Kattedon at Washo Market, Kushiro: How to Build Your Own Seafood Bowl

Kattedon means "the do-as-you-like bowl". At Washo Market in Kushiro, nobody hands you a menu. You buy a bowl of plain rice, carry it through the market, and point at the seafood you want on top. Each piece is priced on its own, so the bowl is exactly as large, and as extravagant, as you decide.

How it works

1. Buy the rice. Start at one of the shops selling rice by the bowl. You choose the size, and you can usually choose between plain rice and vinegared sushi rice.

2. Walk the stalls. The fishmongers lay out their toppings on small trays, each with a price tag: tuna, salmon, scallop, sweet shrimp, crab, salmon roe, sea urchin. Point at what you want and hold out your bowl.

3. Pay as you go. You pay each stall for what you took from it. There is no set total, which is the whole idea.

4. Sit down and eat. There are tables inside the market. Soy sauce and wasabi are provided.

What to choose

Kushiro is a working fishing port, so look first at what is local and in season rather than what you already know. Salmon and salmon roe are reliable in late summer and autumn. If a stall is proud of something, it is usually placed at the front. Ask "osusume wa?" (what do you recommend?) and you will be pointed to it.

Four or five toppings make a good bowl. It is tempting to take one of everything, and the bill climbs quickly if you do.

When to go

Go in the morning. The selection is widest early in the day, and popular toppings sell out. We filmed in the morning, and the trays were full. The market is closed on some days, often Sundays, so check the market's own calendar before you plan around it.

Getting there

Washo Market is a few minutes' walk from JR Kushiro Station. Kushiro itself is about four hours from Sapporo by limited express train, and it also has its own airport.

See it in motion: our 17-second film of Washo Market. For the wider region, read our guide to eastern Hokkaido.