Hokkaido, next door

Snowy Landscape [Photo by Fan Zhen / China Daily]

The soba is cold, and neatly coiled into two piles on a bamboo platter. [Photo by Fan Zhen / China Daily]

The owners' lyricism comes into play here: The dish is named Snowy Landscape, alluding to the mini mountain of icy crisp thinly shredded cabbage.

Our sushi choice was the avocado and soft-shell crab long roll. This was one of the prettiest dishes on the table, with glistening pearls of golden salmon roe on top. Unfortunately, the wasabi cream that accompanied it was a bit too strong for me and I started tearing.

We saw several fish dishes, but decided on a grilled salmon head that came on a black ceramic platter. The fish was grilled to perfection, cooked but with none of the charred skin and watery flesh that mars the same item at other places.

For our mains, we also ordered what many young female bloggers have been raving about - the curry soup rice. It was a fragrant bowl of curry sauce with chicken, grilled eggplant and carrot batons. The bowl of rice came topped with black sesame. It was spicy, a bit sour and very tasty.

Then we had two bowls of rice in tea, one with salmon flakes, and the other with the Japanese sour plums or ume.

Hokkaido Restaurant Xunxian has no English name, and the signboard is in Chinese and Japanese. I extracted the name from the lady boss, whom I contacted online. She tells me that she will go to Hokkaido this month to bring back more konbu, the kelp that flavors a lot of their dishes. She's originally from Beijing and her husband is a Hokkaido native.

That explains the connectivity to the land that makes their food so honest. I sincerely hope they preserve this crucial ingredient, and I hope to sample the konbu-flavored soba the lady boss promises to add to the menu soon.

Contact the writer at paulined@chinadaily.com.cn.