlight of the fair was the lovely array of king crab bento boxes and frozen seafood. They also have a bunch of popup stores selling ramen, croquettes and ikameshi (squid stuffed with sweet rice). The croquettes were to die for - imagine some sinfully creamy mashed potato loaded with chunks of crab meat sitting inside a perfectly crisp crust. The only reason for losing 1 star is the hefty price tags on most of the merchandise. The price of a small bento box could get you a fairly decent meal at a restaurant. Was it worth it? Probably. Still cheaper than flying to Hokkaido.

I had heard about these festivals at Mitsuwa before, but I always missed them because I was too busy. So this year after getting several reminders about it in the Chow website, I made an extra effort to not miss it. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/vvguHpTixlM3xztWDybefw?select=09ldJd8T-yEYWWuaQkGFrw I got to try the shio ramen with pork broth ($7.99) from the Santoka booth, located to the left as you enter the store. It was good. CASH only. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/vvguHpTixlM3xztWDybefw?select=e2YlIJU0nf1H5n85h7634w Once you enter on the right side of the market, it's like in any supermarket, you pick up anything you want to buy and then take your basket to the register when you're ready to pay. Credit cards accepted. My favorite items were the croquettes (what can I say, it's fried food): http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/vvguHpTixlM3xztWDybefw?select=xojt96xqBBAnMuFfqW-dNw - corn, vegetable, priced at 3 for $4 (or $1.50 each) - fish cake, fish cake with crab, with scallops, with shrimp, etc. all @$2.50 each They also had a tiny version with squid, 20 for ~$5. I didn't think that those were worth it, so I skipped them. The croquettes were so good that I had to get 2 orders, but more about this later. I bought the king crab sushi combo for $15.90 - 3 slices of maki roll and 4 slices of oshi sushi (pressed sushi). Expensive, Costco sells king crab @$15/lb. Ishikari Ohagi, 2 kinds, sold in packs of 2 for $4. This is sweet glutinous rice balls wrapped in sweet red bean paste, one smooth & one coarse. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/vvguHpTixlM3xztWDybefw?select=27RnbWcag8j5TcHPTGwrkw They had a display of seafood from Hokkaido for sale that included hairy crab, king crab, squid, clams, snapper, flounder, mackerel, fish roe, etc. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/vvguHpTixlM3xztWDybefw?select=8u4tAzWFxo_lNF9q4rPk2g Marinated seafood from Yamacho Hasegawa. This was really great! I got to sample all of them. They were all good, but I liked the ones with wasabi better (it wasn't too spicy). http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/vvguHpTixlM3xztWDybefw?select=hgqtOomy6xvPhHhBLytX-Q I also bought some of their specialty sweets and grocery items, including their melon jelly. There was no Kare Pan (curry bread) here, but you can always head to the Clover Bakery & Cafe located next door along with other retail stores, to buy some Kare Pan, sandwiches, assorted breads and pastries. Apparently some customers bought an empty box of the frozen cream puffs from Hokkaido, so the employees were opening and checking all the boxes. They found about 8 empty boxes. I think that they gave some free samples earlier, but someone mistakenly put those empty boxes in the freezer. Later I decided to go back to the croquettes booth section, and one silly security guard was following me around thinking that I was not going to pay for the food I picked up. I kindly asked the serving lady to make me another order of the croquettes because I had already eaten everything, and I showed her my basket with empty containers. The security guard laughed and then left me alone. At the checkout register the bagging lady was chuckling because I was paying for empty containers (I had already devoured half of what I was buying).

I don't know how the cuisine of Hokkaido differs from the rest of Japan but I know they have brown bears and a beautiful snow festival depicted in Kurosawa's version of The Idiot. I'm in love with Hokkaido because of that movie. The festival consisted of three sections, all located inside the store. (1) Santouka ramen booth to the left in the food court, where they normally sell sushi - they were cranking out bowl after bowl of shio ramen ($7.99 + tax). Shio ramen isn't my favorite but this was really good ramen - firm, curly noodles in a murky, rich pork broth, fatty slices of marinated pork, bamboo shoots, scallions, black fungus and fish cake. Cash only. (2) Prepared seafood and croquette stalls. Watch Japanese guys make seafood rolls and bento boxes. They have about 10 kinds of croquettes starting at $1.50. My seafood ones were $4 each and didn't even come with tonkatsu sauce. I liked the salmon & potato one but the spicy cod roe didn't have much cod roe and wasn't spicy. Could use more panko coating. Cash only. (3) Dessert and other grocery items. Watch a guy make red bean & rice balls. The free samples are here. They had all sorts of little salads, many were seafood based. The wasabi scallops were fantastic. You can pay at the regular register. They had different grocery items from Hokkaido like: * Candy - fresh caramels and other candies. I bought some Hokkaido milk pudding candy in a cute glass milk jar * Jellies * Doriyaki (filled pancakes) * Organic red beans, rice, seaweed, etc. * Fancy vinegars * Dried seafood * Frozen roll cake (several kinds) * Frozen rice porridge (several kinds) * Strange looking seafood, two types of crab that I haven't seen here including one that looked fuzzy or coated with panko crumbs I didn't see everything that was listed on the site but I heard that they ran out of some items on the first day. Boo. I wanted to get some curry bread (with potato filling) and cream puffs. Lesson: get there early.

