Japanese Beer Hall (by G)

In my meanderings around Hakodate I had noticed a beer hall - a beer hall that served beer... and sausages.

 

For my last night in Hakodate, and despite the ready availability of fresh seafood, I went to the beer hall.

 

I had my order sorted before I even walked in - the 4 beer sampler and sausages with cheese to finish.

 

I ordered straight away - even before I realised how terrible the place was. The highlight was the young woman, who had obviously only recently taken up music, beating out Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel classics on a crapped out piano. I was distracted, briefly, when my quartet of beers came. They were pretty good - locally brewed, if you believe the literature. The wiesbier was my favourite, so I ordered another half a litre of that, then another. By that point I could not help but notice that my sausages had not arrived. I asked a waitress about them and saw her walk back and talk to the guy who ran the microwave, she came back and said they would be 5 minutes.

 

She did the right thing, assessed the situation and got the order expedited, I would have like her to say that the order was missed, but whatever. The sausages came within 5 minutes so I was happy again. The were great, my favourite was the brown pork one at the bottom. And there was just a snifter of sauerkraut - the perfect amount.

 

After the sausages were bellied I ordered the cheese. It came within about 30 seconds, clearly it had been plated some weeks before I had even arrived in Hakodate, glad wrapped and refrigerated. Only 3 crackers for that amount of cheese?  Actually, it was still good - the blue cheese was excellent.

 

I pushed out of the beer hall as soon as possible (not before having to sit through an amateur version of the theme from Titanic). I was initially disappointed with the whole experience but, on reflection, it was satisfyingly awful.