Located inside Donburi Yokocho Market at Hakodate Morning Market, this popular restaurant is famous for its “dancing live squid rice bowl” (market price). As soon as a customer orders, staff scoop a squid straight from the tank, quickly and skillfully prepare it, and place it on top of the rice.

The clear, translucent squid is laid on the rice, topped with salmon roe, and finished with the squid’s tentacles arranged one by one. The tentacles still wriggle in the bowl, making for a truly lively sight! Afterward, they cut off the tentacles and grill them so they’re easier to eat. The springy squid and perfectly salty salmon roe go wonderfully with white rice. They also serve a wide variety of other seafood bowls, such as the sea urchin and scallop bowl (3,300 yen), the sea urchin and salmon roe bowl (3,300 yen), and the three-color bowl with sea urchin, crab, and salmon roe (3,300 yen).

This seafood izakaya is close to Hakodate Station and sits along the Hakodate streetcar line. With a squid tank in the shop, they serve all kinds of squid dishes, including live squid sashimi (market price; the front plate in the photo below), Hakodate’s famous whole grilled squid “ika poppo” (from 1,380 yen), and shiokara (salted fermented squid) (1,390 yen).

The fresh squid sashimi features thinly sliced squid arranged with fins and tentacles, along with the innards and eyes. The Hakodate way to eat it is to let soy sauce soak into the innards until they’re fully seasoned, then eat them on top of the squid sashimi. They also have many other kinds of sashimi, with that day’s catch lined up on the shelves, so check the handwritten recommendations! Sashimi of Okhotsk atka mackerel and smooth lumpsucker caught off Hakodate (the two plates at the back of the photo above) is hard to find elsewhere! English menu available.

This izakaya skillfully turns seafood from the waters off Hakodate into a wide variety of dishes. Along with its signature live squid sashimi (market price; photo below), it offers all sorts of squid dishes, and the best part is that you can enjoy delicious squid all year round!

Popular dishes include fried squid cakes made from minced squid mixed with onion and yam (620 yen), grilled squid mixed with its innards and served in a shell (780 yen), and Asaichiban (620 yen; photo below), a platter of sticky ingredients such as raw squid, seaweed, nameko mushrooms, natto, and yam. There’s also a full lineup of main dishes like sushi and rice bowls. From Hakodate Station, walk straight ahead and turn left onto Asakusa-dori, and you’ll see a tall yellow sign. The restaurant has counter, table, and kotatsu seating!