Beef No' Guy here. For today I'll be the Hokkaido Fair Man. Folks it is still not too late to check it out. http://www.yelp.com/events/san-jose-hokkaido-food-fair-mitsuwa-supermarket runs from 9/18 to 9/21 Low tech cel phone pix http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/vvguHpTixlM3xztWDybefw?select=bxwgG7b_cC-oH1Os-_QpRQ But is it worth the trip if you are coming from as far up as SF? That depends how hungry for a slice of Hokkaido you are. This Hokkaido Fair is arguably much smaller than the ones at Costa Mesa and Torrance which hosted Sumire's miso buttercorn ramen and another vendor's. $an Jo$e only got $antoka, FYI, so if you love shio ramen you are in luck. $antoka Ramen temporarily takes up shop in Mitsuwa's Daikichi Sushi booth (that has a full blown kitchen in the back), where they sell sushi and bento boxes to go, adjacent to Miyabe Tei. For $7.99 + tax (ca$h only), you get a ticket to redeem one bowl of freshly piping hot ramen. Quickie slam bam thanks doods and mam's review: $ANTOKA RAMEN (Kanji is Fire Head Mountain, like a volcano) Men - good yellow and not too thin slightly curly al dente slurpy noodles that were a bit on the hard side. Net reports say the noodles are imported from Japan. Toppings - one thin but large piece of cha shu, followed by two small blocks. Nice flavored porkgasm. - Not sure why they put the fishcake in there, but it was not needed. - Several long slices of menma (bamboo shoot) that was decent but I've had better. - Several strips of nicely cooked kikurage (woodear funghi or mushroom) - freshly cut up negi (scallions) that elevated the experience - the grape sized looking chesnut was UMEBOSHI! WOOOOOOOOOOOF it kicked my ass. Tasty but interesting addition to the ramen. Broth - fatty but flavorful, thick, and well textured. Shio-Tonkotsu? Definitely a highlight. Overall? 3.75 stars. Fan$ who are $ick of overhyped $anta Ramen (aka $aint Nizzle) will enjoy thi$ bowl that is a ta$te of Southern Cal Japanese ramen and probably better than most of the top 10 in the SF Bay Area. My biggest gripe? They used disposeable bowls. Creeps me out that the uber hot broth and ramen contents will cause chemical reactions to break down the material of the bowl. It is like drinking hot coffee from a styrofoam vs ceramic cup. C'mon $antoka, please use CERAMIC bowls and REAL wooden spoons otherwise it's high end food court ramen. When inquired with the cashier, she was unable to tell me whether Santoka plans to open in the SF Bay Area, but they have a location in hmmm Chicago, and New Jersey as well as Southern Cal. Either way, if you are sick of the SF Bay Area ramen scene, head to Mitsuwa SJ this weekend to see why Southern Cal has it good. Other than that, there was a Hokkaido Seafood booth that sold mini bento boxes of crab meat, crab legs, ikura, and uni over sushi rice. Kanikosen Bento (crab and ikura) - $15.90 + tax King crab gokai bento box (leg meat and ikura) - $19.90 + tax Sanshoku Bento box (all three minus crab leg) - $17.90 Skip the uni, it tasted meaty and dry. Uni is supposed to be smooth and silky. Imagine having female gonads and tasting male gonads instead (uni that is). Ugggh....Hokkaido uni fans will be very disappointed. (Update: Thanks Randy F for spotting that the folks were DEFROSTING the uni, squid, crab etc). However the Hokkaido ikura was "bomb a$$ yo", where you can taste the natural flavor (unlike overly salty salt marinated ikura from farmed generic salmon fish bait offering clumped together that looks like George Costanza's shrinkage at your local pseudo sushi joint). Next to the seafood bento booth were two booths of deep fried stuff (croquettes). In the back of the right corner of the supermarket is the rest of the fair, ranging from fresh seafood/whole fish from Hokkaido, refrigerated desserts/cream puffs/caramel candy from the city of Otaru, a booth that sells assorted snackeries from shiokara to marinated fish. The only fresh dessert snack made on the premise is Ishikari Ohaga, a ball of flavored rice (could be sticky rice, but uber small grains), wrapped with dark delicious looking red bean paste all over (hence the shape of a stone, or ishi). Also spotted: Fish booth: Big whole piece of kinmedai (alfosino) Karei (flounder) Surume squid Pike Mackeral Marinated seafood booth ($13.99 to $49.99 /lb): Ika Shiokara Koika Tobiran Karashi Mentaiko Asari Jyan Ikasashi Wasabi Ika Jyan Kara Ikasashi Matsumaezuke Hotate Wasabi Miso Ika Shiokara Kazunoko Matumaezuke Amakuchi Tarako Hokkai Tako Wasabi Yubari Melon Jelly - $7.99 Hokkaido Eco friendly red beans Hidaka Seaweed (Konbu) - $10.99 Hokkaido Vinegar (3 kinds) Seafood bento booth: Ika Meshi Bento Box - $5.90 (two pieces of grilled squid over rice) Go go go! Hokkaido Fair Man - Miso Hawny For $antoka $hio Ramen and Hokkaido Ikura, Me Luv You LONG time! Well until the end of $unday. :-(

Props to Ken K. for posting about this event. Let me tell you, be ready to spend some big bucks. The food is not cheap, but heck it's once a year. Live a little! What I love..... are the crab croquettes. WOWY!!! They are packed with crabmeat. So delish! I think they're $4 a pop. What I don't care for were the smaller octopus croquettes. They were cold thus a bit mushy so the texture was just nasty with chunks of squid. I think they were 6 for $5.50. What was surprising were the karaage; my coworker and I thought they were chicken but it turned out to be calamari with a bit of a spicy kick. But they were really, really tender and super duper YUMMY! What I tried and probably won't get again were the pre-packaged rolls. They had loads of crabmeat, but it did not taste that fresh to me. I did not think it was worth the $15.99. Finally, Mitsuwa did not have the usual pre-packaged rolls. They only have ramen. And if you want ramen, you better go early because seating is highly limited.