On September 7th, I went to Otaru to go attend the annual Otaru Anime Party! I’ve heard about it the past couple of years, but I either had other plans, didn’t seem super up my alley, or no one else I knew was going. This year I decided to finally go see it, and some of my friends said they’d be there.
I got on my usual bus. I wanted to go eat at the LeTao main store because their September items just came out, including a hojicha variant of their mont blanc. I’m usually not into mont blancs, but I like hojicha, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to finally try it out. My timing was perfect, as I got a seat right away. The people who came in after me actually had to wait.
The tea is supposedly made up of peach, apricot, ice wine, earl grey tea, and fig. It was very fruity, but with a strong astringent tea aftertaste. Not bitter, but you could really feel the remnants of earl grey in your mouth after each sip.
The mont blanc was made up of Jersey milk sauce to pour on top to your liking, chesnut cream strands freshly added tableside, on top of LeTao original whipped cream, Jersey milk ice cream, meringue, and hojicha powder on top. They advertise you to eat it within 10 minutes, probably because of the ice cream. Unfortunately, because the only hojicha component was the sprinkling of powder on top, it wasn’t very hojicha forward. The rest is normal mont blanc chestnut flavor from the creamy strands on top. It did pair well with the ice cream (a bit on the icy side as opposed to creamy). I’m not a huge meringue person either, but overall, the dessert was not bad.
As I walked along Sakaimachi street towards the main store, I passed by LeTao Pathos, which was still advertising the summer Coupe Glacee. I thought that summer items were over so I had given up on it for this year, so I was surprised to see it was still available (the strawberry was sold out, but I would have gotten the mango anyway). I’m not usually in Otaru much and it probably won’t be around for much longer. Even though I just had sweets, it wasn’t a super filling breakfast, so I treated myself to some morning ice cream!
The ice cream was thick and creamy with some mango sauce on top, along with a flaky cookie, some crunchy pearls and a couple chunks of super soft, juicy mango pieces. There were some small peach chunks too, along with some super cold peach jelly on the bottom. Super yummy and refreshing!
I also passed by this new onigiri truck, and I bought a nikumaki onigiri (pork belly covered in a soy sauce glaze wrapped around rice) to take home. After heating it up, the meat was super tender, the sauce on the outside wasn’t super strong (almost didn’t stand out too much, but maybe because it was reheated?), and the rice was nice and fluffy on the inside.
In one nook in Sakaimachi, the “Shusse Mae Plaza”, there’s some Japanese umbrella decorations hanging above the street, called the Umbrella Sky. It’s supposed to be up for summer, and I thought it ended in August, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it still up. Of course I had to take some pictures.
Otaru Anime Party is made up of 4 areas: the changing rooms for cosplayers that opened at 8:30, the main area in Sunmall at 10 with the main event stage, another shopping street area with the itasha display and maid cafe, and a small stage and food area behind the art museum. I met up with my friend at the Sunmall area to register for 2500 yen (after walking around the area, I can say that to enter in places is totally free, and in exchange for the fee you can probably enter the cosplay contest, you get a pamphlet, a free choice between a lanyard or mirror badge, a free entry for the lottery worth 300 yen, and hop on the exclusve city-tour bus for attendees).
We popped into the gundam and figure display shop, which also was displaying some various manga art along with art by a local Otaru mangaka, and then checked out the itasha display which was pretty cool.
It was my friend’s first time in Otaru, so we ended up walking the entirety of the Old Temiya Line’s railway to the northernmost point, which ends at the Otaru Museum. That was pretty cool.
We finished looking at everything pretty fast, and I showed him around Sakaimachi Street. We ended up stopping to eat lunch at Kita no Ryouba, a kaisendon and seafood market restaurant. I got the Ishikari Don, which comes with tuna, salmon, scallop, and egg on top of sushi rice (I had hoped it would be white rice like other places boo) in an 18cm bowl.
Overall, the quality of the fish was pretty good, and the egg was just a bit sweet and super supple. The salmon was just a bit fatty, and the scallop was soft and full of flavor. The tuna was good…but it was also ice cold? I understand fish needs to be kept cold, but this was the first time I’ve ever had sashimi this cold before. Still good and very tuna-y, but a little odd.
We attempted to catch the free tour bus for attendees at 2 (that came with a stamp rally), but we either couldn’t find the correct spot, or the normal bus we saw right at 2 at the suppsed spot was the bus. Decciding it wasn’t worth it to catch another stop or the next one at three, we went to go get ice cream at Yamanaka Farm. I opted for a mix cone. Yamanaka Farm Mix Cone
The ice cream was super refreshing, and also keeping its stiff shape while super cold despite it being a sunny day. Every time I licked it I almost got a brain freeze. The milk portion of the mix didn’t have too much flavor to it, but the cocoa was really good.
At this point I split up with my friend who went to go do some shopping at Wing Bay, and I headed to Mister Donut to grab a couple of the new seasonals and a drink: the Fragrant Brulee Donut (194 yen), the Sticky Sweet Potato Honey Donut (172 yen), and Taiwan Fungui Fruit Tea Peach and Mix Berry. It’s sweet potato and chesnut season, but I wasn’t interested in the chesnut items.
I had the Honey one the next day, and it had a normal donut texture in the shape of a pon de ring, but with a strong sweet potato taste to the donut itself with some honey glaze on top. I toasted the Brulee one , and maybe it’s because I took it home, but the brulee part was nowhere to be found anymore, and just tasted like the same sweet potato donut with extra sugar on top. Read about my drink here!
And then I got on the 3 bus to go home.
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