Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan｜塩ホルモン 炭や 札幌駅西口店

If you are looking for an authentic experience dining in at yakiniku restaurant this is the place to be. Nice little shop situated under the JR railway track, it serves great beer and grill meat. Every meat from the beef cheeks to the pork jowl are really well marinated and the charcoal used enhances your grilled meat. For the adventurous ones you can try their chicken gizzard which is fantastic.

Sumi-ya is a large hall of food stands, each with its own specialty such as octopus or eel. The characters 炭や roughly mean charcoal store but obviously not in the literal sense haha. It is a five minute walk from Sapporo's main JR station. We stumbled in here at 10:30 PM on a weeknight with very little language skills after finding the next door ramen spot closed. We were relieved to find really friendly staff at the unagi stand. They spoke no English but were really eager to serve us. We realized no one liked unagi as the the other stands were full and ours was the only one with an empty spot. Lots of young people and locals were all happy and there was a great atmosphere. They were celebrating a birthday in the stand next to us. This was a great find. Thank you Sumi-ya for the great service and greetings from the USA.

Super nice Yakiniku in Sapporo!! My favorite cheap restaurant into top of three.