Gastro Monkey // 美食家

[Link to Part II ] I love going to new places. I am super thrilled that we ended up going to Sapporo and not doing the same ol' thing that everyone else does. Everything about Sapporo just seemed perfect for all of us. We all love seafood (Hokkaido is known for their crabs, scallops, and uni), we all love ice cream (Hokkaido is known for their cows/beef, milk, cream, and butter), at least two of us love beer (Sapporo is the oldest brewery in Japan), and it's Japan! What's not to love?  Upon much research based on price and location, I went with the Hotel Monterey Sapporo (ホテル モントレ 札幌) . It's a short walk from the Sapporo JR station and was reasonably priced, which would have been nicer if it hadn't snowed so much during our trip. Normally in Sapporo, the snow doesn't fall until later on in the winter season. We were there early December, so it should have been either sunny or rainy. Instead, we were treated to full on winter weather. I was actually pretty...

Every time we head up to Seattle, we try to find some new place that we haven't been to. During this trip, it was The Brooklyn Seafood, Steak, and Oyster House. It looked awesome. Beer and oyster flights? Sign me up! They have other flights to choose from, but I went for the beer and oyster flight. The options change daily depending on what's on draft and which oysters are freshest.  We grabbed a seat at the bar in front of the oyster display and main signage. Service was surprisingly slow for a restaurant that wasn't busy yet (we were there at 4PM on a Sunday because we had a flight back home afterwards). I was also not the only one to be a bit disappointed by the beer and oysters. There was some bits of shell in my oyster, so a little sad that they didn't clean the knife between shucks. With flights, I like trusting that someone took the time to taste the beer or wine and the food item so that they pair nicely. I feel like in this situation, it wasn't well pa...